Cardboard DDR Badge

[david f]

Is this where i put this??

[Kenny Andrew]

Hi Dave, I'm sure we'll have a DDR Forum soon

[Greg]

it looks like sports or youth group to me but my DDR knowledge is more on NVA Pioneer Units.

[david f]

Hi Greg,

Its the badge of the Deutsch-Sowjetische-Freundschaft.

Love most of this kind of thing.

[Kenny Andrew]

Very nice David, looks similar to the Third Reich cardboard rally badges, probably made by the same manufacturer who made them during the war.   

[Fritz]

Text is about an event during 1952, it states - Month of German-Soviet Friendship.

From early till the end in 1989, there existed a society called same: Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft - DSF, which was later situated in the Friedrichstraße in Berlin. This still existed for a few years after the re-unification, and I think there is still some sort of successor-organisation, now "Deutsch-Russische Freundschaft".

This is briefly explained under:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_German–Soviet_Friendship

 

[Fritz]

12 hours ago, kenny andrew said:

Very nice David, looks similar to the Third Reich cardboard rally badges, probably made by the same manufacturer who made them during the war.   

There were no same manufacturers from earlier times. Everything was produced by state run VEB manufacturers (Volks eigener Betrieb)

[Kenny Andrew]

Are you sure Paul? I would have thought the factories would still exist even if run by the new state owners the DDR. The badge is very similar to those made by E.O. Friedrich of Leipzig whose factory would have been in the former DDR after the war. Here is a badge by the same maker whilst this one is made from Efoplast the construction is very similar to the pressed cardboard badges.

[Fritz]

The construction and materials may be similar - Preßstoff or Preßpapier, but all private firm owners were dispossessed, everything was state run - perhaps 98%, on the other hand there remained just a very few self employed or small family businesses. All manufacturing industries were then state-run, V.E.B. - as "Volkseigener Betrieb"

One of the very few exceptions I can think of is a firm in Lübbenau/Spreewald (Brandenburg), Metallbau Franke,

Franke & Sohn Ofenbau & Fliesenleger M.-Betr.

Berliner Str. 29 A, 03222 Lübbenau/Spreewald

(0 35 42) 29 98

which was formerley an ironworks, and half of the town belonged to the Franke family. They managed to keep their firm despite all odds, oposition and threats of the S.E.D. and still run many businesses in the town of Lübbenau. Frau Christina Franke was very much of a "Multi-Tasker", when I knew her at a business school in Berlin, where she was working parttime, commuting to and from Lübbenau sveral days a week and helping the family businesses at the same time, that was in 2001-2002.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkseigener_Betrieb

All land was also confiscated - socalled "Agrar- und Bodenreform", which was put through 1947-49 in the action "Junker-Land in Bauernhand", all agriculture, farmers and farms were organised in "Kollektive", so-called "L.P.G. organisations (a form of co-operatives) - "Landwirtschaftliche Produktions-Genossenschaften". The same also applied to all landowners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landwirtschaftliche_Produktionsgenossenschaft

There was no continuation between the Third Reich and the DDR. The Soviet Union decided everything and put the responsability for all changes into the hands of the S.E.D. under Otto Grotewohl and Walter Ulbricht.

 

[Kenny Andrew]

Hi Paul, yes that's what I meant, the badges were probably made by the same company, although the management would be different, unless perhaps the owner of the business joined the Communist party, or did everybody in East Germany have to join the Communist Party anyway? 

Here is some more information I found out about the company from an address book from 1949 , it states the business as  E.O. Friedrich, Buchbinderei, Täubchenweg 83, Leipzieg, Germany. So there seems to be a connection with paper manufactured items. I had a look on google maps to see if the business was still there, but it seems to be a shop now, however across the road at number 84 the building has what looks like large Nazi eagles on the wall, which a stone mason has possibly added faces to, I wonder what this building was during the war? Maybe the design is just a coincidence but the wings certainly look like the national eagle.

Here is the link to the google map

https://goo.gl/maps/RyZSnq3eyNy

[Fritz]

No, these are not Third Reich eagles, they are original to the building, which is much older, Gründerzeit - Kaiserzeit, after 1871, but somewhat before 1900. This is known as "Zuckerbäckerstil", being decorative frieses, etc. on buildings, very popular in the Kaiserzeit. You can still see them today on many older buildings in various cities.
Not everyone was in the S.E.D., but to get anywhere or to become anything important, you had to join, almost everything was orgainised by a party organisation, and most children and juveniles had to be in the Jungpioniere or in the Thälmann-Pioniere and later F.D.J. Gradually all private firms like the one you mentioned were taken over, "nationalized" and the owners forced out without compensation. Same as to nice houses anyone owned, the Stasi came and offered to buy the house, for much less of the value, and if the owner didn't comply, he would soon land in Hohenschönhausen or Bautzen. As I mentioned before, very very few were able to successfully resist these measures.

See also illustrations to LPG

Hohenschönhausen - more than a prison, this was the ultimate in prisons, now kept under conservation,
with guided tours to visitors.

[Fritz]

This also applied to anyone collecting, having antiques (incl. militaria) or fine works of art - purchase offer or compensation, and if not, again, the other measures
The bounty would then be sold off abroad by the state owned firm headed by Alexander Schalk-Kolodkowsky, as a DDR-Außenhandelsunternehmen, this brought in badly needed "Devisen" - currency, such as D-Mark, Dollars, etc. The Stasi is even known to have stolen from smaller provincial museums, the items turned up later at renouned auction houses in London, Amsterdam and elsewhere.

[Kenny Andrew]

Cheers Paul, the DDR sounds a nightmare, just as well the wall came down. Pity about the eagles I thought I had stumbled across a relic of the Reich, but as you say the building does look much older than 1930's, as we would say here more Victorian in style, the building next to it has some very nice Zuckerbäckerstil too      

[Fritz]

Most "relics of the Reich" have long since been defaced - you can see them on larger public buildings dating from that period. Sometimes the eagle is still in place, the swastika removed, etc. That also applies to the West. However, there have been recent complaints in Lübeck about the Holstentor (photo), still having swastikas on some remote parts of the structure, which can barely be seen. I don't know if anything has been done about this. They have no sense of history anymore in this state.

I remember the old Polizeipräsidium in Berlin-Lichtenberg still has the old Imperial Eagle beautifully done on the face of the building. Strangely enough this was never removed. This, as far as I remember, was done in coloured (black)white) and gold mosaique stones.

After the war ended, the first measures of the Allies were "Entnazifizierung" in every way. That even included books in private households.
Everything was confiscated or destroyed. Weapons found in the house brought about the immediate death penalty for all adult males in that household, that even included swords or bayonets.

Another case is the church bell in Herxheim am Berg - church of St.Jakob, there is a bell, which was installed in those years and still bears the symbols. There have been complaints about this. Nothing happened so far, the cost of replacing the bell would be high and it's away from public view anyway, there is talk of erasing the symbols and dedication, etc.

http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/hakenkreuz-verzierung-seit-1934-streit-um-hitler-glocke-gemeinde-sucht-loesung-fuer-historisches-vermaechtnis_id_7178760.html

 

[Kenny Andrew]

I like the bell

[Fritz]

yes, indeed, it's simply a product of it's time. The bell has since been defaced by someone unknown, during the night it was ground out completely by someone with an electric grinder. I think the bell has since been removed and there is talk of getting a new bell, but so far no agreement has been reached.