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East Germany’s secret businesses: Commercial Coordination
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2 жыл бұрынAlthough East Germany was a communist country, it earned billions on the capitalistic market. For this purpose. secret division Commercial Coordination (‘Kommerzielle Koordinierung’) had been established in the sixties. This video tells you all about the division’s main activities, which were sometimes far from honest and morally acceptable.
Note: For the sake of simplicity, in the video I mention amounts in Deutsche Mark (D-Mark or DM), which is not completely correct. I should have said ‘Valutamark’ (VM), which was the convertible currency on the international trade market (1 DM = 1 VM). And 1 DM = 1 VM = 4,4 M the local GDR currency in 1989)
By the way: Keep in mind that due to inflation the amounts today would be at least five times as high.
And for the sake of completeness: 1 USD was roughly worth about 2 DM. And 1 GBP was worth roughly 4 DM.
Used abbreviation: GDR - German Democratic Republic (DDR in German)
Books used for preparing this video (unfortunately only available in German):
- Der Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung - M. Just
- Die Schalck Papiere - W. Seiffert & N. Treutwein
- Wer verkaufte die DDR - Klaus Blessing
Sources and credits of the pictures:
- Schalck-Golodkowski photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1988-0317-312 / Brüggmann, Eva / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikime...
- Chruschtschow auf dem V. Parteitag der SED in der Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle in Berlin, 1958. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-57000-0139 / Horst Sturm / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikime...
- Das Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost in Stalinstadt. Aufnahme vom 10. November 1952. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-17138-0003 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikime...
- Lebensmittelgeschäft der HO (1950). Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-08328-0006 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikime...
- Franz Josef Strauss (By: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1990-0226-315 / Mittelstädt, Rainer / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikime...)
@chromelemon Жыл бұрын
I’m so happy that a channel like this exists. There is so much material out there on the DDR but it’s all in German. Thanks for putting in the effort!
@NandiCollector Жыл бұрын
*So true. Being from an ex-communist country like Albania, it always fascinated me to learn more about the East Bloc countries, especially the DDR.*
@danielryan9126 24 күн бұрын
Agree. I like cold war history of Germany and am in USA.
@KomradZX1989 6 ай бұрын
This story is ABSOLUTELY INSANE!!! CoCo sounds more like a state-sanctioned mafia than a “commercial coordination committee” 😂🤯
@duitseles9687 3 сағат бұрын
The State IS the mafia, no matter where you live. Taxes are protection money.
@scfan7231 Жыл бұрын
German here. Learned about all these things on KZfaq some 3-4 years ago. It's great that there is now an English-language channel, and my feeling is that you cover things with just the right depth.
@DiegoSilva_88 Жыл бұрын
I’ve discovered this channel in the last few days! Having a lot of curiosity about GDR, your videos are very helpful. Thank you
@Love.life.ashigzoya 11 ай бұрын
Thank you very educative and refreshing . Times have changed since then but Germany is still not a free country This holds Germans hostage to economic forces in service of Washington .The energy crisis is hostage to this. Time Germans take to deciding about their destiny on own not by Atlanticists. Maj gen IA veteran
@A_10_PaAng_111 6 ай бұрын
In the East it was called CoCo, in the West they called it Mafia. Loan sharking, money laundering etc.
@oldmanc2 11 ай бұрын
Absolutely fascinating. I met a former DDR Political prisoner on a tour of Hochenhausen Prison in Berlin. She had been sold to West Germany in the early 80s.
@buckwylde7965 Жыл бұрын
Thanks! You are right, there are no in-depth channels exploring the DDR in English. I 've been fascinated with this country since when it still was a country. The more I know about the DDR the stranger it seems. Mach weiter so!
@eastgermanyinvestigated Жыл бұрын
Thank you!
@Hongaars1969 Жыл бұрын
Once more…most detailed and probably the only English language channel specialising in all matters DDR related. Fascinating insights abound not least of all, the hypocrisy inherent within the deeply flawed system with blatant corruption, nepotism, and downright lies.
@memesthatmakeyouwannadie3133 6 ай бұрын
The GDR did not do a single bad thing besides things every other state does. “Ohhh they spied on people. They tortured people.” NSA wiretapping and Guantanamo Bay also exist.
