The list of scarce goods at socialism was infinitely long. A new car in Bulgaria has been waiting for years. To quell discontent in the GDR, in the 1970s the authorities decided to import a particularly desirable car.
Since the 1970s "Volkswagen Golf" also available in the GDR. The leadership of the communist state then decided to import a certain number of Western cars. But those wishing to buy a Golf had to have either good connections or a lot of luck, writes ARD.
Volkswagen Golf quickly became a market hit in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A check of the company's archives from August 1989 shows that by the end of the GDR's existence, 27,000 Golfs were in operation there.
They were serviced in 19 Volkswagen workshops, equipped with the corresponding original spare parts, and the mechanics were trained by their Western colleagues.
A car has been waiting for years
In the mid-1970s, the new GDR leadership led by Erich Honecker faced enormous problems: the economy was unable to meet the needs of the population. Attempts to teach East Germans to drink ersatz coffee (made from rye or barley) by presenting it as a “refined variety of coffee”, then only increased popular anger.
But coffee is only one example of the huge shortage of goods. Although the factories in the GDR were working at full speed, there was a very long wait for new cars. In general, the leadership of the communist state has not been able to satisfy the needs of the population, whose purchasing power has been constantly increasing, ARD points out.
Salvation – Volkswagen Golf
Then the state leadership decided to import a large batch of ultra-modern Volkswagen-branded cars. At the time, the company was looking for new markets and exploring export opportunities in the Eastern Bloc, China and Latin America. The contract for import into the GDR was concluded very quickly. Thus, at the end of 1977, the population of the GDR learned that they could also get a modern Western car, and with East German brands.
Depending on the equipment level, the car was supposed to cost between 27,200 and 35,000 East German marks – at prices from the end of 1977. The purchase of cars from West Germany was arranged through a barter deal. In return, the FRG bought raw materials and parts for 108 million German marks.
Continuation of the contract
After tough negotiations, the two sides find a way to continue this cooperation. The East German courier company "Genex", through which West Germans sent gifts to their relatives in the GDR, included in its catalog for 1981 the VW-Golf cars – of course against West German marks.
Initially, it was planned that 1,000 cars would reach the GDR in this way. Subsequently, however, the contract was expanded and the volume of these deliveries reached 2,500 cars per year. A curious fact recalls in this connection the ARD: in the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Horst Münzner, also responsible for the transactions with the GDR, ordered through "Genex" a golf for his brother in East Germany.
Huge deficit
In the GDR, cars were always in short supply, and in the 1980s the shortage deepened further. The elite in the communist state drove Citroen and Volvo imported from France and Sweden. And people with sufficiently thick connections and solvent relatives in the West had the opportunity to acquire a VW-Golf. Among imported Western cars in the GDR, Volkswagen had a market share of 75 percent, ARD also informed.
At the same time, imports from Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Soviet Union were constantly falling, and annually the GDR managed to produce no more than 220,000 cars. At one point, demand soared that even scrap cars and badly wrecked cars were traded at significant prices to be repaired and put back on the road.
A report from the Central Committee of the GESP (the communist party in the former GDR) dated July 3, 1989 shows that 560,000 households in East Berlin had nearly 550,000 outstanding car orders, some of which had already been placed back in 1973, writes ARD.