"Like wildfire" The east German rising of June 1953

Abstract

Before the archives of the East German state were opened in the early 1990s the rising of June 1953 had already been well documented, largely on the basis of eyewitness reports and the East German press. It was thought that up to 372,000 workers took strike action, and that many of these participated, along with several hundred thousand others, in marches, rallies, occupations and other forms of direct action. Much was known about the sequence of events, the demands voiced, and about some of the individuals involved. As the first of several mass uprisings against Stalinist regimes, but doubtless also due to the breathtaking speed with which a strike at a Berlin building site spread to other workplaces and thence to streets and public squares nationwide, it attracted a good deal of attention from historians. An abundance of books, articles and pamphlets followed.