@greenockscatman Ай бұрын
Remarkable channel. I've been binge watching these videos today!
@DevynCairns Жыл бұрын
I was most surprised by the fact that they were lending money to the state for high interest rates. That just sounds like an unnecessary level of corruption that I can't really fathom why the state would accept that
@donquixote3927 11 ай бұрын
I imagine the Directors became so wealthy from these activities they began to dictate or bribe policy to their liking.
@lunabouch 6 ай бұрын
Thanks again for the continued interesting history of the DDR. I appreciate your direct and thoughtful facts and best of all in English! Danke
@santiagoarestegui Жыл бұрын
Speeaking of the GDR arms deals, there was a political scandal in Peru for the purchasing of assault rifles in the late 1980s. I remember it every time I see them still being used by police.
@EuropeanQoheleth 11 ай бұрын
Prisoners donated blood in the 80s...ugh this reminds me of the tainted blood scandal in the 1980s (which in Ireland was the SECOND tainted blood scandal; the first one was about hepatitis from the 1950s).
@cv990a4 2 ай бұрын
Literally squeezing blood from its population to sell. The system was rotten to the core.
@relo999 Ай бұрын
"Fun" fact, the DDR's blood had a similar scandal. The DDR claimed nobody in the DDR had HIV and claimed they tested the blood, guess how much those claims were worth when loads of people got HIV in west Germany after surgery or otherwise needing blood. They didn't test any blood for HIV even when people in the DDR tried to get tested themselves.
@PascalGienger 5 ай бұрын
West Berliners had an easy access to an Intershop to buy their alcohol and tobacco: S-Bahn Station Alexanderplatz. It was in Eastern Berlin but trains to and from West Berlin called there, too - so an Intershop was on a platform in the tightly controlled "West Berlin" section.
@edwardgaeth4399 5 ай бұрын
Thanks for your channel and good work. Incredibly interesting to me. Spent 6 weeks traveling throughout East Germany in early 2001. I had a personal tour guide. My x wife who was from the Saxony area. If I only had a fraction of the information I’ve learned from your channel back then. I was the first American/foreigner in the village she grew up in she said. Thank you again.
@XxLIVRAxX 7 ай бұрын
Talking about socialism and hostage taking, the chavista regime in Venezuela also uses political prisioners as trading chips for negotiations with the USA.
@HansBezemer Жыл бұрын
Als landgenoot was ik blij je kanaal ondekt te hebben. Ik heb heel wat tijd in de DDR doorgebracht in mijn tijd (met name "Die Hauptstadt der DDR") en je videos zijn een feest van herkenning! Ik kan alleen maar stellen, dat waar andere kanalen regelmatig de fout ingaan, ik je nog niet heb kunnen betrappen op een foutje ;-) Klasse!
@eastgermanyinvestigated Жыл бұрын
Dankjewel voor je reactie, Hans. En mocht je me op een fout betrappen, dan hoor ik het uiteraard graag.
@RazzerKFG 28 күн бұрын
Am glad to learn something new, history is a favorite subject of mine, grand channel! - one of the other incomes, not just for DDR, but for the eastern blok in general was postage stamps, known in the west as "Wallpaper", pretty images printed by the millions and send to western collectors, funny when you think of the dislike that the socialists had of stampcollectors early on due to being an "upper class" hobby.
@agy234 6 ай бұрын
As an American I am very excited about this channel. There are not very many English sources about the GDR
@MlleLolaBelle 11 ай бұрын
What a great idea to create content in english about DDR👏👏. Love your videos
@Sierra-Whisky 11 ай бұрын
Not so long ago I saw a Dutch documentary about the history of Alpenkreuzer, a Dutch brand of popup campers produced in the DDR. Unfortunately I cannot find it again :(
@GrahamJonesJr 6 ай бұрын
Fabulous. There is a German limited series called “BERLIN WALL” in the US with English subtitles that deals with KoKo on human level. It, too, is excellent; I found it on one of the major streaming services. And if that isn’t enough for your DDR habit, there’s “LINES OF SEPARATION” also available for streaming with subtitles. Both are very well-written and have absolutely fantastic acting. Enjoy.
