An Empirical Research on the Agricultural Collectivization and the Change of the Village Structure in Post-War East Germany

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the process of collectivization and the change of the village structure empirically in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 1952-1961. Above all it focuses upon 1)the difference between new- and old-farmer villages, 2)the problems of rural refugees from the eastern territories, and 3)conflicts of building such as barns and houses within the village.In Kreisarchv Bad Doberan there are 28 files on forming and development of collective farms of 1950's in this county. I was surprised at the remarkable diversity of collectivization which had emerged from reading them carefully.Firstly in the new farmer villages where land reform had actually lead to the social chaos, the collectivization was one of the measures to resolve this situation. We find here two different paths to LPG in 1950's. In several villages a minority group had founded their LPG for the purpose of holding the material resource of village such as barns. However, they failed in this attempt because o … More f effects of "17 June", furthermore it resulted often in dissolution of the LPG. On the other hand there are some successful examples of LPG which developed their organization against effects of "17 June". They succeeded in obtaining the capital fund from above for building new modern barn.Secondly in the old farmer villages not merely the influx of refugees but also the policy agains "Grossbauer" in 1952-1953 had a significant impact on the social structure. It is important that others in the village agreed the purge of "Grossbauern". The LPG in Hohenfelde, which I have investigated in detail, was founded in 1953 by a group of refugee-new- farmers, based on the rich material resources from a broken-down "Grossbauern". Further, taking the village farm (OLB) in 1955 caused the expansion of LPG and the change of its inner structure, associated with the appearance of new rural technocrat outside village. The family members of "Grossbauern" who remained in village adapted to this situation through getting marriage, joining the LPG, and taking the job in MTS. Less