COMPARISON OF THE NATIONAL PRODUCTS OF EAST AND WEST GERMANY

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• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 1, 1960
• Content Type: REPORT

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N? 117
ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE REPORT
COMPARISON OF THE NATIONAL PRODUCTS
OF EAST AND WEST GERMANY
CIA/RR ER 60-14
June 1960
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
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NOTICE
This report bs teen loaned t
o the rep?p cnt byI
the Central 1n'cll;ence Agency. When is has
served its
u
p
rpose it should be destroyed or
returned to tha:
CIA Librarian
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington 25, D. C.
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ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE REPORT
COMPARISON OF THE NATIONAL PRODUCTS
OF EAST AND WEST GERMANY
CIA/RR ER 60-14
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND REPORTS
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STAT
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CONTENTS
Page
Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
II. Growth of National Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. General Trend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. Changes in Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
III. Factors Affecting Economic Recovery and Growth . . . . 14
1. General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. Soviet Exploitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Level of Foreign Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Capital and Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Appendixes
Appendix A. Statistical Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix B. Derivation of Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Appendix C. Source References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1. East and West Germany: Comparison of National Income,
Selected Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. East and West Germany: Changes in Population, Selected
Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
East and West Germany: Economically Active Population,
1939, 1950, and 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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4. East and West Germany: Imports and Exports, Selected
Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Page
5. East and West Germany: Imports and Exports as a Per-
centage of Gross National Product, Selected Years,
1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. East and West Germany: Comparison of Gross National
Product, Selected Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7. East and West Germany: Gross National Product Per
Capita, by End Use, 1950, 1955, and 1957 . . . . . . . _23
8. East and West Germany: Estimated National Income at
Factor Costs, by Sector of Origin, Selected Years,
1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9. East and West Germany: Indexes of Estimated National
Income at Factor Costs, by Sector of Origin, 1950,
1955, and 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10. East and West Germany: Estimated National Income Per
Capita at Factor Costs, by Sector of Origin, Selected
Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
11. East and West Germany: Estimated Gross National
Product at Market Prices, by End Use, Selected Years
1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
12. East and West Germany: Indexes of Estimated Gross
National Product at Market Prices, by End Use, 1950,
1955, and 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
13. East and West Germany: Estimated Gross National
Product Per Capita at Market Prices, by End Use,
Selected Years, 1936-57 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Figure 1. East and West Germany: Indicators
of Comparative Economic Growth,
Selected Years, 1936-57 . . . . . .
Figure 2. East and West Germany: Indexes of
Growth of Agriculture and Forestry,
Industry, and National Income, 1936,
1950, and 1955 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Figure 3. East and West Germany: Distribution
of Gross National Product, 1950,
1955, and 1957 . . . . . . . * . .
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COMPARISON OF THE NATIONAL PRODUCTS OF EAST AND WEST GERMANY
Summary and Conclusions
The economy of East Germany has lagged badly behind that of West
Germany since the early stages of recovery from World War II.* East
German gross national product (GNP) per capita, which was 3 percent
above the West German level in 1936, was 26 percent below the West
German level in 1955. Walter Ulbricht, the head of the East German
Communist Party, has long insisted that East Germany must not only
narrow but close the gap, and the regime is now speaking of "over-
taking and surpassing" West Germany by 1965. A systematic compar-
ison of the two economies shows how ambitious that aim is -- it can-
not possibly be carried out by 1965 -- and provides a basis for as-
sessing future East German claims. The chief indicators are shown
in the chart, Figure 1.**
The development of the East and West German economies through
1957 may be summarized by a comparison of the indexes for national
income*** (1936 = loo):
Year
East Germany
West Germany
1950
85
117
1955
117
178
1957
127
200
West Germany reached the 1936 level in the late 1940's; East Germany,
in the early 1950's. For measuring the recovery of the German econ-
omy, however, the best base year to use for comparison is not 1936
but 1939, a year of almost full employment, without any significant
* By East Germany is meant the so-called German Democratic Republic,
including East Berlin; by West Germany, the German Federal Republic,
not including West Berlin or the Saar. The areas referred to are those
normally covered in the official German statistics relating to national
products for the years in question.
Following p. 2.
Insofar as possible, the series for East German national income
and GNP have been made comparable in coverage and classification with
West German official data. For both East and West Germany the series
for national income, which are used to measure changes in production,
are derived independently from the series for GNP, which are used to
measure changes in end uses. The resulting indexes for national in-
come differ slightly from those for GNP. See I, pp. 6-7, below.
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exploitation of foreign labor. National income increased by about
one-third from 1936 to 1939. Thus West Germany reached the 1939
level only in the early 1950's, and East Germany had still not quite
reached it in 1957.
The population of postwar Germany is larger than the prewar pop-
ulation as a result of a great westward movement of refugees from
Soviet rule. In the early postwar years this influx increased the
population of both East and West Germany, but the initial increase
was proportionally greater for West Germany, and later migration
from East to West Germany has steadily added to the initial differ-
ence. By 1957 the population of East Germany had declined to only
5 percent above the 1939 level, whereas that of West Germany had
risen to 28 percent above this level.
Adjusted to a per capita basis, national income reached the 1939
level in 195+ in West Germany and in 1958 in East Germany. The same
is true of national income per worker, for labor force participation
rates were close to the prewar rates in both economies. Because the
number of hours worked per week was about the same as in 1939, the
recovery to the prewar productivity level also occurred at about the
same time.
East Germany fell behind in the postwar period, first, because
the partition of Germany was greatly to its disadvantage on account
of the much smaller size of the East German economy and its depend-
ence on West Germany for coal and steel. Second, East German losses
from wartime destruction and Soviet dismantling were relatively much
greater than those of West Germany.
These two initial handicaps were aggravated by continued Soviet
exploitation of the economy and by the low level of foreign trade.
Soviet exploitation, which has been an important factor in depress-
ing the level of East German investment, was greatest in the late
191+0's, when US aid to West Germany was also at its peak. The low
level of foreign trade, which has made for inefficient use of East
German industrial capacity and has led to the development of high-
cost domestic resources, may have been the most important limitation
on East German recovery. In 1957, when West German foreign trade
turnover was more than 80 percent greater than in 1936, East German
foreign trade turnover was still less than one-half of the 1936 level.
The explanation is to be sought in the autarkic character of Soviet
Bloc economic institutions and policies, especially the policies of
the USSR. The introduction of Communist institutions into East Ger-
many also interfered with recovery, but it is probable that this fac-
tor was of great importance only in agriculture.
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Figure 1
East and West Germany
INDICATORS OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH
Selected Years, 1936-57
GNP and Personal Consumption Per Capita
1936 Reichsmark 1889
East
Germany
West
Germany
GNP 1291 1257 1251
Personal
Consumption
772
468
774
914
24
Imports Foreign Balance Gross Investment
as a Percent of GNP as a Percent of GNP as a Percent of GNP
22
1295
II I nl I I II I I II I Ill Lin nn III I III I I II I III
1936 1950 1955 1957 1950 1955 1957 1936 1950 1955 1957
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Since 1955 the USSR has almost given up the direct exploitation
of East Germany and has assured the East German economy the raw ma-
terials that it needs to operate at capacity. These actions have
greatly stimulated East German economic growth, especially in manu-
facturing and construction. No change in Soviet policy, however,
can replace the capacity dismantled in the first postwar years or
the plants not built and the trained labor lost through emigration
in the decade that followed. Moreover, the Soviet concessions in
favor of East Germany have been accompanied by new internal measures
against private enterprise that add to the difficulty of matching
West German productivity in those sectors, notably agriculture, in
which private enterprise has continued to make a significant contri-
bution in East Germany.
East Germany has lagged behind West Germany in nearly all eco-
nomic activities, as is
income in 1955 (1936 = 1
shown by the indexes for
00):
sectors of national
Sector
East Germany
West Germany
Energy
204
310
Mining
174
141
Manufacturing
118
198
Construction
85
191
Agriculture and forestry
85
120
Transport and communica-
tions
128
189
Trade
95
176
Housing
56
118
State and other public
services
198
195
Other services
91
156
National income
117
178
The two exceptions themselves point to obstacles to East German re-
covery. The East German rate of increase was higher than the West
German in mining because East Germany was compelled by the reorienta-
tion of its foreign trade to supply a much greater part of its own
requirements for minerals, particularly iron ore, than it had before
the war. The increase in state and other public services was slightly
higher in East than in West Germany, in spite of a much smaller in-
crease in population, because of the early development in East Germany
of a military establishment (which was still in the planning stage in
West Germany in 1955) and the size of the Party and state bureaucracy
needed to run a Communist country.
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The chief reason for the lag in manufacturing was the autarkic
organization and outlook of the Soviet Bloc economies, which kept
East German purchases of raw materials and sales of finished goods
far below the prewar level. In agriculture, in which East Germany
had been more productive than West Germany before World War II, both
per worker and per acre of agricultural land, the relationship was
reversed because of the breaking up of the great East German estates,
the relatively low state investments made in the sector, and the
hostility between the regime and the peasantry. Finally, trade,
housing, and miscellaneous services declined, in contrast to the
growth in West Germany, as a result of state policy, showing how
much less a Communist economy responds to the demands of individual
consumers than does a capitalist economy.
The distribution of GNP by end use in East Germany has been quite
different from that in West Germany. In 1950 the shares both of per-
sonal consumption and of investment in East German GNP were much
smaller as a result of the prior claims of reparations, which ran to
more than one-half of the value of East German domestic investment
in the early 1950's, and the requirements of public consumption. By
1955 the share of personal consumption had risen to the West German
level but not the share of investment, which is'only now approaching
the West German level. That the regime allowed investment to lag
behind consumption, contrary to Communist doctrine, is explained by
the overriding need to begin reducing the contrast in living condi-
tions between East and West Germany in order to discourage emigra-
tion. Although economic factors have by no means appeared decisive
in emigration, there is plenty of reason to believe that emigration
would have been much greater and the regime's control much more un-
certain if the leadership had failed to pursue this policy.
A comparison of GNP per capita for East and West Germany in 1955
shows that East German personal consumption had by then risen to
72 percent of the West German level (to about 85 percent for food,
tobacco, and beverages, as a result of greatly increased imports),
whereas investment was only 41 percent of the West German level. The
high proportion of GNP devoted to public consumption and to repara-
tions (more than one-half of the East German foreign balance) is
also evident:
East Germany
West Germany
End Use
1936 RM-
Per Capita
Percent
1936 RM+
Per Capita
Percent
Ratio of
East to
West Germany
Personal consumption
838
60
1,167
62
0.72
Gross investment
173
12
419
22
0.41
Public consumption
318
23
266
14
1.20
Foreign balance
67
5
37
2
1.81
* Reichsmark. See the first footnote on p. 7, below.
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In comparing the figures for investment, it should be remembered that
a much greater part of West German investment was devoted to housing,
nearly one-fifth of gross investment in 1955, whereas in East Germany
the proportion was only one-twelfth. Even so, nonhousing investment
per capita had risen by 1955 to only one-half the level of nonhousing
investment in West Germany. Thus the disadvantage resulting from the
large-scale dismantling of capacity in 1946, which left East Germany
with not much more than one-half of the productive capacity per capita
of West Germany, was not much reduced during the first decade follow-
ing the war.
A closer correspondence between East and West Germany in the dis-
tribution of GNP has recently come about, beginning, in East Germany,
with a great reduction (perhaps the discontinuation) of uncompensated
deliveries to the USSR in 1956; with a reduction of occupation costs
by one-half and the doubling of prices for uranium ore deliveries,
effective in 1957; and, finally, with the elimination of occupation
costs effective in 1959. The entire benefit resulting from these
concessions was reallocated to investment, which jumped by more than
30 percent in 1956 and by about 20 percent in 1957. As a result, the
proportion of GNP devoted to investment is now approaching that in
West Germany, which is more than 20 percent (in 1936 prices) of GNP.
In the 1960's the distribution of East German GNP will begin to
diverge again from the West German pattern. On the basis of the
Seven Year Plan (1959-65), East German investment should amount to
25 percent or more of GNP by 1965. The East German pattern, in short,
will come to look more like what is called for in Communist literature.
The planned share of investment in East German GNP, although high by
Western standards, is not especially high for a Soviet Bloc country.
An announced aim of the Seven Year Plan (1959-65) recently adopted
by the East German regime is to "overtake and surpass" West Germany in
production per worker. J* On any reasonable projection of West German
economic growth, even the fulfillment of the East German goals for 1965
would not really amount to "overtaking and surpassing" West Germany.
Claims of progress toward that goal, however, may be expected within
For serially numbered source references, see Appendix C.
