A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany

Luis Martinez (), Jonas Jessen and Guo Xu

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 1, 68-106

Abstract: This paper exploits the idiosyncratic line of contact separating Allied and Soviet troops within East Germany at the end of WWII to study political resistance in a non-democracy. When Nazi Germany surrendered, 40 percent of what would become the authoritarian German Democratic Republic was initially under Allied control but was ceded to Soviet control less than two months later. Brief Allied exposure increased protests during the major 1953 uprising. We use novel data on the appointment of local mayors and a retrospective survey to argue that even a "glimpse of freedom" can foster civilian opposition to dictatorship.

JEL-codes: D72 D74 N44 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200456 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E138061V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200456.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200456.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany (2022)
Working Paper: A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany (2022)
Working Paper: A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany (2020)
Working Paper: A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:68-106

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/app.20200456

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().