Teaching quartet “Peace must be armed”, GDR 1980

Quartet games are still available today with all kinds of motifs. The most common are illustrated representations of technical objects such as tanks, cars or airplanes, but reduced to a few comparable data. Many quartet games have an educational background and are aimed at a young audience: the card games are designed to encourage players to learn dates, short facts and the appearance of vehicles in a playful way. The game is played by “trumping” the other players with a card, whereby the highest number of speed, weight or horsepower usually wins, giving the vehicles a ranking regardless of their context of use.

Verlag für Lehrmittel Pössneck published various card games in the GDR. In addition to quartets with animals, plants and numbers, there was also the game “Peace must be armed” in 1980. The quartet with military equipment of the NVA divides the cards into eight categories: Armored vehicles, aircraft/helicopters, supply technology, pioneer technology, means of transport, combat ships, artillery and missiles. The game’s trump card is a paratrooper and can be used like a joker. However, the accompanying booklet also offers game tactics that aim to promote a greater understanding of the relationships between the vehicles: In the tactics game, not only can cards from the same group be combined, but those that are related in terms of content: For example, a bridge-laying tank lays a bridge over which an off-road vehicle then drives. The order in which the cards are placed thus creates a narrative. The accompanying booklet says: “You’re going to be a soldier, young friend, in a few years’ time(…)”. The quartet was intended to impart the knowledge that the child would later need as a soldier: “So, future soldier, learn well and be a good guy – ready for the big tasks that life in our republic will present you with!”

But girls were not left out: “The fact that this quartet is aimed particularly at you – a boy – does not mean that it is out of the question for girls. The National People’s Army also has various opportunities for them.”

The quartet was aimed at children from the age of 10 and thus at much younger children than the military instruction introduced in schools from 1978. In it, 9th and 10th graders were taught military science with basic military and political knowledge about the NVA and socialist national defense in addition to military sports lessons. Georg Redmann, who worked as a novelist and screenwriter in the GDR and also wrote films for the children’s program, was responsible for the idea of the learning quartet and its texts. The illustrator was Herbert Böhnke, a freelance artist in the GDR who was awarded the NVA Medal of Merit several times. In addition to caricatures, stamps and comics, he liked to put his work at the service of the NVA. With military games such as the educational quartet, socialist military education also found its way into the children’s room.

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