I'm thinking of groups like the German military and security forces who I imagine were strongly anti-Communist, as well as most normal German folk especially with the propaganda, destruction and rape that occurred. How quickly did East Germany fully embrace Communism and its goals? Was this a way of furthering themselves from Nazism and the war? EDIT: I don't mean to say the whole country embraced Communism - I think the extensive Stasi network is proof that most citizens were skeptical of the system. But how far did Communist ideology seep into the populace, and why such a loyal security force for the GDR, to the point of walling off East Berlin?
I think one needs to distinguish between to different 'groups' in East Germany...
First, the institutions that arose out of the socialist organizations: the SED came out of the pre-war KPD and left wing of the SPD; the Stasi came out of the SED, etc. These were largely committed socialists (although many were not enthusiastic about Moscow-directed communism, but were willing to go along with it, because what other choice was there?) Many were idealists, and they wanted to built a successful, thriving socialist utopia.
Then there's the other organizations that were sort of incorporated. The police, post office, etc. Mostly, I'm thinking of the NVA--the German People's Army, though that wasn't officially formed until '56.
These non-socialist organizations often were a mishmash of earlier German traditions with a slathering of socialist (re-) 'education' and reorientation.
As one small example, when the NVA was formed, it's officers were almost 1/3 Wehrmacht veterans. But it was called the Peoples Army, it's mission to defend workers and farmers. (a socialist veneer... but an idea that even the Wehrmacht vets could get behind, namely, protecting "Germany"--just the Germany of workers and farmers.) And then there were concessions to tradition--such as, the NVA actually kept the goose-step (!), right up until the 1980s.
As to the NVA's relationship with the USSR? I honestly don't know much about that. I do know two general principles about the relationship between East Germany and Moscow:
and yet
Part One
The snarky answer is that the events of 1953 and 1989 in which masses of the people took to the streets in protest as well as the voluminous MfS records showing dissatisfaction with both the GDR state policies and the ruling circles of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) shows that by and large the bulk of the GDR's population never really did fully embrace communism. While the above is an over-simplification, the persistent unpopularity of the SED leadership and many aspects of a dictatorial state was one of the realities of the GDR and one which the SED leadership was actually rather well-informed upon. The leadership did attempt to rectify this problem through various initiatives and state programs, but with decidedly mixed success.
One of the problems of for the first generation of the GDR leadership was that many of these men had spent the period of 1933-1945 abroad. Not only had they spent the better part of a decade away from Germany, most of them had a very dim view of those Germans who remained behind under Hitler. Behind the sweeping rhetoric of unifying a broad spectrum of left-wing Germans- both emigres and Germans who remained, many of these KPD emigres mistrusted "native" communists and SPD members. Walter Ulbricht, for example, would often castigate the "natives" for submitting to Hitler behind closed doors. The Soviet occupation authority (SVAG) shared many of the emigres' sentiments about the trustworthiness of natives. SVAG's decision in June 1945 to allow the reestablishment of four political parties- the Communist Party (KPD), Socialist Party (SPD), the liberal democrats (LDP), Christian Democrats (CDU)- was a move that surprised many contemporaries at the time, but was actually in this spirit of subordinating these groups to reliable control by the KPD. In an August 1945 meeting with his officers, Zhukov explained this rationale behind allowing this bloc of left to center right political parties to operate inside Germany:
I am not at all in agreement with the idea that we should maintain an identical and equal relationship towards all parties of the bloc. We should comprehensively support one party [KPD] and enable it to increase its authority, while we should keep up the others with the aim of neutralising those strata of the population who support the two liberal bourgeois parties.
The Soviets funneled resources into the KPD-affiliated press and KPD heads enjoyed access to SVAG, while other party heads did not. In a time of real material dearth inside Germany, such access was vital political capital, but also alienated many on the left away from an alliance with the KPD. The failure of the Austrian Communist Party(KPÖ) to make headway in the November 1945 elections while the Austrian Social Democrats gained seats further alarmed SVAG that an independent SPD was too dangerous. Thus SVAG opted to push for a unification of both the KPD and SPD into a super-party, the SED in late 1946. SVAG's Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Tiulpanov warned Stalin that the KPD might suffer the same fate as the KPÖ if such an amalgamation did not happen. In theory, the SED was to be a symbol of a new Germany and political culture with a KPD leadership that would properly discipline its members, both SPD and KPD. In practice, this amalgamation led to a permanent split with the SPD of the Western zone. Ironically, the SED press reserved much of its bile for SPD politicians operating in the West during the first few years of the GDR's existence; while Adenauer may have been an closet fascist, in the SED press, but a figure like the SPD leader Herbert Wehner was a dangerous apostate sapping the strength of the German left.
