ABSTRACT
The East Germans repeatedly evoked political arguments to lobby for more favorable terms of trade, and Ulbricht often accused Gomulka of un-socialist economic practices. When the East Germans asked the other socialist countries for economic concessions, they never mentioned the German Democratic Republic (GDR) own trade with West Germany. The Poles accused the Socialist Unity Party of Germany of hypocrisy for attacking Polish trade policy. The East German exhortations fell on deaf ears. Faced with serious economic and political problems of its own, the Polish government could not afford to make economic sacrifices for the GDR. The repatriation of the Germans in Poland returned to the agenda of Polish-East German relations after Josef Stalin's death. Poland's trade with East Germany declined significantly in 1956–1957, forcing the East Germans to make numerous revisions in their new Five-Year Plan. Wladyslaw Gomulka flirtation with West Germany particularly rankled Ulbricht. Their first face-to-face meeting in June failed to clear the air.
