The brown gold of East Berlin: a look at East Germanenergy policy in the ‘50s

In a modern economy, the energy industry has an important role to play, which could not be possible without coal, power, heating oil, fuels and gas. Kaschade (2015) so begins his trilogy on energy economy of the GDR, whose history was strictly related to the management of its energy sector in the economic plans. This work examines the first fifteen years of of the Soviet Occupation Zone and the future GDR focusing on the development of this important player, energy, and on its use in industrial sector just in the aftermath of the second World War. The intervention deals with the impact of cuts of energy fuels consequently to the division of German territory on the raw materials-poor country, analyzing the measures taken in energy industry to overcome the crisis and re-start East-German economy as well as for building a new “modern” industrial country. These programs dealt with geographical, political and technical difficulties related to energy production, supply of sources and cooperation duties. In the short-term the brown coal seemed to be a great bases on which build the new energy system and contributed to the revival of its industrial apparatus. In the long run, however, and despite several measures to increase its production, it started share importance with crude oil.