Harry Nick (15 August 1932 – 7 December 2014) was an

East German East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

. He was a 57-year-old professor and department head at the Central Committee Academy for Social Sciences (''"Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim ZK der SED"'') in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

when street protesters broke through the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

in November 1989, after which many of his contemporaries rapidly disappeared into obscurity. Harry Nick emerged as a robust exponent of "economic literacy". He had always been prepared to argue his case, even when his evaluations were out of harmony with some

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

dogma of the moment: he spent the final decades of his life as a controversialist and media pundit, happy to explain what went wrong with the "socialist experiment" that was

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, but trenchant in his advocacy of core economic principals such as the central importance of shared "public" ownership of the

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

Life

Provenance and early years

Harry Nick was born in Borowo, a short distance outside

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

. The region had reverted to Polish control after

1918 The ceasefire that effectively ended the World War I, First World War took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year. Also in this year, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50–100 million people wor ...

but remained

multi-ethnic The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mult ...

throughout the 1930s. Nevertheless, even as a small child Harry Nick was, during 1939, intensely aware of the seemingly sudden erupting tensions between ethnic German speakers and ethnic Polish speakers. Harry Nick was from the ethnic German community, and would never forget the time when two friends from the Polish side of the growing ethnic divide told him, "You are a Schwob. Also, our parents have forbidden us from playing with you." His father was a

forestry worker Lumberjack is a mostly North American term for workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees. The term usually refers to loggers in the era before 1945 in the United States, when trees were felled us ...

. In January/February 1945 the family were driven west by the

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

of the time, settling in

Sylda Sylda is a village and a former municipality in the Mansfeld-Südharz district, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Arnstein.Mansfelder mountain region south of

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...

. Nick completed his schooling in 1951 at the senior school (''Oberschule'') in nearby

Hettstedt Hettstedt () is a town in Mansfeld-Südharz district, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, on the Wipper. It consists of Hettstedt proper and the ''Ortschaften'' (municipal divisions) Ritterode and Walbeck.party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

-backed

Free German Youth The Free German Youth (; FDJ) is a youth movement in Germany. Formerly, it was the official youth wing of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The organization was meant for young adults, both male a ...

. On leaving school he worked for four months at the

steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

Student years

Between 1951 and 1954 he studied Industrial Economics and Organisation at the College for Economic Planning (''"Hochschule für Planökonomie"'' - as it was known at that time) in

Berlin-Karlshorst Karlshorst (, ; ; literally meaning ''Karl's nest'') is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. It is home to a harness racing track, the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (''HTW''), the largest University of Applied Scien ...

. He combined his studies with work as a research assistant on

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...

. The topic for his degree dissertation was "The Nature of the Socio-economic changes in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War". After receiving his degree he stayed on at the college as an assistant at the college Institute for

Political Economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

, in the section devoted to the Political Economy of socialism, progressing to the position of a senior assistant over the next few years. He received his doctorate in 1959 for work on the accumulation of investment capital for livestock accommodation in large agricultural co-operatives. By 1962, he was also delivering lectures.

Post-graduate progression

It was in 1962 that Harry Nick moved on to the Central Committee Academy for Social Sciences (''"Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim ZK der SED"''), initially as a researcher and, from 1964, also as a lecturer at the academy's Institute for Social Sciences. In 1965 he confirmed that his career lay in the academic sector by obtaining his

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

(higher degree) in return for a piece of work entitled "Der Fondsvorschuss als besondere Aufwandsart", which concerned alternative investment modalities. In 1967 he accepted a full professorship in

Professor

Nick remained in charge of research in respect of "Economic and Social Problems resulting from Academic and Technical Advances" at the Institute for

till

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

. Principal areas of work included the Economics of Funding new enterprises and Economic Accounting. It may have been out of respect for his unwavering commitment to basic socialist principals that between 1967 and 1990 Harry Nick was able to publish a succession of articles drawing attention to problems afflicting East Germany which, in his judgement, called for urgent economic reforms and remedies. Among his more important published contributions were "Technical Revolution and the Economics of Funding Manufacturing" (1967) "Society and Business under Socialism" (1970), and "The Economic and Social Impact of Academic and Technical Progress" (1986). During the early 1960s

party leaders In a governmental system, a party leader acts as the official representative of their political party, either to a legislature or to the electorate. Depending on the country, the individual colloquially referred to as the "leader" of a politica ...

were increasingly desperate to slow down or even reverse the widening gap in economic performance and general prosperity between socialist

and capitalist

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. One response was to try and

restrict In the C programming language, restrict is a keyword, introduced by the C99 standard, that can be used in pointer declarations. By adding this type qualifier, a programmer hints to the compiler that for the lifetime of the pointer, no other ...

economic emigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

from east to west. Another involved economic reforms at home which would focus more on profitability and decentralising decision making. The so-called

New Economic System The New Economic System (), officially the New Economic System of Planning and Management, was an economic policy that was implemented by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1963. Its purpose was to r ...

was formally launched in 1963. Western sources tend to see it as a belated acceptance of western-style economic liberal economics. The way in which it was implemented (or was not) during the 1960s and 1970s suggest it was no such thing.

