history of science Red U “Red Prometheus succeeds brilliantly in “The great strength of Red Prometheus lies in A D PRometheus MIT.E dlartaiownisnhgip a b efatwsceienna Ctionmgm puicntisutr ere goifm tehse arned- tshtoer ayu otfh oEra’ss ta Gbeilritmy aton yp’us tt ae chhunmolaong ficaacle d teov tehle- uG S. u ES high-tech scientists during the Cold War. It opment between 1945 and 1990, something s engineering and Engineering and Dictatorship in R t TP shows convincingly how, despite impressive she does by dint of careful archival and oral i East Germany 1945–1990 MI innovative potentials, their quest to over- history research. The result is a social his- n dictatorship P:// take the West was destroyed by enormous tory of technology in which the technologists e T doloRes l. AuGustine T H bureaucratic inefficiencies. This highly themselves come to the fore as agents af- 2 original study also provides much food for fecting continuity and change, success and in east Germany 4 1 2 thought for other Prometheans who believe failure, in the development of technological In Cold War-era East Germany, the German tradition of science- 0 TS that their research can be separated from systems. Augustine’s book thus comple- based technology merged with a socialist system that made tech- T SE politics and ideology.” ments and extends existing scholarship, not nological progress central to its ideology. Technology became an U CH V. R. Berghahn, Columbia university only on East German technology, but also on 194 5 –19 9 0 important part of East German socialist identity—crucial to how Dolores L. Augustine is Associate Professor of History at SA science and technology in the Soviet bloc Communists saw their system and how citizens saw their state. S St. John’s University. She is the author of Patricians MA “This superb study of the ‘new technical in- more generally.” In Red Prometheus, Dolores Augustine examines the relationship and Parvenus: Wealth and High Society in Wilhemine Germany. E, telligentsia’ in East Germany analyzes the Ray stokes, author of Constructing P R between a dictatorial system and the scientific and engineering G MBRID ainmg bpivraolfeensst ioinntaelsra catnido nt hbee tSwEeDe ndi cetantgoirnseheipr-, Sino cEiaasltis Gme:r mTeacnhyn, o1l9o4g5y– a1n9d9 0C h ange Ro ed R e d cWoamr mthuronuitgiehs thine E1a9s8t0 Gs.e rmany from the end of the Second World A C exploring the promise of socialist modernity, m Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Y the tightening of Stasi control, and the failure Drawing on newly opened archives and extensive interviews, Technology series G e NOLO of innovation in high technology.” t P R o m e t h e u s abnedfo irnec lbuedeinng pmuabnliys hileluds, trAautgiounsst ianned lpohooktso ginra dpehtsa tihl aatt h ianvdei vniedvuearl H Konrad h. Jarausch, lurcy Professor of european h TEC Civilization, university of north Carolina, e scientists’ interactions with the East German system, examining F and senior Fellow, Zentrum für Zeithistorische the effectiveness of their resistance against the party’s totalitar- O u E Forschung, Potsdam ian impulses. She explains why many German scientists and UT s Cover art: Gerd Schnürer, at sunset. Berlin. T engineers who were deported to the Soviet Union after World War TI S II returned to East Germany rather than defecting to the capitalist N S I West, traces scientists’ attempts to hold on to some aspects of T ET professional autonomy, and describes challenges to their profes- S U sional identity on the factory floor. Augustine examines the quality H C A of science and technology produced under Communist rule, look- S AS ing at failed research projects and clashing cultures of innovation. M S She looks at technological myth-building in science fiction and S propaganda. She explores individual career strategies, including E R P the role played by gender in high-tech professions, and the ways T MI that both enterprises and individuals responded to increasing HE state and party control of research during the 1980s. We cannot T understand the economic choices made by East Germany, Augus- tine argues, unless we understand the cultural values reflected in the East German belief in technology as indispensable to progress doloRes l. AuGustine 978-0-262-01236-2 0-262-01236-7 and industrial development. Red Prometheus Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology Jed Z. Buchwald, general editor Dolores L. Augustine, Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990 Mordechai Feingold, editor, Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters Larrie D. Ferreiro, Ships and Science: The Birth of Naval Architecture in the Scientific Revolution, 1600–1800 Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-Box to the Audion Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830 Myles W. Jackson, Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-Century Germany Myles W. Jackson, Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics Mi Gyung Kim, Affinity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre, Materials in Eighteenth-Century Science: A Historical Ontology John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe Janis Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution Wolfgang Lefèvre, editor, Picturing Machines 1400–1700 Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, editors, Heredity Produced: At the Crossroads of Biology, Politics, and Culture, 1500–1870 William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, editors, Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe Gianna Pomata and Nancy Siraisi, editors, Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe Alan J. Rocke, Nationalizing Science: Adolphe Wurtz and the Battle for French Chemistry George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance Red Prometheus Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990 Dolores L. Augustine The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email [email protected] .edu This book was set in Sabon by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Augustine, Dolores L. Red Prometheus: engineering and dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990 / Dolores Augustine. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01236-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Engineering—Germany (East)—His- tory—20th century. 2. Technology—Germany (East)—History—20th century. 3. Germany (East)—Social life and customs. I. Title. TA73.1.A94 2007 620.00943′1—dc22 2007000656 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to my husband, Claude LeBrun, and to my children, André and Caroline LeBrun Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction xi Abbreviations and Acronyms xxix 1 The “Great Eastward Trek”: German Specialists in the Soviet Union 1 2 Reinventing Professionalism in Soviet-Occupied Germany and the Early GDR 39 3 Under Siege: Facing Challenges to Professionalism in the Ulbricht Era 77 4 In Pursuit of an Electronic Future: High-Tech Pioneers and Communist Bureaucracy in the Ulbricht Era 111 5 The Old Guard under Attack: Three High-Tech Research Directors in the “Reform” Era and Beyond 155 6 Red Prometheus: Technological Fantasies in Popular Culture and Propaganda 201 7 Careerists and Conformists, Individualists and Technology Enthusiasts: Engineers and Computer Scientists in the Honecker Era 261 8 High Ambitions: Careerism and High-Tech Research during the New Cold War 305 Conclusion 343 Bibliography 353 Index 373 List of Illustrations Figure 1.1 Nikolaus Riehl during his stay in the Soviet Union 14 Figure 1.2 Kurt Berner and Bruno Golecki during their stay in the Soviet Union 20 Figure 1.3 Photo taken by Kurt Berner to the Soviet Union and reproduced in his memoir. Original caption: “The specialists often thought of loved ones at home” 28 Figure 2.1 Parade, Bergakademie Freiberg. Note the traditional mining officials’ uniforms. Photo published in a 1965 volume commemorating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Bergakademie Freiberg 62 Figure 2.2 Unknown woman in a laboratory, probably in the early 1960s. Photo published in a 1965 volume commemorating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Bergakademie Freiberg 63 Figure 4.1 Werner Hartmann, center, speaking with Minister for Electrical Engineering and Electronics Otfried Steger, left, and Walter Ulbright, right foreground 112 Figure 4.2 Visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the Vakutronik exhibit in the Leipzig Trade Fair, 1959. Left to right: Khrushchev, Hartmann, unknown 126 Figure 4.3 Herbert Kortum (second from left) at Carl Zeiss Jena, 1960s 133 Figure 4.4 Paul Görlich (standing), 60th birthday celebration, surrounded by colleagues 138 Figure 4.5 Paul Görlich, 1966 138 Figure 4.6 Paul Görlich (far left) at the Technical University of Dresden 139 Figure 4.7 Paul Görlich with Soviet physicist Petr Petrovich Feofilow, then an officer, 1945 140 Figure 5.1 Visit of Walter Ulbricht and his wife Lotte to Carl Zeiss Jena, 1968. Hans- Joachim Pohl (far left); General Director Ernst Gallerach (far right) 166 Figure 5.2 Werner Hartmann in the 1970s 178 Figure 6.1 East Berlin television tower on the Alexanderplatz, at sunset 202 Figure 6.2 Poster announcing the Fifth Party Congress of the SED, 1958 207 Figure 6.3 East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn with fellow crew member, Soviet cos- monaut Valery Bykovsky 208