In a joint letter written to SED General Secretary Erich Honecker, GDR head of planning Gerhard Schürer and Central Committee Economics Secretary Günter Mittag sound the alarm about the GDR’s Western debt.
It says, "We are having acute payment problems for the first time." The trivial nature of the reason behind the letter – the rise in the price of coffee and cocoa – underlines the precarious economic situation into which the GDR has been driven mainly because of large grain imports from the West.
When Honecker vehemently rejects the criticisms by his two economics experts, the State Security, in November 1977, also advises a change of course: "For some years we have been consuming more than we effectively produce and banking on the national income of the coming years in advance. (…) The responsible officials from the State Planning Commission and the relevant departments of the Central Committee are of the unanimous opinion that Comrade [E. Honecker] is making a serious mistake with regard to the GDR economy."
Letter from Günter Mittag and Gerhard Schürer to Erich Honecker, 14 March 1977 (in German)less
