The Minutes of the Politbureau from 1971 to 1980

The Minutes of the Central Secretariat of the SED and the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the SED from 1946 to 1989 are key source material for research on the history of the SBZ/GDR and its political elites. Both committees were the political nerve centers of the emerging, and later fully established, GDR. The original documents from the meetings of both these political bodies provide unique evidence of the development of the GDR from the post-war period to the fall of the Berlin wall. This part covers the fair-copy minutes, drafts and appendixes from 517 meetings held by the Politbureau between January 1971 and December 1980. Examples of occurrences during this period are the policy of détente in the early 1970s and Biermann's denaturalization in 1976. The subject matter coverd by the protocols bears witness to the Politbureau's unlimited regulatory function and immense power. Their scope reaches from foreign policy and the GDR's 'Deutschlandpolitik', industry, agriculture, trade, national education, culture and sport, to detailed questions about supplying the public with consumer goods.