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the next few years, together with corresponding claims of parity in
personal consumption per capita. The present comparison of the na-
tional products of the two economies offers both a measure and some
analysis of the historical differences between them in growth and
structure as a basis for interpreting and evaluating East German
claims.
Before World War II the East German economy was as productive
as the West German. The area of East Germany is less than one-half
(44 percent) of that of West Germany, and in 1936 the population and
GNP were in very nearly the same proportion. GNP per capita was
actually slightly higher in East than in West Germany.* Both areas
were highly industrialized, although most of the heavy industry was
in West Germany. In the peak year of the prewar period (1939), East
Germany's edge over West Germany in GNP per capita was even greater.
In the postwar period, as the East German regime has acknowledged,
the East German economy has been much less productive than the West
German. It is generally agreed that this disparity results from the
partition of Germany, the divergent Soviet and Western occupation
policies, and the adaptation of the two economies to different sets
of institutions. Although the present report is concerned primarily
with the measurement of past economic growth, it addresses itself
briefly to the question of the relative importance of these causes
at the various stages of postwar recovery and growth.
The years chosen for comparison are 1936, 1950, 1955, and 1957.
The year 1936 is the only prewar year for which a systematic compar-
ison can readily be made, although a later year such as 1939 would
be better as a base against which to measure postwar recovery. Reg-
ular postwar statistics for both East and West Germany begin with the
establishment of the two postwar regimes in 1949; the year 1950 is
commonly used as a postwar base year. The last year for which a com-
plete comparable breakdown of production and its uses can readily be
made for both economies is 1955. Estimated national income and GNP
are given also for 1957, but national income by sector of origin in
1957 is broken down only for East Germany.
Two sets of estimates are made, one to measure the production
and the other the distribution of the national product.** Changes
in the level and structure of production in the given postwar years
are measured by means of indexes for the producing sectors, based on
* If, as in the present estimates, East Berlin is included in East
Germany, whereas West Berlin is excluded from West Germany.
** The basic estimates are given in Tables 8 through 13, Appendix A,
PP. 30-35, below.
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1936. These indexes are combined into an index of national income by
using base year weights representing net value added by the producing
sectors. The corresponding absolute-values for the base year and the
given postwar years, all expressed in 1936 Reichsmark (RM),* represent
national income at factor costs,** broken down by sector of origin.
The distribution of the national product is estimated separately
for each of the end uses, in current market prices, for the same
years. For the postwar years the end use estimates are then deflated
by appropriate price indexes. The sums of the end use estimates for
1936 and, as deflated, for the postwar years represent GNP in constant
base year market prices.
The use of 1936 price weights results in somewhat different
measurements both of growth and of structure than would be obtained
by using the prices of some postwar year. The differences are simi-
lar, however, for East and West Germany, and the results of compari-
sons with prewar weights are close to those that would be obtained
by using postwar price weights. Prewar price weights have the great
advantage over postwar price weights in that they represent a price
system common to both parts of Germany.
An over-all comparison between East and West Germany based on
the national income estimates is slightly more favorable to East
Germany than one based on the GNP estimates. For 1955, for example,
East German national income is shown as 29 percent (79 percent on a
per capita basis) of the West German; for GNP the figure was only
27 percent (74 percent on a per capita basis).*** For both economies,
moreover, the estimated growth of national income is less than the
estimated increase in GNP. In 1955, for example, the index numbers
for national income (1936 = 100) are 117 and 178 for East and West
Germany, respectively; for GNP, on the other hand, the corresponding
index numbers are 120 and 194.t Because the national income estimates
are calculated independently of the GNP estimates, some such diver-
gences are to be expected, as a result both of errors in data and of
differences in method.
* The ratio of the 1936 RM to the 1955 US dollar is approximately
1 RM to $0.75 if 1955 West German quantity weights are used, slightly
less for consumption and slightly more for investment. This ratio re-
flects the prewar-postwar price relationships shown in West German na-
tional accounts (see Appendix B, p. 45, below) and in Milton Gilbert's
study of comparative price levels. J
** Actually, national income at factor costs less net factor in-
comes received from abroad, or "net domestic product at factor costs"
(Nettoinlandsprodukt zu Faktorkosten).
** See Tables 5, 10, 11, and 13, Appendix A, pp. 30, 32, 33, 35,
respectively, below.
t See Tables 9 and 12, Appendix A, pp. 31 and 34, respectively,
below.
_7_
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II. Growth of National Income
1. General Trend
With the final defeat of Germany in 1945, output fell far be-
low the levels reached before World War II. The recovery of the Ger-
man economy, which followed on the restoration of orderly civil life,
began at a rapid pace in the Soviet Zone of Occupation as well as in
the Western zones. By 1949, however, when the Western powers created
the German Federal Republic and the USSR set up the so-called German
Democratic Republic, the national product in West Germany was already
slightly above the 1936 level, whereas in East Germany it had reached
only about three-quarters of that level.* The divergence slowly
widened until 1958, when there was a new spurt in the East German and
a momentary drop in the West German rate of growth. The estimates of
national income in Table 1 show how great the divergence had become
by 1957.
East and West Germany: Comparison of National Income J
Selected Years, 1936-57
National Income
(Billion 1936 RM)
Year
East
Germany
West
Germany
Ratio of East to West
German National Income
1936
16.8
38.2
0.44
1950
14.2
44.6
0.32
1955 -
19.6
68.0
0.29
1957
21.3
76.3
0.28
a. See Table B, Appendix A, p. 30, below.
For measuring the recovery of the German economies, the use
of 1936 as a base year is misleading. By 1936, German national in-
come had already risen to well above the 1929 level, but there was
still a good deal of unemployment, partly in disguised form. Further
* On the basis of official figures. / The East German official in-
dex is used only to move the present estimate for 1950 to 1949.
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increases in industrial production through 1939 reflected chiefly the
absorption of this unemployment. National income in 1939, which was
nearly one-third greater than in 1936, is clearly a better measure of
the capacity of the German economy under peacetime but full employment
conditions. Production continued to increase, of course, almost un-
til the end of the war, but most of the increase must be attributed
to exceptional wartime factors such as the exploitation of the cap-
tured areas, in particular the large-scale importation of forced
labor. If 1939 is used as a base year, the recovery of West Germany
occurred in 1951, and the recovery of East Germany was not quite com-
plete even by 1957.*
A major factor influencing the recovery of both German econ-
omies during the postwar period was the large westward movement of
refugees from Soviet rule. The initial effect of this movement, which
much more than offset population losses during the war, was a substan-
tial increase in the population of both East and West Germany, but the
increase was proportionally greater for West Germany, and later migra-
tion from East to West Germany has steadily added to this difference.
The size of the postwar changes in population for the two areas is
shown in Table 2.
East and West Germany: Changes in Population J
Selected Years, 1936-57
Population
Index of Population
(Millions)
(1939 =
100)
Year
East
Germany
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
Ratio of East to West
German Population
1936
16.2
38.2
97
97
0.42
1939
16.7
39.3
100
100
0.42
1950
18.6
46.9
111
119
0.40
1955
17.9
49.2
107
125
0.36
1957
17.5
50.5
105
128
0.35
a. The figures for 1939 are based on the census of that year; otherwise
the figures represent average annual population. The figures are all of-
ficial J except that, for the sake of comparability with the West German
figure, an estimate of average population (based on official figures) is
used in place of the East German official figure for 1950 (18.4 million
on 31 August).
* This statement is generally consistent with a set of West German
GNP estimates (in 1953 prices) for 1953 and 1939.
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If national income per capita is used to measure economic re-
covery, the West German recovery was complete, not in 1951 but in
1954, and the date of East German recovery is moved from 1957 to 1958.
The absorption of a large influx of additional population, however, is
an accomplishment that goes beyond mere recovery, and the per capita
measure surely minimizes the accomplishment of the West German econ-
omy, relative both to 1939 and to the postwar performance of the East
German economy.
Comparisons of East with West Germany are'nearly the same on
a per worker basis as on a per capita basis. If East German "unre-
ported" employment is taken into consideration,* the over-all ratio
of employment to population in recent years has run very close to
that in 1939, about 50 percent, and it has run only slightly lower
(about 49 percent) in West Germany. The growth of employment in
East and West Germany is indicated by the number of economically
active persons, as shown in Table 3. Moreover, the available data
East and West Germany: Economically Active Population J
1939, 1950, and 1957
East
Germany
West
Germany
Ratio of East to West
German Population
1939 census
8,529
19,682
0.1+3
1950 census
8,477
22,074
0.38
Status at the end
of 1957
8,676
25,510
0.34
a. Appropriate population figures for comparison are given in source :[/.
The figures for economically active persons in 1939 are census figures as
of 17 May 1939, / which exclude conscripts in the German army and members
of labor service battalions. The 1950 census figures are as of 31 August
for East Germany and 13 September for West Germany. The figures for the
end of 1957 represent the status of 1 January 1958 for East Germany and of
31 December 1957 for West Germany. The West German figures are official
data. 2 The East German figure for the 1950 census is official LO/; that
for the end of 1957 is the best estimate (with a range of error of two-
thirds of 1 percent) by the Bureau of the Census. 11
* East German published employment series explicitly exclude employ-
ment in the uranium mines, in some defense plants, and in police units
and the armed forces. They are believed to exclude as well a large
number of other state and Party employees and a considerable number
of self-employed. For the best estimates of the total numbers ex-
cluded, see source J.
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(for industry only) 12 indicate that there is no significant differ-
ence between the two economies in the number of hours actually worked
per week -- average hours worked per week are also about the same as
in 1939. Thus for productivity, as for national income per capita,
the level reached by East Germany in 1958, the base year of the Seven
Year Plan (1959-65), was about the same as in West Germany in 1954.
It should be noted that the economic position of East Germany
in relation to that of West Germany is improved if the Communist
definition of national income is the basis of comparison. There are
as yet no East German official figures available for measuring East
German economic recovery and growth.* It is possible to illustrate,
however, the effect on comparisons of economic growth resulting from
the difference in coverage between Western and Communist definitions
of national income. In Communist countries, national income by defi-
nition excludes so-called "nonproductive" services -- among them the
services of banking and insurance, administration and defense, public
health and education, and personal and professional services.** The
effect of this exclusion is considerable if applied to the present
estimates. Whereas these estimates show the increase of national in-
come per capita from 1950 to 1955 as 45 percent for West Germany and
44 percent for East Germany, the exclusion of "nonproductive" ser-
vices, using the same data, reverses the comparison, making the
figures 53 percent and 60 percent, respectively.***
The relatively rapid growth of "nonproductive" services in
West Germany, which is the cause of the difference between these two
measurements, will continue to have much the same effect. Official
East German claims are expected to raise the East German rate of
growth by about 1 percent relative to the West German rate, on this
account alone.
2. Changes in Structure
In some important respects the East and West German economies
have been changing in the same ways during the last decade. Industry
* The official series for East German national income is in cur-
rent prices. A series purporting to be at constant 1950 prices was
issued for 1950-55 in the East German statistical yearbook for
1955, 13 but it was later explained that for most sectors constant
prices would not be issued in the near future. 14/
** In some Communist countries, transport and communications ser-
vices to households and government are also treated as "nonproduc-
tive," 15 but beginning in 1956 they were treated entirely as part
of "material production" in East German statistics. 16
*** See Table 10, Appendix A, p. 32, below.
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has become more important and agriculture less important than in the
early postwar years or in the prewar period (see the chart, Figure 2*).
During the entire period the shift was fundamental to industry in the
general economic structure. There have also been other changes, how-
ever, some of them transitional and some more permanent, especially
within industry and in the relative importance of various services.
The share of national income originating in industry -- energy,
mining, and manufacturing -- was about l3 percent in prewar Germany.
East Germany was heavily dependent on other areas, especially West
Germany, for fuels and metals, but when East Berlin is included -- as
it invariably is in the present estimates -- prewar East Germany was
nevertheless as fully industrialized as West Germany.
In terms of the 1939 base, industrial recovery came in 1951
in West Germany, whereas it was not reached in East Germany until
1957, the lag being about the same as for national income as a
whole.** Within East German industry, postwar recovery and growth
were comparatively rapid in energy and mining (as shown in Table 9***),
in metallurgy, and in chemicals. In short, the basic materials indus-
tries did much better than the investment goods and consumer goods
industries. The contrast reflects primarily the inability of East
Germany to replace prewar sources of supply for materials. The result
was to force production of raw materials and intermediate products and
to depress production of finished goods.
The difference between the two economies is striking in the
construction sector. Value added by construction in East Germany,
which was more than two-fifths of the West German level in 1936, was
only one-fourth in 1950 and only one-fifth by 1955. The difference
reflects the lower level of investment in East Germany and especially
the lower level of housing construction. The sharp increase in con-
struction in East Germany since 1955 reflects the termination of un-
compensated deliveries to the USSR, which permitted a large increase
in the share of the national product devoted to investment.