As the SED leadership began to coalesce around a circle headed by Walter Ulbricht, the latter began a campaign of Aufbau des Sozialismus that would simultaneously restructure the GDR's economy and society. The SED tried to cultivate new loyalist cadres in key sectors of German society to build up a SED loyalist class. For instance, a peasant or proletarian class background became important for university admissions. In the field of mass education, the state's Neulehrer program sought to quickly train a large group of "antifascist" teachers who likewise had unproblematic class backgrounds. One interesting contrast to the FRG that highlights this attempt to build up loyal cadres was rearmament. Both the Bundeswehr and the Nationalvolksarmee initially relied on Wehmacht veterans to staff the initial formations. In both Germanys, there was a politically-charged selection process for its officers, with the GDR favoring POWs captured on the Eastern front. But unlike the Bundeswehr, the NVA retired its Wehrmacht officers in the 1960s when the SED had its own cadres trained and ready to take command of the NVA. To an extent, these attempts to create an indigenous cohort of SED loyalists achieved results. For example, many of the subsequent generation of SED functionaries began as Neulehrer. But Ulbricht's Aufbau des Sozialismus lavished resources on massive state projects which often came at the expense of the consumer economy. The SED constantly harped on its population to pitch in and sacrifice to rebuild a new and socialist Germany, but by the early 1950s, it was apparent that only a very few were benefiting from a prologues sacrifice. This helped push an exodus of GDR citizens to the West and tensions over the Aufbau project boiled over in the 1953 revolt.
Although the 1953 revolt shook many within the SED leadership to their core, the timing of the revolt meant that the Khrushchev found it expedient to blame it on Beria instead of Ulbricht, which many in the SED wanted the Soviets to do. But although Ulbricht remained in power, the Soviets pushed him towards easing up on the consumer economy and the resulting Neues Ökonomisches System (NES) sought to achieve prosperity through a rational management of the planned economy. The state eased production goals and gave more leeway for factory management and the promotion of a technocratic elite. The NES was in line with the wider Eastern bloc's post-Stalin economic system during the Khrushchev era (Vera Dunham's "Big Deal") in which Communist party rule did not promise a Utopian restructuring of society, but rather a more palpable goal of consumer goods and the good life. Leisure time increased during the 1960s as well as a modicum increase in the standard of living for the GDR society as a whole. Therefore, the GDR in the 1960s was a curious entity, a Stalinist style leadership presiding over a more liberalized economy.
The problem for the NES was that its liberalization was neither very practical nor effective over the long-term to fulfill the promises of the Big Deal. The late 1960s witnessed both persistent economic crises and political ones, in the latter case, Prague Spring demonstrated to the SED leadership the dangers of too much liberalization and the GDR was one of the strongest voices encouraging Soviet military intervention. Ulbricht reintroduced centralized state planning in light of criticism for the NES, but the failures of centralized planning led to his downfall and Erich Honecker's ascent to First Secretary. Honecker presided over a false dawn of sorts for the GDR economy, as the post-196 COMECON countries benefited from increased Soviet subsidies which in turn were buoyed by oil prices. The collapse of oil prices in the 1980s ended the subsidies and put the GDR's economy into a mode of persistent crisis that neither Honecker, nor his designated successor Egon Krenz, could resolve.
This leaves the question of to what degree the population of the GDR bought into the rhetoric of the SED. The restrictions on travel and other aspects of the SED monopoly on state power meant that many GDR citizens had no real choice but to deal with the state on the latter's own terms. One method of dealing with this political situation was through Eingaben (petitions) which was enshrined in the GDR's constitution and guaranteed the ability to complain about inequities and problems to higher authorities. A successful Eingaben typically meant engaging in the SED's own socialist rhetoric, being careful not to impugn the larger socialist project while holding the state up to its own rhetoric, and tailoring them to one's own individual needs and experience. Additionally, the gradual normalization of the postwar period, when coupled with the "Big Deal" meant that many more GDR citizens came into intimate contact with the state and its power over leisure. State-run sports clubs, popular cultural societies, historic preservation groups and other leisure organizations greatly expanded and engaged in a reciprocal process in which the SED functionaries interacted with GDR society on a local level. This particular Vergesellschaftung (societalization) of the SED at these grassroots level led the party to resemble more of society and vice-versa. As with the Eingaben, the Vergesellschaftung of the state's leisure activities do show a willingness to with the state, but often in a highly mediated and controlled process of give and take in which the SED sometimes did not come up on top. For example, the local organizers seldom devoted as much time and effort to celebrations of the state in theHeimat parades and celebrations of the late 1970s and 1980s as they did to floats and exhibits that showcased local historical pride.