Word: oelssner
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Dates: during 1958-1958
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...last meeting of the East German Politburo, then Deputy Premier Fred Oelssner. whom Ulbricht put in charge of production and distribution of consumer goods in 1955, bluntly declared that as things were going "the country can expect a total collapse of its economy by 1960." The whole Ulbricht philosophy of export-at-any-price, and of imposing impossible production goals upon industry, had led "to an economy of permanent crisis." The country was grievously short of raw materials, can not even depend on the cheap coal that Poland now sells to the West...
...Frankness. Ulbricht promptly denounced Oelssner as an "ideological mole." But Oelssner kept slashing away. He demanded that East Germany frankly explain its predicament to Moscow. He also prescribed frankness with the East German people. "We can get by," he said, "with promising the masses the lifting of rationing a fifth, possibly a sixth, time. But the seventh or eighth time, no one will believe...
Karl Schirdewan, long considered Ulbricht's heir apparent, rose to back up Oelssner. What had Ulbricht's policies actually accomplished, he asked, but the alienation of "the bourgeoisie, the youth, the intelligentsia, the housewives, and 2,000,000 refugees?" Ulbricht replied by kicking Oelssner and Schirdewan out of the Politburo...
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