Another contrast is evident in agriculture and forestry. The
share of this sector in German national income, about 13 percent in
1936 (higher in East Germany), declined in the late prewar period and
Following p. 12.
Based on the present estimates, moved to a 1939 base by Bruno
Gleitze's figures for industrial production in 1936 and 1939. 17
The coverage in this case includes construction but excludes energy
and industrial handicrafts.
*** Appendix A, p. 31, below.
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Figure 2
East and West Germany
INDEXES OF GROWTH OF AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY,
INDUSTRY, AND NATIONAL INCOME, 1936, 1950, and 1955
East Germany
West Germany
100 97
1936 1950 1955
196
Agriculture
and
Forestry
Industry
(Including
handicrafts)
National Income
117
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has since declined further in both areas. In West Germany, however,
output has been somewhat above the prewar level since 1951, whereas
in East Germany it has remained well below the prewar level. Output
per worker and per acre of agricultural land, which in the prewar
period were higher in East Germany, are now higher in West Germany.
Independent peasants in East Germany have neither the resources nor
the incentives of those in West Germany, and the East German govern-
ment has not replaced either in the process of "socializing" agri-
culture.
There have been significant changes in the shares of national
income accounted for by various types of services. Transport and
communications necessarily kept pace with postwar recovery and growth
and have accounted for a slightly greater share (9 percent) in both
economies than before the war. The share of trade, on the other hand,
has been relatively low in East Germany since the war. It was only
7 percent of national income in 1950 and has risen to about 9 percent
in later years, as against 11 percent in prewar Germany and in West
Germany. The extremely low figure for East Germany in 1950 reflects
in part the lag in the recovery of retail trade. Retail trade has
since increased to a point where trade turnover is almost as large,
relative to national income, as in prewar Germany or in West Germany.
Employment in trade, however, is relatively lower in East Germany, as
a result not of greater efficiency but of less service (also indicated
by relatively smaller investments and lower operating inventories).
The difference is found throughout the trade sector but especially
in the limited use made of advertising in East Germany and in the
small number of such establishments as hotels, restaurants, and caba-
rets.
The contrast in housing between East and West Germany is
notorious. Per capita housing space in East Germany has been little
more than one-half of the prewar level, and the slight easing of the
situation during the 1950's has been rather more the effect of emi-
gration than of new construction. The total postwar housing con-
struction in East Germany through 1958 was less than the construction
in any single recent year in West Germany. As a result of the large
increase in population, per capita housing space even in West Germany
is not yet back to the prewar level.
The remaining services -- banking and insurance, professional
and personal services, public services, civil administration, and
defense -- offer another contrast. The share of these services in
German national income in 1936 was 14 percent in both East and West
Germany. The postwar figures show a large rise in value added in
these services (relative to 1936) of about the same magnitude for
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both parts of Germany. Because of the lag in East German recovery
generally, however, the share of national income accounted for by
such services has been higher in East Germany. Within this general
development, there has been an actual decline in East Germany in the
services chiefly purchased by households -- notably personal and
professional services -- and a relatively slower growth in those ser-
vices purchased by enterprises -- banking and commercial insurance.
The per capita level of public services, civil administration, and
defense, on the other hand, has been much higher than in West Ger-
many because of the size of the Party and state bureaucracy and the
early development of a military establishment.*
III. Factors Affecting Economic Recovery and Growth
In the postwar race between the East and West German econo-
mies, East Germany began with a heavy handicap. In the first place,
the partition of Germany was much more to the disadvantage of the
East German economy, which was less than one-half of the size of the
West German economy and depended heavily on it for materials. The
loss of West German markets and sources of supply forced East Germany
to depend more on its own, very limited natural resources and left
the country with a distribution of capital assets that had been de-
signed to support a different production structure. Reduced economic
specialization in East Germany led to the development of relatively
inefficient industries and to inefficient use of existing capital
assets in other industries. In the second place, East Germany lost
a great deal of property through destruction and dismantling, espe-
cially in heavy industry, in which East Germany had been relatively
weak.
Besides this initial handicap, East German recovery has also
been greatly influenced by the incorporation of East Germany into
the Soviet Bloc, specifically by Soviet exploitation and by the low
level of foreign trade within the Bloc. Soviet exploitation was
greatest in 1948-49, when East Germany could least afford it.- Only
in these years, when. US aid to West Germany also reached its highest
point, did the rate of recovery of West Germany greatly exceed that
of East Germany. Soviet exploitation continued to have some effect
on the rate of East German recovery in the 1950's, although not the
critical effect that it had had in the late 1940's.
* In estimating value added in state services, an imputation is made
for value added by the occupation forces, to correspond with the im-
putation made in the official West German accounts, in which it
amounts to approximately one-third of the total'payment for occupa-
tion costs. See Appendix B, p. 41, below.
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Once the remaining East German industrial capacity was largely
restored to operating condition, the low level of foreign trade prob-
ably became the chief factor limiting the rate of East German recovery.
East German foreign trade was low not only relative to the prewar
level but also relative to the level of West German trade. It was re-
stricted by the strongly autarkic Communist economic policies and in-
stitutions and the subordination of East German economic interests to
the predominant interest of the USSR in its own economic recovery.
It is not possible to make a general evaluation of the eco-
nomic efficiency of Communist institutions in East Germany on the
basis of experience to date. In agriculture the measures taken by
the regime to lay the groundwork for ultimate socialization have
probably been the main cause of the failure even to reach prewar
levels of output per worker and per hectare. In other sectors also
the process of nationalization involved certain costs, but because
so many other economic conditions were unfavorable, the relatively
poor showing of East Germany cannot be attributed to the East German
Communist system as such. It may be possible to make more meaning-
ful comparisons of economic efficiency between East and West Germany
for the 1960's than for the 1950's, but the effects of the contrast-
ing postwar histories as well as differences in size and natural en-
dowment will still have to be taken into account.
2. Soviet Exploitation
Soviet exploitation in the postwar period unquestionably re-
sulted in a large capital transfer from East Germany.* From com-
parisons of the value of fixed capital assets before and after World
War II,** it appears that East Germany suffered a net loss equal to
nearly one-half of the value of fixed capital in 1939 as a result of
wartime destruction and Soviet dismantling. Soviet dismantling alone
may have accounted for a loss equal to as much as one-third of the
value of fixed capital in 1939, but there is a very wide margin of
error in any such estimate.
Soviet takings out of current production were also large.***
Estimated in terms of world market prices of 1936, they ran at about
* It is impossible to avoid a large margin of error in estimates
of the value of machinery and equipment dismantled and the value of
Soviet takings from current production in the early postwar period.
For the most widely circulated estimates, see source 18/.
** See 5, below.
*** In the present estimates of GNP these are separated from de-
liveries financed out of occupation costs, which are treated (as in
West Germany) as a part of domestic defense expenditures.
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2 billion RM in 1950, including, in addition to formal reparations
deliveries, the goods bought by the USSR with the profits from Soviet-
owned enterprises. In 1955 the value of Soviet takings ran at about
one-third of that amount. They were composed of uranium ore de-
liveries, a good deal of machinery and equipment, and perhaps other
commodities. By 1956-57 these impositions had become negligible.*
The estimated total value of Soviet takings does not, of
course, reflect the total cost to East Germany. In certain cases,
notably shipbuilding and uranium mining, East Germany was forced in-
to the development of relatively high-cost industries to satisfy
Soviet demands, and the resulting misallocation of resources tended
to affect adversely the over-all level of output and economic growth.
These costs.have not been eliminated by the near cessation of un-
compensated exports.
The principal effect of Soviet takings appears to have been
to depress the level of domestic investment.** In 1950, when the
value of gross domestic investment was only 2.1 billion RM, it was
only slightly greater than the value of Soviet takings. By 1955,
when the value of investments had risen to 3.1 billion RM, the value
of Soviet takings represented only a fraction of that amount (some-
what more than one-sixth). In general, the value of Soviet takings
in the entire period 1950-55 probably was equal to about one-half
of the amount of gross domestic investment.
3. Level of Foreign Trade
The limiting effect of foreign trade on East German recovery
is suggested at once by a comparison of prewar with postwar levels
of foreign trade. Before World War II,,economic activity in East
Germany was highly dependent on outside sources of supply and outside
markets, far more so than in West Germany. In particular, the large
trade between the two areas was relatively much more important to East
than to West Germany. In the postwar period, while the foreign trade
of West Germany has risen far above the 1936 level, East German for-
eign trade has remained much below it, as shown in Table 4.*** The
enormous postwar drop in East German foreign trade reflected not
only the virtual discontinuation of the interchange of specialized
finished goods between East and West Germany but also a great reduc-
tion in East German imports of basic materials. For example, in 1936
imports accounted for almost three-quarters of East German consumption
* For these and the following estimates, see Appendix B, p. 47,
below.
** A discussion of the factors affecting the allocation of GNP is
found in IV, below.
*** Table 4 follows on p. 17.
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Table 4
East and West Germany: Imports and Exports
Selected Years, 1936-57
Index
Index
Index
Index
Billion
(1936 =
Billion
(1936 =
Billion
(1936 =
Billion
(1936 =
Year
1936 RM
100)
1936 RM
,00
1936 RM
100)
1936 RM
100)
1936
5.1
100
5.5
100
6.8
100
7.4
100
1950
0.5
10
2.5 b
45 b
4.1 /
60 c/
4.6
62
1955
1.4
27
2.8 b
51 /
8.7
128
10.6
143
1957
2.0
39
2.9
53
11.4
168
14.5
196
a. Trade in commodities only. For the derivation of the estimates, see Appen-
dix B, 3, p. 47, below.
b. Including estimated reparations deliveries, deliveries of uranium ore and
concentrates, and other uncompensated deliveries.
c. Including US aid.
of finished steel. In 1950, imports of bituminous coal were only
about two-fifths and imports of finished steel less than one-fifth,
respectively, of the 1936 level. Even by 1957 the respective frac-
tions were only two-thirds and not quite one-half.
The low level of East German foreign trade in the postwar
period is explained largely by the fact that the USSR, which alone
could replace West Germany as the chief trading partner of East Ger-
many, was very slow to take over this role. The Soviet leadership
continued to be preoccupied with Soviet r~covery and growth and to
plan for the Soviet economy with only incidental reference to for-
eign trade.
The contrast between East and West Germany remains striking
when imports and exports are compared with GNP. In 1936, both im-
ports and exports were much higher in East Germany in relation to
GNP. Throughout the postwar period, on the other hand, the level of
imports in relation to GNP has been higher in West Germany, and the
same is true for exports unless reparations are included. If repara-
tions (and other uncompensated deliveries) are included in East Ger-
man exports, then exports represent a larger proportion of GNP in
East than in West Germany as late as 1953. A part of the East Ger-
man export balance also reflects unfavorable terms of trade with the
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USSR and the West. Imports and exports as a percentage of GNP are
shown in Table 5.
Table 5
East and West Germany: Imports and Exports
as a Percentage of Gross National Product J
Selected Years, 1936-57
Percentage of GNP
East Germany
West Germany
Year -
Imports
Exports
Imports
Exports
1936
24
26
14
15
1950
3
14b
7J
8
1955
6
11 J
9
11
1957
7
11
11
14
a. The percentages are based on the estimates of foreign trade
in Table 4 (p. 17, above) and on the estimates of GNP in
Table 11, Appendix A, p. 33, below.
b. Including estimated reparations deliveries, deliveries of
uranium ore and concentrates, and other uncompensated deliveries.
c. Including US aid.
There can be little doubt that the level of imports of basic
materials in the 1950's was a very important factor limiting increases
in the output of manufacturing, which in turn represented the chief
factor determining the rate of East German recovery. With a much more
rapid increase of imports of basic materials, existing productive
capacity in manufacturing could have been used far more effectively.
In such a case, it would have been necessary to increase investments
in electric power and transportation more rapidly than has been done,
but this cost could have been more than covered with a higher total
production and with the savings from lower investment requirements
in the high-cost industries producing domestic basic materials.
As shown above, East German imports have been increasing more
rapidly than the national product, and the same is true of exports (if
reparations and other such deliveries are excluded from consideration).
This trend is expected to continue, as a result of Soviet guarantees
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of a rapidly increasing flow of raw materials to East Germany, to-
gether with Soviet encouragement of specialization among the Satel-
lites. The ratio of East German foreign trade to GNP is thus likely
to increase during the 1960's, although it will hardly reach the
present West German ratio. Given the smaller scale of the East Ger-
man economy and its very limited resources of fuels and metal ores,
an optimum ratio would pertainly be still higher. Nevertheless,
foreign trade should cease to be the main limiting factor on East
German growth.
