In the first half of 1972, the remaining private and semi-state-owned companies and the producers’ cooperatives manufacturing on an industrial basis in the GDR are placed under state ownership.
Proudly, SED chief Honecker reports to the "dear comrade Leonid Ilyitch" in Moscow that the GDR has "successfully concluded the transformation of partly state-owned companies, private firms and industrial trade cooperatives into state-owned companies that was launched after the 8th Party Conference".
The liquidation of the middle classes, celebrated as a "victory of socialist production methods", aggravates the economic problems of the GDR: the economic planners are overtaxed by now also having to look after the "1000 little things" for everyday needs that have up to now been flexibly produced by small and medium-sized companies but now begin to disappear from the shops.less
