Reasons For NVA's Lack of Tolerance
There were numerous reasons that the NVA needed as many soldiers as it could get. On a practical level, the West German Bundeswehr was nearly three times the size of the NVA. Also, the NVA, as the second largest force in the Warsaw Pact, needed to remain strong as it had come to be viewed as the secondary protector of the Eastern Bloc, after the Soviet Union.
Ideologically, East Germany wished to appear democratic. It knew that most of its citizens yearned for the civil rights that West Germans enjoyed, and so needed to make East Germany look superior to counter this. A large military was one way to show this "superiority".
The East German Constitution acknowledged freedom of religion, and the government wished to make this freedom appear to be in force by allowing people to choose to serve in Baueinheiten (construction units).
Read more about this topic: Conscientious Objection In East Germany
Famous quotes containing the words reasons for, reasons, lack and/or tolerance:
“The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences.... It is a pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention. But I have found no substantial reasons for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“I call it our collective inheritance of isolation. We inherit isolation in the bones of our lives. It is passed on to us as sure as the shape of our noses and the length of our legs. When we are young, we are taught to keep to ourselves for reasons we may not yet understand. As we grow up we become the “men who never cry” and the “women who never complain.” We become another generation of people expected not to bother others with our problems.”
—Paula C. Lowe (20th century)
“There is an enormous chasm between the relatively rich and powerful people who make decisions in government, business, and finance and our poorer neighbors who must depend on these decisions to alleviate the problems caused by their lack of power and influence.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)