4. Socialization
The introduction of Soviet economic institutions into East
Germany has affected some sectors more than others. In transport
and communications, for example, Communist management apparently
did not hamper recovery, although the policy of minimizing out-of-
pocket costs involved especially large hidden (chiefly deferred)
costs in this sector. In industry, construction, and trade, on the
other hand, it may be presumed that the differences between East and
West German organization and management had some effect on the speed
of recovery, but in these sectors the material supply problems re-
sulting from the separation of East from West Germany had such a
great effect as to swamp all others. The one sector in which the
process of imposing Soviet economic institutions had a demonstrably
great direct effect on East German recovery is agriculture, in which
private enterprise continued to account for a larger part of output
than in any other sector.
The chief factors depressing East German agriculture were
the breaking up of the great estates, the control of most agricul-
tural machinery by the state, the imposition of an irrational pric-
ing system, and the constant pressure on the independent peasant to
accept the inevitable collectivization. To be sure, the East German
regime was forced to be more moderate in the treatment of the peasant,
as of private enterprise generally, than the other Eastern European
regimes under Soviet control. Indeed, independent peasants in East
Germany benefited much more from economic recovery than any other
group of workers except,perhaps self-employed artisans. The regime
nevertheless made it quite clear that the status quo would last only
a few years. It was chiefly because of the prospect of collectivi-
zation in the near future that agriculture failed even to reattain
prewar levels of efficiency. Under these circumstances the regime
may not stand to lose greatly by socialization. Socialization can
hardly be expected, however, to yield any short-term benefits, and
the transitional costs of socialization will continue to be a burden
on the economy for some time.
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5. Capital and Labor*
The various factors discussed in the previous sections (the
effects of partition, war losses and dismantling, and Soviet policies
and Communist institutions) created or continued an over-all short-
age of capital that was compounded by a shortage of imported ma-
terials. In most parts of the economy, there was more than enough
labor to operate existing capital assets to the limits established
by technology or by the available supply of raw materials. In fact,
because of material or capital bottlenecks, labor was often used to
the point at which its marginal productivity was very low.
In the early postwar years the value of productive fixed
capital per person in East Germany was less than one-half of the
value per person before the war. There was thus a large labor sur-
plus, the greater part of which was found in nationalized industry
and in agriculture, although there was considerable unemployment.
West Germany, on the other hand, entered the postwar period with
fixed capital assets not greatly reduced. In spite of the larger
influx of population into West Germany, the value of fixed capital
per person in the early postwar years was about four-fifths of the
value before the wax. West Germany also began the postwar period
with excess labor, but the labor surplus was relatively much smaller
than in East Germany, although more of it took the form of unemploy-
ment and much less of overstaffing in enterprises.
East Germany thus began the postwar period with about three-
fifths as much productive capital per person as West Germany, and
the ratio remained about the same through 1955. The stock of fixed
capital actually grew more slowly through current investments in
East Germany than in West Germany, but the shift of population from
East to West Germany was sufficient to maintain the per capita re-
lationship unchanged. With the sharp rise in East German investments
in 1956, the relative position of East Germany began to improve, al-
though the change in the relative value of capital assets is, of
course, slow.
The relative scarcity of productive fixed capital in East
Germany has led to a very intensive use of capacity in certain sec-
tors, notably in rail transport and in the generation of electric
power. In these sectors, East German capital/output ratios are much
below those in West Germany even though the West German ratios have
declined considerably since the war. In other sectors, however, a
number of factors have led to considerable unused capacity. In the
* For the derivation of the following comparisons of the value of
fixed capital, see Appendix B, 2, p. 46, below.
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long-established branches of manufacturing, production has been held
down by chronic supply difficulties and inability to reestablish a
large dependable market -- problems directly traceable to the re-
orientation and. decline of foreign trade. In the heavy engineering
industries, which were expanded to replace West German imports and
to fill Soviet requirements, these problems have been compounded by
inexperience. In mining and metallurgy, which were expanded for the
same reasons, exploitation of low-grade resources, especially iron
and uranium ores, required heavy capital outlays. All industries have
been hit by lack of replacement parts, a characteristic fault of East
German planning and management. For these reasons, capital/output
ratios in East German industry probably have run not far below those
in West Germany, in spite of the over-all shortage of fixed capital
and the relatively large supply of qualified labor.
By the mid-1950's the labor force as a share of the popula-
tion had risen to the prewar level, the agricultural labor force had
dropped to the prewar level, and unemployment had virtually disap-
peared in East Germany. Since then the supply of labor has become
more of a problem, but there are still ample opportunities to increase
production substantially through increases in the supply of materials
and capital goods, with the same or even a smaller labor force.
Future plans, in fact, assume a decline in the labor force
through the mid-1960's, and they are based above all on the expecta-
tion of an improved foreign trade position and consequent improvements
in efficiency. Projected increases in fixed capital, however, also
play a part in East German plans. The anticipated rate of increase
in fixed capital is higher than at any previous time during the post-
war period. On the basis of the prospective improvements in the
supply of materials and in the market for East German manufactures,
together with the anticipated rate of increase in fixed capital, the
gap between East and West Germany in output per worker can be reduced
significantly in the 1960's.
IV. Distribution of Gross National Product
The distribution of the national product in East Germany during
the postwar period has differed markedly from the distribution in
West Germany. The fact that GNP per capita was actually higher in
1936 in East Germany than in West Germany reflects the very high
level of incomes and output in East Berlin. In the rest of East Ger-
many the average level of GNP per capita was about the same as in
West Germany. Similarly, of course, in the postwar comparison, if
East Berlin were excluded from East Germany (or if West Berlin were
included with West Germany), the comparison would be somewhat less
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favorable to East Germany. The present estimates of GNP and GNP per
capita are summarized in Table 6.
Table 6
East and West Germany: Comparison of Gross National Product
Selected Years, 1936-57
GNP
GNP Per Capita
Billion 1936 RM)
(1936 RM)
Year
East
Germany
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
Ratio of East to West
German GNP Per Capita
1936
20.9
- 47.9
1,291
1,257
1.03
1950
17.7
58.7
952
1,251
0.76
1955
25.0
92.9
1, 3 96
1,889
0.74
1957
27.2
101+.3
1,555
2,065
0.75
a. See Tables 11 and 13, Appendix A, pp. 33 and 35, respectively,
below.
In view of the lower level of GNP per capita in East Germany
since the war, the regime has been torn between the fear of losing
more workers to West Germany because of the lag in personal consump-
tion and the fear of losing out in competition with West Germany be-
cause of the continued lag in capital investment. The difficulty of
agreeing on policies affecting the distribution of the national prod-
uct was much intensified by Soviet exploitation and by the large scale
of government expenditures considered necessary to gain and consoli-
date Communist control. The effects of these forces may be seen in
Table 7* in the breakdown of GNP per capita in 1950, 1955, and 1957,
accompanied by the parallel statistics for West Germany.
There was a major shift in the distribution of East German
GNP after 1950, as shown in Table 7* and in the chart, Figure 3.**
The shares both of personal consumption and of investment in 1950
were kept down by the large prior claims of occupation costs,
* Table 7 follows on p. 23.
** Following p. 26.
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East and West Germany: Gross National Product Per Capita, by End Use
1950, 1955, and 1957
1936 P 1936 PM 1936 PM
Per
Capita
Percent
Per
Capita
Percent
Per
Capita
Percent
East Germany
Personal consumption
468
49
838
60
914
59
Gross investment
113
12
173
12
286
18
Public consumption
269
28
318
23
309
20
Foreign balance
102
11
67
5
46
3
GNP per capita
952
100
1,396
100
1,555
100
West Germany
Personal consumption
774
62
1,167
62
1,295
63
Gross investment
258
20
419
22
430
21
Public consumption
213
17
266
14
279
13
Foreign balance
6
1
37
2
61
3
GNP per capita
1,251
100
1,889
100
2,065
100
a. See Table 13, Appendix A, p. 35, below.
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administration, and defense (all under public consumption) and of
reparations (under foreign account). The large increase in produc-
tion during the 5-year period was allocated largely to personal con-
sumption. Personal consumption showed an increase of 6.3 billion RM
as against an increase of 1.0 billion RM in the level of gross in-
vestment. Even in percentage terms the increase in consumption from
1950 to 1955 was larger (about three-fourths) than the increase in
investment, which was only twice as large (about one-half).
Table 7 indicates the following ratios between the value of
the various end uses in East and West Germany on a per capita basis:
End Use
1950
1955
Personal consumption
0.60
0.72
Gross investment
0.44
0.41
Public consumption
1.26
1.20
Foreign balance
17.00
1.81
GNP per capita ,
0.76
0.74
As is indicated, the contrast between East and West Germany
in personal consumption was at its greatest in the late 1940's and
early 1950's and was thereafter steadily reduced -- a fact noted by
every returning traveler. Personal consumption has continued to in-
crease, at a slower rate, since 1955. The ratio of East to West Ger-
man personal consumption is significantly higher for food, tobacco,
and beverages, East German per capita consumption of which by 1955
was about 85 percent of the West German.* This estimate reflects cal-
culations of the volume of consumption covering cash purchases and
consumption in kind. It does not fully reflect the less satisfac-
tory assortment of goods or the deterioration in quality of goods in
* The only breakdown of private consumption in West Germany is given
in the original postwar series for GNP, 1g/ which has since been re-
calculated. If the original figure were used, East German per capita
consumption in 1955 would be within a few percent of West German. The
original total for West German personal consumption has been officially
increased by 12.5 percent, 20 and it seems likely that about this in-
crease should be applied to the figure for food consumption. The East
German figure for cash purchases of foods is calculated from data on
retail trade in 1936 prices 21 J adjusted for direct purchases from
peasants. 22 Agricultural consumption in kind is assumed to be the
same per family as estimated for West Germany in 1953, 23 deflated
by the appropriate West German price index. 24
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East Germany. East German and West German consumption per capita are
also roughly comparable for public transportation and repair services.
Well below the general average is the ratio of East to West'German
consumption of textiles and shoes, consumer durables, professional
services, telephone service, entertainment, and housing.
The East German leadership has dwelt on the intention of
matching West German 9onsumption of the "most important" consumer
goods by the early 1960's. / Of course, to provide the same num-
ber of kilograms of meat and butter, liters of milk, dozens of eggs,
meters of cloth, and pairs of shoes is by no means to close the gap
between East and West German consumption. Nor can it be closed by
adding even a good many items to the list, such as bicycles, motor
scooters, motorcycles, and radio and television sets. In the near
future, however, the gap will be of a different kind than in the
past, and the comparisons and contrasts will be drawn between two
economies each of which has met the basic demands of a European
standard of living -- with the important exception of housing, in
which East Germany will not recover the prewar standard by the end
of the 1960's.
The next largest share of GNP in East Germany has not been
investment, as in West Germany, but public consumption. The regime's
desire to fasten its control on the area as securely as possible led
to the early development of a domestic military-establishment. More-
over, the essential political aims of the regime led to relatively
large outlays on the Party and on state bureaucracy. As a result,
public consumption was about 28 percent of GNP in East Germany in
1950 as against about 17 percent in West Germany, and the difference
has remained large. Expenditure per capita for public consumption
in both years is still greater in East than in West Germany.
The relatively large balance on foreign account in East Ger-
many in 1950 is chiefly accounted for by Soviet exploitation of one
sort or another. The balance in 1955 also includes uncompensated
deliveries to the USSR, together with debt servicing.* Such deli-
veries probably account for more than one-half of the balance shown
in 1955. Unfavorable terms of trade, both with the USSR and with
the West, account for a small part of.the unfavorable balance in
1950, a considerable part of the balance in 1955, and most of the
balance in 1957.
* The regime has never admitted that uncompensated deliveries con-
tinued beyond the formal discontinuation of reparations at the end of
1953, but there is evidence to show that they must have been continued,
on one or another pretext, through 1955, although on a reduced scale.
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The regime clearly found it more urgent to increase personal
consumption, to set up a military establishment, and to support a
large Party and state apparatus than to increase investment. As a
result, East German investments ran at only about 12 percent of GNP
in 1950 and 1955? On a per capita basis, East German investments in
1950 and 1955 (as shown in Table 13*) ran at only 44 and 41 percent,
respectively, of West German investments. To be sure, fixed capital
investments increased somewhat more, for additions to inventory were
relatively greater in 1950 than in 1955 or 1957. In 1950 they con-
stituted a larger part of investment than in West Germany, although
not in 1955 or 1957. It is true, on the other hand, that a much
greater part of West German investment was devoted to housing, some-
what less than one-sixth of gross investment in 1950 and somewhat
less than one-fifth in 1955, whereas in East Germany the proportion
ran at about 6 percent in 1950 and 9 percent in 1955.** All things
considered, nonhousing investment per capita in fixed capital in 1955
was still only about one-half of nonhousing investment in fixed capi-
tal in West Germany.