Walter Ulbricht Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; ; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar republic, Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development ...

seems always to have been, at most, a deeply reluctant convert to inconvenient economic truths. Harry Nick engaged with commitment in the debates surrounding the New Economic System, and what it should mean in terms of economic planning and management of the national economy. He saw and articulated an acute need for "economic reform in the context of genuine socialism". To the extent that his vision was never realised, he continued to articulate it, appropriately updated, long after the increasingly obvious bankruptcy of the East German economy had effectively put an end to the East German dictator-state during 1989 –90.

Changes and reunification

The Central Committee Academy for Social Sciences closed in 1990 at around the same time as the one-

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

collapsed. For Harry Nick, still aged only 58, this triggered both enforced retirement and the start of a new career. He remained engaged both politically and as a journalist. In 1989 not everyone anticipated

reunification A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller politics or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal govern ...

with the same bull-headed clarity as Chancellor Kohl, but there was a widespread acceptance within the political class that as the winds of

Glasnost ''Glasnost'' ( ; , ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissi ...

blew across from, of all places,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, the SED's days as the country's perpetually ruling party were numbered. During the first party of 1990 the old East German ruling party embarked on a lengthy restructuring programme in order to prepare itself for a democratic future. One of the first visible changes involved a new name for the party. Harry Nick joined a series of working groups set up within the new Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), producing reports for the party executive on economic policy. He became a member of the "Economy and Democracy" forum and for many years participated in the party's

Marxist Forum Marxist Forum was a discussion group established by members of the Communist Party of Britain who were either expelled or resigned in the wake of the 1998 Morning Star dispute. Prominent members of the group included former CPB general secretary ...

. Post-unification Nick was, in addition, a respected member of the Leibnitz Society. Between 1997 and 2012 Harry Nick contributed regularly to

Neues Deutschland (, , abbr. nd) is a left-wing German daily newspaper, headquarters, headquartered in Berlin. For 43 years it was the official party newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which governed East Germany (officially known as the ...

on various economics topics. In his final article he wrote that developments in hat had previously been

since

could "not be understood without also understanding that the defining maxim of the market economy is the same as that of a common robber - grab as much as you can".

Looking back

But it should not be assumed that he ever became uncritical of government economic management between 1949 and 1989. Although it was common at the time and subsequently to describe the East German economy as a "planned economy", reality was frequently a grotesque absence of planning. Economic policy certainly operated according to a powerfully dirigiste midel, but attempts at micro-management and other interventions by politicians were frequently mutually contradictory and generally based on short-term often personal considerations. Nick lived through the timid economic reforms of the early 1960s and their abrupt abandonment by the leadership. What made the matter worse, he later recalled, was that as the crisis for "real socialism" became ever clearer, there was no political response. By

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

really had reached the end of the road, in terms of its growing technological deficit and the widening shortfall between supply and demand. In 2012 Nick spelled out his verdict that the "socialist attempt adnot passed its historical acid test". A recurring theme of Harry Nick's later work is the economic and political "failure of Eastern European socialism". If ever the attempt to create a true socialist state were to be attempted

n Germany N, or n, is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

again, the "democratic process ust be sustainedeven while the rule of the bourgeoisie is overcome".

Personal

Nick was married with, by December 1967 six children, of whom four were boys. He died on 7 December 2014 in

Honours and awards (selection)

Compared to some of his colleagues who were more overtly industrious and / or more willing to follow official interpretations of party dogma unquestioningly, Nick himself found this a relatively modest haul by the standards of the time and place. He did not enjoy travel privileges, and made his first foreign trip - to

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

- only in 1989. Even then the necessary permissions were received only as a result of what Harry Nick himself described in a semi-autobographical book published in 2003, as "some kind of a tacit oversight" (''"... eine Art stillschweigendes Versehen"'').

Output (selection)

* ''Technische Revolution und Ökonomie der Produktionsfonds''. Dietz, Berlin 1967. * ''Gesellschaft und Betrieb im Sozialismus''. Die Wirtschaft, Berlin 1970. * ''Ökonomische und soziale Wirksamkeit des wissenschaftlich-technischen Fortschritts''. (As head of the author-collective) Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim ZK der SED, 1986. * ''Die Marxsche Lehre im Lichte des sozialistischen Desasters sowie der globalen Revolution''. GNN, Schkeuditz 1997. * Veränderungen in der Arbeitswelt. (= Pankower Vorträge 45), Helle Panke, Berlin 2002. *''Gemeinwesen DDR. Erinnerungen und Überlegungen eines Politökonomen.''VSA, Hamburg 2003, .

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nick, Harry Writers from Łódź Writers from Berlin People from Łódź Voivodeship (1919–1939) Members of the Bundestag for the Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany) Socialist Unity Party of Germany members Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze Recipients of the Banner of Labor 1932 births 2014 deaths