jul 25, 1950 - Walter Ulbritcht becomes the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany

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"Ulbritcht insisted that East Germans could fix this problem by simply working harder: he instituted a program of rapid industrialisation similar to what Stalin had undertaken in the Soviet Union….this…deepened the economic crisis, provoking unrest, and driving thousands of East Germans to emigrate to West Germany, which was still possible through the open border that separated east from west berlin." (Gaddis 2006, p. 106)

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