The willingness of the regime to allow consumption to in-
crease and investment to lag arose from the need to encourage highly
trained labor to remain in East Germany. The regime recognized, al-
though with obvious reluctance, that its success in holding trained
labor must depend in part on convincing the population that consump-
tion would improve steadily -- indeed, rapidly. Although economic
factors have by no means appeared to be decisive in emigration since
the early 1950's, there is good reason to believe that emigration
would have been much greater and the regime's control much more un-
certain if the leadership had failed to pursue this policy.
A marked shift took place between 1955 and 1957 in the al-
location of resources, as a result of the great reduction (perhaps
the discontinuation) of uncompensated deliveries to the USSR in 1956.
In 1956, moreover, the USSR agreed to a further reduction (by one-
half) in occupation costs 29 and a big increase in payments for
Appendix A, p. 35, below.
For purposes of comparison with the present estimates of gross
investment in 1936 prices (see Table 8, Appendix A, p. 30, below),
the value of housing construction in current prices 26 was in each
case deflated by the appropriate price index. That for West Germany
is the official index for the price of housing construction. 27 For
East Germany the index used reflects a UN estimate for the change
from 1950 to 1955 28 and the.present estimate of the change in over-
all construction costs in East Germany from 1936 to 1950, for which
see Appendix B. p. 44, below.
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East and West Germany
DISTRIBUTION OF GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT
1950, 1955, and 1957
East Germany
West Germany
1950.
1955
1957
Personal Gross
Consumption Investment
Foreign
Balance
Public
Consumption
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uranium ore deliveries (the price was doubled). 30 The reduction
in Soviet demands was reflected in a comparable rise in investments.
Personal consumption was allowed to increase moderately from 1955 to
1957 (by roughly 3 percent per year), but investment jumped by more
than 30 percent in 1956 and by about 20 percent in 1957.
In the 1960's the share of GNP devoted to investment in East
Germany is likely to rise above that in West Germany. In 1958,
East German investment (which was perhaps 5 percent greater than
in 1957) was still less than 20 percent of GNP, but on the basis
of the Seven Year Plan the projected level of investment amounts to
25 percent or perhaps more of GNP by 1965,* which in any case is some-
what greater than the present share of investment (in 1936 prices) in
West German GNP.
A close correspondence between East and West Germany in the
allocation of GNP is to be found at present, but there will probably
be a gradual divergence as the East German pattern comes to resemble
more that which is called for in Communist economic literature. The
projected East German level of investment, however, although very
high by Western standards, is by no means high by Communist standards.
A ratio of 25 percent of investment to GNP has been exceeded by most
other European Satellites.
* Planned fixed capital investment is to double, and national in-
come (according to the Soviet concept) is to grow by about three-
fifths. 31 The estimate relating gross investment to GNP assumes
that inventories are to grow about in proportion to national income
and that "nonproductive" services are to increase at 1 percent per
year.
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STATISTICAL TABLES
Tables 8 through 13, given in this appendix, summarize the pres-
ent set of estimates of East and West German national income and GNP
for the selected years 1936, 1950, 1955, and 1957. The derivation
of these tables is explained in Appendix B. There are two possible
sources of error -- inaccuracies embodied in the official statistics
used and misinterpretation of these statistics. It is not possible
to assess the possible range of statistical error from either source,
but it is believed to be rather unlikely that there are serious
errors in the conclusions that have been based on these estimates.
The estimates in Tables 8, 10, 11, and 13 are expressed in terms
of 1936 Reichsmark (RM). The ratio of the 1936 EI to the 1955 US
dollar is approximately 1 RM to $0.75 if 1955 West German quantity
weights are used.*
* See the first footnote on p. 7, above.
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Table 8
East and West Germany: Estimated National Income at Factor Costs, J by Sector of Origin
Selected Years, 1936-57
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany West Germany
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion Billion
Sector
1936 RNt
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM ~ Percent 1936 RM
Energy
0.2
1
0.4
1
0.3
2
0.7
2
0.4
2
1.2
2
0.5
2
Mining
o.4
2
1.2
3
0.5
4
1.3
3
0.7
4
1.7
2
0.7
4
Manufacturing
Handicrafts c/
0.8
5
1.8
5
0.5
4
2.0
4
0.6
3
2.6
4
0.6
3
Construction
0.9
5
2.1
5
0.6
4
2.4
5
0.8
4
4.0
6
1.2
6
Agriculture and forestry
2.6
15
5.1
13
1.9
13
4.9
11
2.2
11
6.1
9
2.0
9
Transport and communica-
tions
1.4
8
3.3
9
1.2
9
4.3
10
1.8
9
6.2
9
2.0
9
Trade
1.8
11
4.2
11
1.0
7
4.7
11
1.7
9
7.4
11
2.0
9
Housing
0.5
3
1.3
3
0.3
2
1.2
3
0.3
1
1.5
2
0.3
1
State and other public
services
1.6
10
3.7
10
3.3
23
6.0
13
3.2
16
7.2
11
3.0
14
Other services
0.8
5
1.8
5
0.6
4
2.2
5
0.7
4
2.8
4
0.7
4
National income
at factor costs
16.8
100
38.2
100
14.2
100
44.6
100
12
100
68.0
100
21 3
100
76.3
a. Exclusive of net factor incomes received from abroad.
b. Data for West Germany in 1957, which are derived from linking with a later series, are not completely comparable with the previous series. For this reason, no
breakdown for the sectors is shown.
c. A small part of value added in handicrafts (roughly one-tenth) should properly be classified under services rather than under manufacturing.
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Table 9
East and West Germany: Indexes of Estimated National Income at Factor Costs, by.Sector of Origin
1950, 1955, and 1957
1936 = loo
1950
1955
1957
East
Germany
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany a
Energy
133
182
204
310
236
Mining
128
lo8
174
141
183
Manufacturing
Industry
69
112
124
205
143
Handicrafts j
66
112
75
144
75
Construction
65
114
85
191
133
Agriculture and forestry
73
97
85
120
77
Transport and communications
89
130
128
189
141
Trade
56
113
95
176
112
Housing
55
92
56
118
58
State and other public
services
207
162
198
195
186
Other services
76
122
91
156
91
National income
at factor costs
85
117
117
178
127
200
a. Data for West, Germany in 1957, which are derived from linking with a later series, are not
completely comparable with the previous series. For this reason, no breakdown for the sectors
is shown.
b. A small part of value added in handicrafts (roughly one-tenth) should properly be classified
under services rather than under manufacturing.
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East and West Germany: Estimated National Income Per Capita at Factor Costs, by Sector of Origin
Selected Years, 1936-57
Sector
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
Energy
Mining
Manufacturing
12
25
10
31
16
27
15
28
22
39
24
35
29
40
Industry
358
348
215
318
402
555
474
Handicrafts
49
47
27
43
34
53
34
Construction
56
55
32
51
45
81
69
Agriculture and forestry
160
134
102
104
123
124
114
Transport and communica-
tions
86
86
65
92
101
126
114
Trade
111
110
54
100
95
150
114
Housing
31
34
16
26
17
30
17
State and other public
services
99
97
177
128
179
146
171
Other services
49
47
32
47
39
57
40
National income
per capita
1036
999
763
952
1,06
1,381
1,216
1,511
a. Data for West Germany in 1957, which are derived from linking with a later series, are not completely comparable with the previous series. For this
reason, no breakdown for the sectors is shown.
b. A small part of value added in handicrafts (roughly one-tenth) should properly be classified under services rather than under manufacturing.
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East and West Germany: Estimated Gross National Product at Market Prices, by End Use
Selected Years, 1936-57
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
East Germany
West Germany
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
Billion
End Use
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
1936 RM
Percent
Personal consumption
12.5
60
29.0
60
8.7
49
36.3
62
15.0
60
57.4
62
16.0
59
65.4
63
Gross investment
4.0
19
9.0
19
2.1
12
12.1
20
3.1
12
20.6
22
5.0
18
21.7
21
Public consumption
5.0
28
10.0
17
5.7
23
13.1
14
5.4
20
14.1
13
4.4
21
10.0
21
Foreign balance
1.9
11
0.3
1
1.2
5
1.8
2
0.8
3
3.1
3
GNP at market prices
20.9
100
47.9 J
100
17.7
100
58 7
100
25.0
100
92.9
100
27.2
100
104.3
100
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East and West Germany: Indexes of Estimated Gross National Product at Market Prices, by End Use
1950, 1955, and 1957
1936 = loo
1950
1955
1957
East
German y
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
Personal consumption
70
125
120
198
128
226
Gross investment
52
134
78 '
229
125
241
Public consumption
157
103
157
149
141
172
Foreign balance
GNP at market prices
85
123
120
194
130
218
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Table 13
East and West Germany: Estimated Gross National Product Per Capita at Market Prices, by End Use
Selected Years, 1936-57
1936 RM Per Capita
1936 RM Per Capita
1936 RM Per Capita
1936 RM Per Capita
Ratio of
Ratio of
Ratio of
Ratio of
End Use
East
Germany
West
Germany
East to West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
East to West East
Germany -Germany
West
Germany
East to West
Germany
East
Germany
West
Germany
East to West
Germany
Personal consumption
772
759
1.02
468
774
0.60
838
1,167
0.72
914
1,295
0.71
Gross investment
247
236
1.05
113
258
o.44
173
419
0.41
286
430
0.67
Public consumption
269
213
1.26
318
266
1.20
309
279
1.11
272
262
1.04
Foreign balance
102
6
17.00
67
37
1.81
46
61
0.75
GNP per capita
1,291
1,257
1.03
1,251
0.76
1,396
1,889
0.74
1,555
2,065
0.75
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DERIVATION OF ESTIMATES
Insofar as available information permits, the estimates made for
East Germany have been made comparable with West German statistics
in over-all coverage, in classification, and in methods and assump-
tions. The data and procedures used, however, are generally not of
exactly the same kind as those underlying the West German official
statistics, and additional research might result in improvements with
respect to comparability.*
a. Estimates for East Germany
For purposes of comparison with published data for West Ger-
many, national income and GNP in East Germany were calculated for
1936, 1950, 1955, and 1957 in terms of 1936 Reichsmark (RM). Esti-
mates of GNP are almost entirely independent of estimates of national
income.
Estimates of national income involved two distinct steps:
(1) an estimate of national income and its distribution by sector in
1936 and (2) an estimate of the movement of national income between
1936 and postwar years by means of quantity indexes representing the
individual sectors.
Estimates of GNP were made in the following manner: (1) GNP
in current prices was estimated for each of the years considered, and
(2) these values in current prices were converted to 1936 prices by
means of estimated price indexes for each major end use of GNP.
These two methods give somewhat different results in measur-
ing the growth of the East German economy, but the series for GNP
and national income are close enough to each other to offer some cor-
roboration of the results.
* For remarks on comparability in the valuation of services,-see
p. 4-1, below.
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(1) National Income
(a) Estimate for 1936
The present estimate of East German national income*
in 1936 is obtained as the sum of sector estimates. It is very close
to the total obtained frcm prewar official data for national income,
broken down by Laender.** 32/ The present estimate of national in-
come is 5 percent above that of "Germanicus" 33 and about 3 percent
below the only other comparable figure*** -- the sum of the estimates
for the Soviet Zone of Occupation and the Soviet Sector of Berlin
made by the Deutsches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung (commonly
called the DIW, West German Institute for Economic Research).
The principal basis for the present sector estimates
is a DIW study (by Bruno Gleitze), 35 J which is used for energy, min-
ing, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, transport and communi-
cations, and trade. The proportions that Gleitze shows between the
Soviet Zone plus East Berlin (36 percent of the total Berlin figures)
and West Germany (excluding West Berlin and the Saar) are applied to
the net value-added figures in 1936 for West Germany shown in official
accounts. For services, the estimate for the Soviet Zone by the late
Ferdinand Gruenig is used, blown up (by the ratio of employment figures
in 1939) to include East Berlin. The same figure would be found by
using the 1939 employment ratio for services between East and West Ger-
many 36 and applying it to the West German net value-added figure. The
estimate of value'added in housing represents the same proportion of
estimated rent as in West Germany. The breakdown between the public
sector ("state services and other public services") and other services
is assumed to be the same as in West Germany.
The breakdown of national income in 1936 by sector of
origin seems to be very nearly consistent with the DIW estimates (by
Gruenig) for the Soviet Zone, 37 if the latter are blown up sector by
sector to include East Berlin by using the employment ratios of 1939.