@AuntieTrichome 7 ай бұрын
There is a German mini series made on the subject called “Preis der Freiheid”. It’s worth a peep.
@1joshjosh1 11 ай бұрын
I need to centrally planned economy for myself
@bubba842 Ай бұрын
There is an excellent German TV show dram called "Berlin Wall" that is about a senior member of KOKO during the last days of the GDR. Its an excellent show and o hoghly recommend it to anyone interested in East German history. I saw it on PBS on Amazon Prime (Canada).
@supergilliar 9 ай бұрын
Great video. Super production, information and engaging.
@Logosascha Ай бұрын
You forgot to mention GENEX. Very good content, thank you!
@markotango54 6 ай бұрын
Your channel is truly fascinating, thank you so much for taking the time and efforts for your channel
@mariacuachon3906 11 ай бұрын
Very interesting, thank you😮
@MikeJT62 Жыл бұрын
Very informative, love your videos, thank you!
@tmsrrr Жыл бұрын
Great videos, really happy I found your channel!
@cunningplan9049 2 ай бұрын
I suppose you have seen the fantastic TV Series Deutschland 83/86/89 ? In the 86 Series the scandalous affairs of KoKo were also mentioned.
@cactussauce3452 Жыл бұрын
Another great video. Extremely interesting!
@fratercontenduntocculta8161 6 ай бұрын
I do know that one of East Germany's last commercial enterprises was a division of their firearms manufacturing and were planning on selling guns to American Civilians. They were AK clones given the trade name "Weiger". Would you do a feature on the Kampfgruppen der arbeitsklasse? I can't find any reliable info on them in English. Thank you!
@poissonpuerile8897 Жыл бұрын
The GDR's dire economic situation at the time was also due to (a) World War II, (b) the Soviet Union extracting unfathomably massive reparations from the GDR (which included disassembling almost every vaguely usable factory in the country and shipping it to Russia), and (c) the Soviet Union forcing the GDR to spend about 10% of its GDP on defense. I also believe the GDR had to finance its own occupation by the Soviet Union.
@eastgermanyinvestigated Жыл бұрын
There definitely is a lot more to tell about the economy of the GDR. The topic is on my list of future videos.
@BB-kt5eb Жыл бұрын
Those are all contributing factors, but problems were bound to arise either way. It probably could’ve lasted another decade or so without those problems, but even then, I’m not sure they could’ve held on in the face of all the other Soviet bloc nations turning away from communism.
@caezar55 Жыл бұрын
The main economic problem was a little thing called communism.
@jean6872 Жыл бұрын
@@BB-kt5eb Once Gorbachev took over the Soviet Union and introduced glasnost and perestroika and jettisoning the Warsaw Pact, the DDR was doomed.
@liliya_aseeva Жыл бұрын
The reparations claim and deindustrialization program was dropped almost immediately after DDR's formal inception, since the DDR was formally a friendly socialist state. But the claim about defence budget quotas is probably valid. I think that Soviet union did not claim any money for the defence of East Germany (unlike the US does), but of course Soviet forces were stationed there for free.
@flowersofthefield340 11 ай бұрын
Always follow the money in an organisation .....
@oesypum 11 ай бұрын
You mention the appropriation of valuables from private ownership, and museums, subsequently sold in the west, but make no mention of the forgery that was undertaken by the state, this primarily affects philatelic material.
@markavons3400 Жыл бұрын
Very well researched video and very interesting
@MichaelK.-xl2qk Жыл бұрын
The toxic waste/trash dumping business sounds like a classic organized crime networking affair. How many bodies ended up under tons of industrial waste?
@arthurroberts4504 8 ай бұрын
Very interesting KZfaq channel - I lived through years of the cold war but only had a sketchy knowledge of what was going on in East Germany.
@danielp157 9 ай бұрын
Very interesting! i did not know about this! Thanks!
@urtreehugginghippies Жыл бұрын
Great video! Love the economic stuff
@joyce120860 7 ай бұрын
Goede docu’s, interessant, bedankt. Groet, Matty
@hantykje3005 Жыл бұрын
Great content! Im Norwegian, and I have found a set of dinner plates produced in East Germany.
@chadwahl9085 Жыл бұрын
In the Deutschland TV series they had touched on this subject.
