ABSTRACT
The German Democratic Republic (GDR) economic planners' formula for dealing with the crisis was to increase exports, above all to the West, and, simultaneously, to reduce drastically imports from the West, in order to achieve large surpluses. At the same time, the GDR made extensive use of its opportunities in inner-German economic relations to moderate the foreign trade and payments burden, in that it shifted a part of its trade with the West to inner-German trade and, in addition, by means of a number of humanitarian concessions, made possible two government-supported one-billion credits from the Federal Republic. But the economic links with Western markets, too, exert a considerable influence on development in the GDR: recessions and inflation in Western countries, as well as increasing protectionism in the world economy, do significant harm to the developmental prospects of the GDR.