* Net national product at factor costs except that net factor in-
comes received from abroad have been excluded.
** The weight assigned to East Berlin reflects a breakdown of the
total given for Berlin according to the DIW estimate cited below.
The ratio of East to West German national income in the official pre-
war figures cited is slightly higher than the ratio between the pres-
ent estimates.
** The 1936 estimates by Fred Sanderson and Wolfgang Stolper (see
p. 42, below) are only for GNP, not for national income.
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(b) Estimates for 1950, 1955, and 1957
The estimates of national income for 1950, 1955, and
1957 are obtained by multiplying the estimates of net value added in
each sector of origin in 1936 by quantity indexes representing the
movement of production in these sectors. The resulting index for na-
tional income is somewhat lower than the indexes of economic growth
given by "Germanicus" and Sanderson and somewhat higher than that of
Stolper, as indicated in the following comparison (1936 = 100):
1950
1955
"Germanicus" (national income) 38/
91
118
Sanderson (GNP at factor cost) 3
91*
Stolper (GNP at market prices)
LO/
79
111
Present estimates (national
income)**
85
117
The index resulting from the present estimates of national income
would actually be close to Stolper?s except for a major difference
in estimates of "nonproductive" services, in which Stolper fails to
include the services of those gainfully employed persons (including
all military and police forces) excluded from the official East Ger-
man employment figures.***
The sector indexes for energy, mining, and manufac-
turing are based largely on the indexes computed by Stolper, 41
whose work represents far more detailed investigation than has been
done by anyone else. The base year weights represent net rather
than gross value added, and gas has been shifted from mining to
energy. Net value added in uranium mining is estimated as negligible.
The figures for industrial handicrafts are based on
estimates of productivity. It is assumed that productivity was some-
what less than one-half of that in manufacturing in 1950 and about
one-third of that in manufacturing in 1955 and 1957.t The ratios.
are the same as in West Germany.tt
* Sanderson's index is for 1948 and 1952, and the number shown
here for 1950 is interpolated, using the decline in the rate of
growth as estimated by "Germanicus" and Sanderson.
See Table 9, Appendix A, p. 31, above.
t
See p. 41, below, and the footnote on p. 10,
For the East German employment figures, see
above.
source
42
tt
For the West German employment figures, see
source
3/.
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The index for construction is likewise based on
Stolper's index 4 for 1936 and 1955, but it is much higher than
Stolper's index for 1950. Stolper's index, which reflects the esti-
mated supply of building materials, takes no account of the use of
materials from bombed-out buildings, which was still significant in
1950. The estimate for 1950 was obtained by linking Stolper's index
for 1955 (1936 = loo) to an official index of the growth of construc-
tion in current prices between 1950 and 1955, corrected by a price
index given by the UN, reportedly based on official East German
data. 45
Stolper's index for agriculture and forestry was
also used except that the base year was shifted to 1936 from the
1934-38 average for vegetable products and from 1938 for animal
products. 46 A rough adjustment, based on prewar data for agricul-
tural sales and costs and on price indexes for farm sales and pur-
chases, 47 reduces Stolper's base values by about-7 percent. Thus
Stolper's index numbers for the postwar years are raised by about
8 percent.
The index of the transport and communications sector
is the same as Stolper's for 1955 and 1957 in relation to 1950, 48
but it is lower in relation to 1936 than Stolper's because of an
adjustment in the index for rail freight transport. The index (for
net ton-kilometers) of the West German expert Wolfgang Seidel 49
has been used in place of Stolper's (for tariff ton-kilometers
To estimate the movement of value added in the trade
sector, an index of employment in trade was used for 1955 in relation
to 1936. This index was then linked with an index of wholesale and
retail turnover, weighted by employment, for 1950 and 1957 in rela-
tion to 1955. The sum of value added in industry and agriculture
is assumed to represent wholesale trade, and the retail index is de-
rived from East German published figures on retail trade turnover in
constant prices-* 50 This procedure implies that value added per
worker in trade was the same in 1955 as in 1936 but was below the
1936 level in earlier postwar years. Stolper's procedure, on the
other hand, assumed that value added per worker was the same in all
postwar years as in 1936.
It would have been closer to the West German approach
to rely entirely on indexes of wholesale and retail trade activity,
weighted by employment, to measure value added in trade. The service
* This index is not to be confused with the official retail price
index, 51 the use of which results in understating the value of re-
tail sales in 1936 prices in the early 1950's.
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rendered by trade in postwar East Germany, however, has obviously
been of less value in relation to turnover than in prewar Germany
or in West Germany, and the rule-of-thumb adjustment used in making
the present estimate allows for such a shift.
The index for housing represents the relation be=
tween Dorothea Faber's estimate of available housing (square meters
of Wohnraum) in 1939 and UN estimates for 1950 and 1957. 53
The 1955 figure is interpolated on the basis of published housing
construction figures L/ and the average UN retirement rate for the
1950's.
The indexes for public and for other services re-
flect the movement of estimated employment in these services times
a constant average value added per worker. The estimates of total
employment in each of these two types of services include unreported
employment. Net value added per worker in these two sectors is ob-
tained by dividing estimated net value added in 1936 by employment
in 1939. / Employment in services may well have been somewhat
lower in 1936 than in 1939; if so, the postwar estimates are some-
what too low for services.
Constant labor productivity is also assumed in West
German calculations for public services and for some private ser-
vices, and a check on the figure for all private services shows very
little change over time in productivity. The assumption used in
making the present estimates for East Germany therefore seems pref-
erable to any alternative assumption in measuring the output of ser-
vices.
A further adjustment in the postwar estimates for
public services was made for the sake of comparability with West
Germany. The West German official figures for value added in public
services include an imputation for the services of foreign troops on
duty in West Germany. Explicit mention is made of this allowance
for the years through 1954 (while these troops were present as oc-
cupation troops), and it is obvious that the allowance continued to
be made in 1955 and thereafter. 56 From the figures shown for
1950-52, 57 it appears that imputation of value added by foreign
troops ran between 30 and 40 percent of the West German payment
toward their maintenance. This basis is used in making a parallel
estimate for East Germany; the estimate for public services is ad-
justed upward by the ratio between one-third of occupation costs 58
and the total estimated personnel costs of public services. The
total estimated personnel costs of public services are computed by
multiplying the total number employed by the average cost per em-
ployee (the published average wage plus. 10 percent).
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(2) Gross National Product
(a) Estimates for 1936
The present estimate of East German GNP in 1936 is
obtained by adding to national income* indirect taxes and deprecia-
tion, estimated from the ratios between East and West German figures
for a large part of indirect taxes (40.8 percent) and for a large
part of the value of capital assets (44.6 percent). 60 The result-
ing-GNP estimate is 3.9 percent above that of Sanderson, L l/ per-
cent above that of "Germanicus," 62 and 16.1 percent above that of
Stolper. 63 Stolper's estimate, which was obtained as the sum of
estimates of gross value added by sector of origin, is so much lower
because of the exclusion of value added in housing, incomplete cover-
age of value added by handicrafts, and the omission of a substantial
part of indirect taxes.
The percentage distribution of GNP by end use in
1936 was assumed to be the same in East as in West Germany except
that investment was allocated to East Germany in proportion to the
estimated value of construction activity in East and West Germany,
and the relative size of the other end uses was modified accordingly.
(b) Estimates for 1950, 1955, and 1957
The estimates of East German GNP in 1950, 1955, and
1957 are, with minor exceptions, the sums of the estimated end uses,
in current prices, deflated by calculated price indexes. Sanderson's
GNP estimates, 64 which are for different years (1948 and 1952),
imply a level about 10 percent higher for 1950 than that shown in the
present estimate. Likewise, Gruenig's.estimate of net national prod-
uct for the year 1949, valued at current West German market prices, is
12 percent higher in relation to the estimate for West Germany than
is the present estimate for GNP in 1950 to the present West German
figure (33.7 percent as against 30.2 percent). / "Germanicus'" esti-
mate of GNP in 1950 is 19 percent above the present 1950 estimate,
but the estimate for 1955 is only 3 percent above the present 1955
estimate. 66 Stolper's estimates of postwar East German GNP, on the
other hand, are 20 percent lower than the present estimates. 67
Stolper's estimates are obtained by applying indexes of the growth
of output to his estimates for the-sectors of origin in 1936. The
omissions and undercoverage in those estimates for the base year,
together with the difference between his estimate and the present
* The estimate given in Table 8 (Appendix A, p. 30, above) plus net
factor incomes received from abroad. The adjustment is arbitrarily
made proportional to that shown for West Germany. 59
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estimate of the growth of "nonproductive" services, account roughly
for the difference between his GNP estimates and the present GNP
estimates for the postwar period.
The estimates for personal consumption in 1936 prices
represent the value of consumer expenditures, excluding housing ren-
tals and consumption in kind, in current prices, deflated by means
of price indexes, plus direct calculations of rentals and consumption
in kind in 1936 prices. Personal consumption expenditures (excluding
rents and consumption in kind) in current prices were calculated
from direct estimates of the wage bill and from a percentage distri-
bution of the money incomes and expenditures of a sample of the East
German population.
The wage bill is computed from the published wage
bill 68 plus the estimated wage bill of various categories of un-
reported employment. The total employment for such categories,
including self-employed persons, has been estimated by the Bureau
of the Census, which has also made a partial breakdown.* Average
wages in the unreported categories are calculated by analogy with
those of the most nearly comparable groups for which average wage
figures are given. An announced figure for the total wage bill
covering these categories, which was given for 1955 and 1957 by
Margarete Wittkowski (Deputy Chief of the East German State Planning
Commission) in November 1957, provides a check for the above esti-
mates. 70
The relation between total money wages and the vari-
ous categories of personal consumption (excluding agricultural con-
sumption in kind and rents) is calculated for 1955 and 1957 from a
representative breakdown of the "incomes and expenditures of the
population." 71 The relation is computed for 1950 from published
information showing the main changes from 1950 to 1955 in the struc-
ture of personal incomes and expenditures. The resulting estimates
of personal consumption expenditures in current prices are converted
to 1936 prices by means of computed price indexes for retail trade,
household purchases from peasants, and services. The most important
of these, the index for retail trade, is derived from published East
German series for retail trade in current and constant (1936) prices. 72
The over-all cost-of-living index implied in the present estimates
shows postwar prices as substantially higher (11 to 16 percent) in re-
lation to 1936 prices than is indicated by the cost-of-living index
of the DIW, 73 and it is therefore possible that the final estimate
of personal consumption in 1936 prices is too low. Against this
* The total has been formally published; the breakdown is given only
in a preliminary working paper. 69
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should be set the difference in quantity weights: the price index
implied in the present estimates reflects postwar quantity weights,
whereas the DIW cost-of-living index reflects prewar quantity
weights, and those commodities for which postwar consumption dropped
the most were generally those for which price increases were the
greatest.
The value of rents, both actual and imputed, at 1936
prices is calculated by multiplying the number of square meters of
dwelling space (based on UN estimates 74j) by the average rental per
square meter in 1936. 75Peasant household consumption in kind of
agricultural products per farm family is estimated to be the same
for East Germany in the 1950's as for West Germany in 1953. It is
deflated to 1936 prices by means of West German data. 76
The investment estimates are based ultimately on
East German official data as interpreted by the DIW. 77 The DIW
estimates, in current prices, are deflated by separate price indexes
for construction, machinery and equipment, and inventories. The
price index for construction reflects the values in current prices
(official figures 78
J) divided by the calculated values in 1936
prices (estimated from Gleitze's base figure 79/ and the index for
value added in construction). Price movements for machinery and
equipment and for inventories from 1936 to 1950 are based on esti-
mates by the DIW. 80 From 1950 to 1955 and 1957 these movements
are calculated from official indexes of production in plan (approxi-
mately 1950) prices and in current prices. 81
The estimates in current prices for other end uses --
public consumption, administration, defense, and the balance on for-,
eign account -- are also based in part on the DIW interpretation of
official East German national income data. 82 From these data were
derived the purchases of materials by government and nonprofit or-
ganizations, to which were added personnel costs (computed from pub-
lished and estimated wage bills) and military investments (computed
from planned military investments in 1956-60 83/). This procedure
gives the total value of public consumption, administration, and de-
fense except for imported munitions, which are not covered in the
present estimates. The balance on foreign account, as shown in of-
ficial East German national accounts and estimated by the DIW, repre-
sents the difference between national income produced and national
income available for domestic use. The balance reflects incomplete
figures, excluding particularly invisibles, the value-added component
of uranium ore deliveries, and munitions imports, but these exclusions
tend to be offsetting.