@displacedyankee7819 6 ай бұрын
I believe I got to visit an Intershop in 1987 when my high school exchange group took a bus from Hamburg to Berlin. I bought a big Toblerone
@marcheprovencal592 Жыл бұрын
learnt a lot. thank u very much!!
@2broketim479 Жыл бұрын
excellent work! keep the videos coming...
@WINSTANLEYOBXa 27 күн бұрын
Superb
@abookmaker6344 11 ай бұрын
Excellent channel.
@simonstergaard Жыл бұрын
Nice. I have never heard of CoCo, and i have seen ALL the available DDR docus from ZDF, RBB etc. etc.
@DeltaStar777 Ай бұрын
I can highly recommend the book The ideal world of dictatorship by Stefan Wolle
@sophiawisdom3429 6 ай бұрын
When you talk about CoCo loans you say they set up a lending business in the west, but typically that would mean a business lending money *to* the west, not a business borrowing money *from* the west.
@benediktmorak4409 6 ай бұрын
maybe a secret for you. but not for - us - . Politics was one thing. Business was another. - Messe Leipzig - was the best example for it...
@mrgarypettit 2 ай бұрын
American here. I lived in the DDR from late summer 1989-July 1990, after the “Wende”. I received an official response from the German Government a couple of years ago that my Stasi file had been destroyed a long time ago, and cannot be sent to me. Were many people successfully able to get theirs, or did most get destroyed? Thanks in advance for any knowledge on the matter.
@jean-pierrehugotin 6 ай бұрын
Excellent! Great job!
@baihui7349 7 ай бұрын
Similar things happened in Bulgaria
@aidankerr1125 Жыл бұрын
There’s so few sources about Koko in English - both academic and commercial history - it is really bizarre.
@OTCR96 2 ай бұрын
Net het boek 'het dossier'(roman) gelezen, gaat ook o.a. over activiteiten van de KoKo, een aanrader.
@give_me_my_nick_back Жыл бұрын
As a kid i used to have a 10-12m high by 3-4m wide DDR flag, we used to make a tent using it and it eventually got all ripped apart. I have no idea where it came from but I'm so sad it got wasted...
@chrism1102 3 ай бұрын
Does anyone know if East Germans could purchase items at the Intershops if they had foreign currency? If so, would they have to explain how they received it?
@wertywerrtyson5529 Жыл бұрын
I’ve had some products made in East Germany. I always thought it was strange for a socialist country to sell products to capitalist countries.
@alepaz1099 6 ай бұрын
totally insane!🤯🤯
@hazchemel Жыл бұрын
Many thanks. What was DDR government's attitude towards religious institutions, including the neighbourhood parish church?
@petersandberg1061 7 ай бұрын
Interesting. I was involved in a project via RFT in 1989, which I suspect was intended to generate foreign currency...
@simonf8902 Жыл бұрын
Maximal hypocrisy department. 😂
@RoniiNN 6 ай бұрын
Reminds me of North Korea and there office 7 or whatever is called. probably more beneficial for the NK regime than the GDR koko.
@theMOCmaster 10 ай бұрын
Can you cover the bloc parteis, and what motivation citizens would have to join parties other than the SED? Did they really believe they could make the country more nationalist by joining the NDPD, or more liberal by joining the JDPD, or more Christian by joining the East German CDU?
@LowSkillSurvival Ай бұрын
It takes a Dutch to finally hear german words pronounced correctly. Figures.
@blackthirt33n 11 ай бұрын
Could you have or do you have in German
@Deeeeeznuttttts Ай бұрын
it’s almost like communism can’t survive without capitalism.
@160rpm 10 ай бұрын
Ok, they were the DDR Treuhand haha
@bentobarreirinhas5702 19 күн бұрын
I like videos about DDR. I would support your channel if you were favourable towards "east Germany". But your not, so I won't help. Most your videos are a balance between useful information and the rage your comments cause, so not positive
@AIEnhanced-ts5ko Жыл бұрын
All socialist countries had more or less similar undercover buisneses.
@andred7684 Жыл бұрын
Yup. Even the USSR had kinda sorta undercover businesses prompted by the very own populace
@sidm479 3 ай бұрын
My favorite channel. I'm fascinated with the DDR. I don't really know why lol.