Cold War Ecology: Forests, Farms, and People in the East German Landscape, 1945-1989 (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)

368 Pages·2005·1.78 MB·English

by  Arvid Nelson

Yale Agrarian Studies Series
james c. scott, series editor
‘‘The Agrarian Studies Series at Yale University Press seeks to publish outstanding
and original interdisciplinary work on agriculture and rural society—for any pe-
riod, in any location. Works of daring that question existing paradigms and fill
abstract categories with the lived-experience of rural people are especially encour-
aged.’’—James C. Scott, Series Editor
Christiana Payne, Toil and Plenty: Images of the Agricultural Landscape in En-
gland, 1780–1890 (1993)
Brian Donahue, Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New
England Town (1999)
James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed (1999)
Tamara L. Whited, Forests and Peasant Politics in Modern France (2000)
Peter Boomgaard, Frontiers of Fear: Tigers and People in the Malay World, 1600–
1950 (2001)
James C. Scott and Nina Bhatt, eds., Agrarian Studies: Synthetic Work at the Cut-
ting Edge (2001)
Janet Vorwald Dohner, The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock
and Poultry Breeds (2002)
Deborah Fitzgerald, Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agri-
culture (2003)
Stephen B. Brush, Farmers’ Bounty: Locating Crop Diversity in the Contemporary
World (2004)
Brian Donahue, The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord
(2004)
J. Gary Taylor and Patricia J. Scharlin, Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation
and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand (2004)
Raymond L. Bryant, Nongovernmental Organizations in Environmental Struggles:
Politics and the Making of Moral Capital in the Philippines (2005)
Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, and Mark Selden, Revolution, Resistance,
and Reform in Village China (2005)
Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Jus-
tice in the Age of Globalization (2005)
Arvid Nelson, Cold War Ecology: Forests, Farms, and People in the East German
Landscape, 1945–1989 (2005)
Steve Striffler, Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food
(2005)
Lynne Viola, V. P. Danilov, N. A. Ivnitskii, and Denis Kozlov (editors), The War
Against the Peasantry, 1927–1930 (2005)
A RV I D N E L S O N
Cold War Ecology
FORESTS, FARMS, AND PEOPLE IN
THE EAST GERMAN LANDSCAPE,
∞Ω∂∑ – ∞Ω∫Ω
Yale University Press
New Haven
& London
Copyright ∫ 2005 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in
any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Set in Sabon type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nelson, Arvid, 1951–
Cold war ecology : forests, farms, and people in the East German landscape,
1945–1989 / Arvid Nelson.
p. cm. — (Yale agrarian studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-300-10660-2 (alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-300-10660-2 (alk. paper)
1. Forests and forestry—Political aspects—Germany (East)—History. 2. Forest
policy—Germany (East)—History. 3. Agriculture and politics—Germany
(East)—History. 4. Human ecology—Germany (East)—History. I. Title.
II. Yale agrarian studies
sd195.n35 2005
333.75%0943%1—dc22
2005013231
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my mother,
Aurora Carvajal Nelson
It was with a feeling of ecstasy that the Contessa recaptured
the memories of her early childhood and compared them with
her sensations at that moment. ‘‘The Lake of Como,’’ she said
to herself, ‘‘is not surrounded, like the Lake of Geneva, with
wide tracts of land enclosed and cultivated according to the
most approved methods, calling up ideas of money and
speculation. Here, on every side, I see hills of unequal height,
covered all over with clumps of trees that chance has planted,
and which the hand of man has never yet spoilt, and forced to
yield a return. Among these hills so admirably shaped, pressing
on toward the lake down slopes of a strangely curious
formation, I can preserve all the illusions of Tasso’s and
Ariosto’s descriptions. Everything is noble and tender,
everything speaks of love; nothing recalls the ugly spectacles
of civilization. The villages half-way up the slopes are hidden
in tall trees, and above the tree-tops rises the charming
architecture of their graceful spires. If some tiny field, fifty
paces across, comes here and there to interrupt the clumps of
chestnuts and wild cherries, my satisfied eye sees growing on it
plants more vigorous and happier than elsewhere.’’
—Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma
Contents
List of Figures ix
Conversions x
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
A Note on Terminology xix
1. Prologue 1
2. Landscape and Culture 10
3. Initial Conditions and Reparations 29
4. ‘‘A Law Would Be Good’’: Land Reform 53
5. The Landscape’s ‘‘Socialist Transformation’’ and Flight from the
Countryside (1949–1961) 77
6. The Landscape Transformed (1960–1961) 99
7. Cybermarxism and Innovation (1961–1971) 118
viii Contents
8. The Grüneberg Era and the Triumph of Industrial Production Methods
(1971–1989) 141
9. Reunification 171
Notes 189
Glossary 259
Bibliography 265
Index 299
Plates follow pages 52 and 140
Figures
Figure 1. Natural forest cover type map of East Germany 18
Figure 2. Current (1986) forest cover type map of East Germany 19
Figure 3. Block diagram of the Central German Uplands viewed from
the south 24–25
Figure 4. Allied occupation zones, 1945 35
Figure 5. Fuelwood and timber harvests, 1935/6–1950 70
Figure 6. Political and administrative map of East Germany,
1970s–1980s 130
Figure 7. Aerial fertilization of the East German forest, 1955–1980 156
Figure 8. Pulp and sawlog harvest plotted against total yield
per hectare 161
Figure 9. Age class distribution, 1927–1989 162
Figure 10. Stocking growth, 1956–1989 163
Figure 11. Emergence of the German nation, 1937–1990 164–65
Figure 12. State harvest plotted against afforestation and TSI investment,
1946–1985 166
Figure 13. Red deer kill and stocking, 1960–1989 168