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Estimated public consumption, administration, and
defense in current prices were deflated by separate indexes for per-
sonnel costs (by a wage index calculated from prewar and postwar
wage data 8.4j); purchases of materials (by a wholesale price index,
based on,DIW estimates for 1950, L5/ and later price changes implied
in gross production data 86 ); and military investment (weighted in-
dex for prices of construction and machinery and equipment). The
foreign balance in 1936 prices is obtained as explained below in
connection with the foreign trade estimates.*
(c) Estimates for West Germany
All figures shown for West German national income
and GNP are based on official calculations by the West German govern-
ment or related calculations by the DIW. There are two distinct of-
ficial series for West German national accounts in the postwar period.
The first official series for West German national income and GNP,
which appeared in the statistical yearbooks through 1956, were cal-
culated directly in 1936 prices by the use of production indexes to-
gether with indexes for indirect taxes and depreciation. Associated
series in current postwar prices were obtained by inflating the basic
estimates with price indexes.** The GNP series in current prices was
broken down by end use, and the resulting breakdown was deflated to
1936 prices by indexes of prices to final consumers.- The latter of-
ficial series, which have appeared in the statistical yearbooks be-
ginning with 1957, were calculated in current prices and then de-
flated to a constant price basis of 1954 (or, in the publications of
the DIW, 1950). Insofar as is known, these estimates have never been
deflated to prewar constant prices.
For comparison with the present estimates of East
German national income, the first West German series was used for
1950 and 1955 (it does not go beyond 1955) 87 because it was cal-
culated in much the same way as the present estimates for East
Germany -- by applying indexes of output to net value added in the
several sectors in 1936. The total West German national income in
1957 at 1936 prices was obtained by linking the new West German
series in 1950 prices to the old series in 1936 prices. 88 The fur-
ther breakdown for industry was obtained from published indexes and
weights, 89 with adjustment to put the weights on a net value-added
basis.
See 3, below.
For public services the reverse process was followed: the basic
estimates were in current prices, and the estimates in 1936 prices
were obtained by deflation.
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For comparison with the present estimates of East
German GNP, the second West German series (as revised in 1960*) was
used 90 because, like the basic estimates used in computing the
present series for East Germany, it was computed directly from data
in current prices. The price indexes used in deflating it reflect
the official conversion of the original breakdown by end use from
current prices to 1936 prices. 91 The implied price movements were
used to convert to 1936 prices the new West German GNP figures for
1950 and 1955, sector by sector, from current prices. (For the for-
eign account the conversion was performed separately for exports and
imports.) The use of price indexes given elsewhere in the statistical
yearbooks would have produced approximately the same results. The
estimates for 1957 West German GNP in 1936 prices were obtained by
linking the derived series in 1936 prices to the DIW series in 1950
prices, 92 which does not reflect the 1960 revisions.
2. Value of Productive Fixed Capital
Gruenig has estimated the value of fixed capital in West Germany
at replacement costs in 1950 prices by major sectors for 1939, 1948,
1950, and 1955. 93 The value of productive fixed capital in East
Germany was estimated indirectly. For the prewar period, estimates
for East Germany were made by comparing the assessed values used in
1936 in East and West Germany to calculate the capital assets tax. 94
An estimate was made for the early postwar period by adjusting the
prewar estimate by West German calculations of the extent of wartime
destruction and Soviet dismantling. J For 1950, comparisons were
made for industry, agriculture, and transport. Estimates of capital
assets in East German industry were made by the use of published de-
preciation allowances, 96 J which are based on a revaluation of capital
assets in 1948 97 and on the application of the flat depreciation
rates used in East German enterprises, together with published data
indicating the distribution of capital assets by type. 98 For agri-
culture and transport in 1950 the same methods and sources were used,
except that the distribution of capital assets by type had to be esti-
mated roughly from physical data. A comparison of the physical data
with those for the prewar period and for West Germany 99 also sup-
ports the estimates made. The estimates made for later postwar years
reflect the relation of East to West German additions to fixed capital
based on the ratio of East to West German investments.
* The 19 0 revision is not accompanied by the basic data for foreign
trade needed for purposes of deflation, and the figures in the
1957
statistical yearbook were therefore used (see p. 47, below).
The re-
vised foreign balances are practically the same as those given in the
yearbook.
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3. Value of Exports and Imports
The estimates of exports and imports in 1936 Reichsmark given in
the text cover only commodity trade. The figures for 1936 are as
estimated by the UN. 100 Three-eighths of the external trade of
Berlin is imputed to East Berlin, and transactions between East Ber-
lin and the rest of East Germany are netted out.
Figures for West Germany in 1950 and 1955 are the latest pub-
lished official estimates in current prices for the commodity trade
of the German Federal Republic, converted by the price indexes used
in converting the original series (which failed to separate the
trade of West Berlin from that of the Federal Republic). 101 For
1957 the estimates are obtained by linking with the DIW series in
1950 prices. 102/
Postwar estimates for East Germany, which include both regular
commercial trade and uncompensated deliveries to the USSR, are ad-
mittedly rough estimates. Those for commercial trade represent of-
ficial published data in clearing rubles (for Soviet - East German
trade as given in Soviet publications), 103 converted to West Ger-
man marks and deflated by the same indexes used in the official
West German estimates. The conversion is above the official rate
of exchange for East German exports and below the official rate of
exchange for East German imports so as to allow for unfavorable
terms of trade. The discounts are based on estimates of Horst
Mendershausen for trade with the USSR. 104+ Comparable discounts
are applied to figures for trade with Western countries except West
Germany. The evidence available (for example, comparative data on
subsidies of East German machinery exports in 1956 105/) suggests
that the terms of trade with Western countries are at least as un-
favorable as those with the USSR.
Uncompensated deliveries to the USSR are added to estimated com-
mercial exports on the following basis. For 1950 the figure selected
represents the most plausible estimate available. 106 For 1955, un-
compensated deliveries are added to estimated commercial exports in
the proportion indicated by the difference between the commercial for-
eign trade balance at domestic prices, as estimated by the UN, and
the official foreign balance at domestic prices, as estimated by the
DIW. 107 In calculating the over-all East German foreign balance
In 1936 prices, as shown in the GNP estimates, transport and other
services are included. 108/ The estimates in current prices are con-
verted at the official rate of exchange and deflated by the index
,used in West German calculations. The net import of these services
represents the difference between the foreign trade balance shown in
the text and the over-all foreign balance shown in the GNP estimates.
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A few scholars have made substantial contributions to the comparison
of East and West German national products. The late Ferdinand Gruenig,
a West German authority on national accounts, made the first comparisons
of national income in East Germany and West Germany (for 1936 and
19+7-49 in current prices). Bruno Gleitze, who began his postwar career
as head of the East German Central Office for Statistics, did most of
the'basic work in breaking down the prewar German statistics according
to postwar boundaries. Gruenig and Gleitze did most of their work in
this field in the late 19l+0's and early 1950's as staff members of the
Deutsches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung (commonly called the DIW,
West German Institute for Economic Research). Fred Sanderson of the
Department of State made the first attempt to develop estimates of post-
war East German national product in constant 1936 prices. A set of
Sanderson's estimates (for 1936, 1948, and 1952) was published in 1955
by the Congressional Joint Committee on the Economic Report. A British
economist writing under the pen name "Germanicus" made a more complete
set of estimates both in current prices and in 1936 prices, covering
1936 and the years 1950-55. These estimates were published in an article
appearing in 1956. Finally Wolfgang Stolper undertook for the Center
for International Studies (CENIS) at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology a more exhaustive study along the same lines (for 1936 and
1950-57). This study, which has been circulated in manuscript and sum-
marized in articles during the last 2 years and is now being published
in book form, represents a major contribution to the study of East Ger-
man industry and agriculture.
The most convenient primary sources of data on the postwar German
economy are the official statistical yearbooks issued annually for West
Germany since 1950 and for East Germany since 1955. For prewar data
the most convenient source is a compilation of prewar German statistical
yearbooks (and unpublished official records) issued in 19+8 by the
Laenderrat of the US Occupation Zone.
Most of the other publications cited are also German. A good deal
of information about the East German economy is contained in East
German periodicials, including the official journals on economic
theory, finance, and statistics -- Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Deutsche
Finanzwirtschaft, and Statistische Praxis, of which the first is
quarterly and the last two are monthly. West German publications
contain valuable studies on both economies. In addition to those of
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the DIW, including its weekly report (Wochenbericht) and a quarterly
review (Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung , special mention
should be made of the publications of the West German Statistical
Office, particularly the monthly periodical Wirtschaft and Statistik,
and those of the Ministry for All-German Affairs, notably the so-
called Bonn Reports from Central and Eastern Germany (Bonner Berichte
aus Mittel- and Ostdeutschland).
In English, probably the most useful general source of informa-
tion and comment on the East and West German economies is the Eco-
nomic Survey of Europe published annually by the UN, together with
the supplementary Economic Bulletin for Europe (three times a year).
One US Government publication also deserves special mention, the
study by Samuel Baum and Jerry W. Combs, Jr., of the Bureau of the
Census onithe East German labor force (International Population
Statistics Report, Series P-90, No. 11).
It is believed that the basic statistical information issued by
the so-called German Democratic Republic, like that issued by the
Third Reich and the German Federal Republic, is accurately reproduced
from official records. Interpretation of the East German materials,
however, is to a greater extent a matter of inference, and the pos-
sibility of serious errors in interpretation can never be entirely
ruled out.
1. Neues Deutschland, /-East Berlin, 2 Oct 59, special supple-
ment, "Gesetz ueber den Siebenjahrplanp. 4.
2. Gilbert, Milton, et al. Comparative National Products and
Price Levels, Paris, 1958, p. 86.
3. Schoerry, Otto. "Das Volkseinkommen and Sozialprodukt im
Bundesgebiet im 2. Halbjahr 1950 and im Jahr 1950," Wirt-
schaft and Statistik (West German Statistical Office),
Apr 51, no. 4, p. 1 46.
Koziolek, Helmut. Grundfragen der marxistisch-leninistischen
Theorie des Nationaleinkommens, ast Berlin 1957, p. 19.
4-. Gleitze,.Bruno. Ostdeutsche Wirtschaft, f7es / Berlin,
1956, p. 2.
5. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 7.
West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland L958, p. 28, 77.
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6. Commerce, Bureau of the Census. International Population
Statistics Reports, Series P-90, no 11, The Labor Force of
the Soviet Zone of Germany and the Soviet Sector of Berlin,
by Samuel Baum and Jerry W. Combs, Jr., 1959, p. 6 ff, 23.
(hereafter referred to. as Commerce. Labor Force)
7. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 195 , p. 9, 28.
East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 7,
Commerce. Labor Force (6, above).
8. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1958, p. 9, 110.
Gleitze, op. cit. , above), p. 153.
Laenderrat, US Occupation Zone. Statistisches Handbuch von
Deutschland 1928-1944, Munich, 19 9, p. 37.
West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 195T-P- 110.
State, Bonn. Handbook of Economic Statistics, Federal Repub-
lic of Germany, 1 May 59, p. 39.
10. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1956, p. 15 .
11. Commerce. Labor Force (6, above), p. 6-7.
12. Laenderrat, US Occupation Zone. Statistisches Handbuch von
Deutschland 1928-1944, Munich, 1949, p. 70.
West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 195 , p. 441.
East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 27 -275, 279.
Bendrath, Sonja. "Die Ausnutzung der Arbeitszeit in den
Betrieben der volkseigenen Industrie im 1. Halbjahr 1957,"
Vierteljahreshefte zur Statistik der DDR (East German State
Central Administration for Statistics), 1957, no 4, p. 128-131.
13. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1955, p. 90 if.
14. Hentschel, Martin. "Die Berechnung des Aufkommens and der
Verwendung des gesellschaftlichen Gesamtprodukts and des
Nationaleinkommens im zweiten Fuenfjahrplan," pt II, Sta-
tistische Praxis, Sep 57, no 9, p. 178 ff.
15. UN. Economic Bulletin for Europe, Geneva, 1959, no 3, p. 52 ff.
16. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1, p. 1 1.
17. Gleitze, op. cit. (4, above), p. 170, 173.
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18. Bremen Committee for Economic Research. Am Abend der Demon-
tage, Bremen, 1951, p. 76-113.
SPD Information Service. Die ReDarationen in der Sow.ietzone
von 1945-1952 (Denkschriften, no 51), Bonn 5957, p. 14-16.
(hereafter referred to as SPD Information Service. Die
Reparationen)
19. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1956, p. 518-521.
20. Bartels, H.; Raabe, K.H.; and Schoerry, Otto. "Das Sozial-
produkt in den Jahren 1950 bis 1959," Wirtschaft and Statistik,
Jan 60, no 1, P. 15.
21. Statistische-Praxis, Apr 56, no 4, unnumbered page (Wirt-
schaftszahlen der DDR).
22. Heinrichs, Wolfgang. Der Einzelhandel and seine Planung,
[East] Berlin, 1959, P. 77.
23. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1957, p. 548-549.
24. Ibid., p. 506-507.
25. Statistische Praxis, Jul 58, no 7, p. 145.
26. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
DL8, p. 385.
Statistical appendix to Gruenig, Ferdinand. "Volkswirtschaft-
liche Gesamtrechnung einschliesslich Geldvermoegensrechnung
fuer die Bundesrepublik," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschafts-
forschung, 1957, no 3, P. 2 bb.
27. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1258, p. 2 .
28. UN. Economic Survey of Europe in 1955, Geneva, 1956, p. C-28.
29. "Rede des Finanzministers Willy Rumpf zur Begruendung des
Staatshaushaltsplanes 1957," Deutsche Finanzwirtschaft (East
German Ministr of Finance), 9957, no 10, p. 145-
30. Der Tag, fes/Berlin, 16 Mar 58.
31. Neues Deutschland, jas] Berlin, 1 Oct.59, special supplement,
"Der Siebenjahrplan des Friedens ... des Wohlstandes and des
Gluecks des Volkes," speech by Walter Ulbricht, p. 7.
32. German Statistical Office. Wirtschaft and Statistik, Jul 39,
no 14, p. 565 ff.
Laenderrat, US Occupation Zone. Statistisches Handbuch von
Deutschland 1928-1944, Munich, 1949, p. 6ol.
33. "Germanicus." "East Germany's Economic Development," Economia
internazionale, May 56, p. 307.
34. Gruenig, Ferdinand. "Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnung
fuer die sowjetische Besatzungszone," Vierteljahrshefte zur
Wirtschaftsforschung, 1950, no 1, p. 30.
Krengel, Rolf. Volkswirtschaftliche In ut-Out ut-Rechnun ,
Sozialprodukt ... in West-Berlin, West Berlin, 1953, p. 87.
West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 195 , p. 1T
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35. Gleitze, 22. cit. (4, above).
36. Ibid., p. 153-
37. Gruenig, op. cit. (34, above).
38. "Germanicus," op. cit. (33, above).
39. Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service. Trends
in Economic Growth: A Comparison of the Western Powers and
the Soviet Bloc, prepared for the Joint Committee on the
Economic Report, 83d Congress, 2d Session, 1955, p. 292.
40. Stolper, Wolfgang. "The National Product of East Germany,"
Kyklos, 1959, no 2, p. 133.
41. Stolper, Wolfgang. The Structure of the East German Economy,
MSS, Cambridge, Mass., 1958-59, p. 145 ff.
42. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1955, p. 126.
Ibid., 1956, P. 329-330.
Ibid., 1957, p. 180, 254.
43. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1256, p. 230.
Ibid., 1958, P. 173, 212-213.
44. Stolper, Wolfgang, op. cit. (41, above), p. 499 ff, 563a.
45. UN. Economic Survey of Europe in 19 , Geneva, 1956, p. C-28.
46. Stolper, op. cit. 1, above T, p. 0 ff.
47. Laenderrat, US Occupation Zone. Statistisches Handbuch von
Deutschland 1928-1944, Munich, 1949,--p. 461, 607.
48. Stolper, op. cit. 1, above), p. 525 ff.
49. Ibid., p. 526-2~.
Seidel, Wolfgang. Verkehrswirtschaft and Verkehrspolitik in
der Sowjetzone (Materialien zur Wirtschaftslage in der
sowjetischen Zone), Bonn, 1954, P. 34.
50. Statistische Praxis, Apr 56, no 4, unnumbered page (Wirt-
schaftszahlen der DDR).
51. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 216.
52. Faber, Dorothea. Die Wohnungswirtschaft in der sowjetischen
Besatzungszone (Bonner Berichte aus Mittel- and Ostdeutschland),
Bonn, 1953, P. 7.
53. UN. Economic Survey of Europe in 1958, Geneva, 1959, chap iv,
p. 15.
54. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, P. 33
55. Gleitze, op. cit. (4, above), p. 153.
56. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland L56, p. 516 ff.
Ibid., 1957, P. 561.
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57. Ibid., 1953, P. 548-549.
58. West German Institute for Economic Research. Wochenbericht,
23 Apr 54, no 16/17, p. 67-68.
Kalus, Hellmuth. Wirtschaftszahlen aus der SBZ, Bonn, 1958,
p. 94-96.
59. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch flier
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1956, P. 520.
60. Ibid., p. 17-16.
61. Trends in Economic Growth, op. cit. (39, above).
62. "Germanicus," OP. cit. (33, above..
63. Stolper, op. cit. +l, above), p. 563a.
Stolper, op. cit. (40, above), p. 133.
64. Trends in Economic Growth (39, above), p. 292.
65. Statistisches Kompendium ueber die sow.ietische Besatzungszone,
resg Berlin, 1953, P. XXII/3. (reprinted from Vierteljahrs-
hefte zur Wirtschaftsforschun , 1950, no 4, p. 254)
66. "Germanicus," OP. Cit. (33, above), p. 307.
67. Stolper, op,. cit. +1, above), p. 563a.
68. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 208 ff.
69. Commerce. Labor Force (6, above).
Baum, Samuel. The Labor Force of East Germany 1939-1957, MS,
Mar 59 .
70. Neues Deutschland, f~-as7 Berlin, 19 Nov 57, P. 3.
71. Heinrichs, off. cit. (22, above), p. 74, 77.
72. Statistische Praxis, Apr 56, no 4, unnumbered page (Wirt-
schaftszahlen der DDR).
Keck, Alfred. Die Bilanz der Geldeinnahmen and -ausgaben
der Bevoelkerung, East Berlin, 1956, p. 80.
73. Wochenbericht, 21 Jun 57, no 25, p. 101-102.
74. UN. Economic Survey of Europe in 1958, Geneva, 1959,,,chap iv,
p. 15.
75. East German Finance Ministry. Preisbestimmun en fuer
Grundstuecke, Mieten and Pachten, East Berlin, 1954, p. 155.
76. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1957, p. 498, 504, 5 -5 9.
77. Wochenbericht, 22 Aug 58, no 34, p. 135.
East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 160.
78. Ibid., p. 154.
79. Gleitze, op. cit. (4, above), p. 172.
80. Wochenbericht, 23 Sep 55, no 38, p 152.
Statistisches Kompendium ueber die sowletische Besatzungszone,
rest Berlin, 1953, P. XXII/3. (reprinted from Vierteljahrs-
hefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 1950, no 4, p. 25
- 54 -
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Kupky, Helmut. "Die langfristige Entwicklung der Brutto-
Anlage-Investionen der mitteldeutschen Industrie von 1924
bis 1955," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 1957,
no 4, P. 396 ff.
81. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
L22, P. 172, 178, 262-263.
Wochenbericht, 18 Apr 57, no 16, p. 67-68.
82. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
, p. 182.
Wochenbericht, 22 Aug 58, no 34, p. 135-
83. Neues Deutschland, /E-as7 Berlin, 1 Apr 56, p. 5.
84. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 210-211.
Laenderrat, US Occupation Zone. Statistisches Handbuch von
Deutschland 1928-1944, Munich, 1949, p. 48-1-,--579.
85. Wochenbericht, 23 Sep 55, no 38, p. 152.
86. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
12L8, p. 172, 178, 262-263.
87. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1256, P. 516 ff.
88. Statistical appendix to Gruenig, Ferdinand. "Volkswirt-
schaftliche Gesamtrechnung einschliesslich Geldvermoegensrech-
nung-fuer die Bundesrepublik," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirt-
schaftsforschung, 1958, no 1, p. 40.
89. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1955, p. 227.
Ibid., 1956j, p. 223.
90. Bartels, H.; Raabe, K.H.; and Schoerry, 0. "Das Sozialprodukt
in den Jahren 1950 bis 1959," Wirtschaft and Statistik, Jan 60,
,no 1, p- 15.
91. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 256, p. 51 -521.
Schoerry, Otto. "Volkseinkommen, Sozialprodukt and Zahlungs-
bilanz des Bundesgebiets im ersten Marshallplanjahr 1948/49,"
Wirtschaft and Statistik, Dec 49, no 9, p. 256. ff
Schoerry, Otto. "Das Volkseinkommen and Sozialprodukt im
Bundesgebiet im Jahre 1949," Wirtschaft and Statistik, Jul 50,
no 9, p. 108-111.
Schoerry, Otto. "Das Volkseinkommen und.Sozialprodukt im
Bundesgebiet im 1. Halbjahr 1950," Wirtschaft and Statistik,
Dec 50, no 9, P. 324 ff.
Schoerry, Otto, and Hoppe, Hans. "Das Volkseinkommen and
Sozialprodukt im Bundesgebiet im 2. Halbjahr 19511 and im
Jahre 1951," Wirtschaft and Statistik, May 52, no 5, p. 189. ff.
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92. Statistical appendix to Gruenig, Ferdinand. "Volkswirtschaft-
liche Gesamtrechnung einschliesslich Geldvermoegensrechnung
fuer die Bundesrepublik," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschafts-
forschung, 1958, no 1, p. 0.
Ibid., 1959, no 1, P. 58.
93. Gruenig, Ferdinand. Versuch einer Volksvermoe ensrechnun
der Deutschen Bundesrepublik (DIW Sonderhefte, Neue Folge
No. 41, Reihe B), West Berlin, 1958, p. 46.
94. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 195 , p. 18-
95- SPD Information Service. Die Reparationen (18, above).
Bremen Committee for Economic Research, og. cit. (18, above),
p. 86-87.
96. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
195~, p. 176.
97. Arnold Hans, et al. Oekonomik der sozialistischen Industrie
in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, fE-as7 Berlin, 4th
ed, 1958, p. 299.
Tannhaeuser, Siegfried. "Zum materiellen and oekonomischen
Verschleiss der Arbeitsmittel in der sozialistischen
Industrie," Wirtschaftswissenschaft, 1957, no 2, p. 228.
Kupky, op. cit. (80, above , P. 397.
98. Haufschild LI-no first nam. ABC der Abschreibungssaetze,
LEasJ Berlin, 1957, p.' 49 ff.
Thamm, Johannes, e &J. Der Betriebsplan des volkseigenen
Industriebetriebes, fE-as 7 Berlin, 1952, p. 258.
Arnold, et al., 22. cit. 97, above), p. 295, 297.
99. West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland !9j6, p. 135-136, 30 ff,
51, 55?
100. UN. Economic Bulletin for Europe, Geneva, 1949, no 3, p. 26.
101. Schoerry, Otto, and Hoppe, Hans. "Das Volkseinkommen im
Bundesgebiet im 2. Halbjahr 1951 and im Jahre 1951," Wirt-
schaft and Statistik, May 52, no 5, p. 194.
Schoerry, Otto. "Das Sozialprodukt im 2. Halbjahr and im
Jahre 1955," Wirtschaft and Statistik, Apr 56, no 4, p. 187.
West German Statistical Office. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer
die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1957, P. 561.
102. Statistical appendix to Gruenig, Ferdinand. "Volkswirtschaftliche
Gesamtrechnung einschliesslich Geldvermoegensrechnung fuer die
Bundesrepublik," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung,
1958, no 1, p. 40.
103. East German State Central Administration for Statistics.
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik
1957, p. 514.
56
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US Joint Publications Research Service. JFRS/DC-349, Foreign
Trade of'the USSR 1956 (tr of Vneshnyaya torgovlya SSSR za
1956 god), 1958.
Ibid., JPRS/526-D, Foreign Trade of the USSR 1957 (tr of
Vneshnyaya torgovlya SSSR za 1957 god), 1959-
104. Mendershausen, Horst. "Terms of Trade Between the Soviet
Union and Smaller Communist Countries 1955-57," Review of
Economics and Statistics, May 59, no 2, pt I, p. 1111+ 117.
105. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, 10 Aug 57,
p. 7.
106. SPD Information Service. Die Reparationen (18, above),
p. 24 and passim.
Gruenig, op. cit. (34, above), p. 33.
107. UN. Economic Survey of Europe in 1957, Geneva, 1958,
chap 6, p. 29.
Wochenbericht, 22 Aug 58, no 34, p. 135.
108. Quietzsch, Eberhard. "Kommerzielle Dienstleistungen im
Aussenhandel der DDR," Der Aussenhandel (East German Foreign
Trade Ministry), Mar 58, no 4/5, p. 145-146.
Wochenbericht, 6 Dec 57, no 49, p. 197.
Vorwaerts, Easg Berlin, 11 Nov 57, P. 3?-
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