Imagine the reconstruction after the war of the “GDR”, of communist “East” Germany, if the German women there hadn’t repressed without whining all the horrible, unspeakable Allied atrocities of 1945 — the “Hellstorm”!
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Btw, the GDR hymn with the meaningful title “Risen from the Ruins” was composed by an Austrian Jew, and the truth is that it is quite good and very touching.
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It is really amazing what the Central Germans (“East” Germany was what was given to the Poles or the Soviets took) accomplished in a flattened, violated country – and despite the crazy Marxist economic theory!
Alison Chabloz I was in Berlin ca. 2005 and stayed with a family for several weeks trying to improve my German. The wife told me that several published studies comparing quality of life between the BDR and GDR showed that people in the East were far less prone to ‘depression’, other illnesses, divorce and were generally much happier and more balanced.
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John De Nugent Aufdeutsch Thanks for this insightful comment, Alison! In the GDR, if you did not criticize communism, basically you had no worries. You had a guaranteed job, good health care, pro-family and pro-birth rate programs, safe streets, high culture, no acrimonious political divisions, and it was almost 100% European. People do not realize that Stalin, though a monster, was no dummy and jettisoned much of the bolshevik nonsense. After 1948 he began eliminating Jews from all senior positions, and it became permanent Soviet policy that Jews could never be the head of anything, just the number-two at most, the vice-director, or a colonel, but not a general.
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I had a Soviet-Jewish emigré psychiatrist in Boston for a client for my American-accent tutoring program, and he confirmed this. (Alex also had a whole library of antisemitic books and books by Jews about antisemitism. I felt he was both a loyal Jew and yet also quite sympathetic to us. He regretted leaving Russia for the States, and found most Americans very uncultured and unable to talk about anything but sports, weather, family, friends and politics.)
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A Romanian once wrote me that under communism, you could get all the works (on record or CD) by a great composer, even some obscure sonata, but in the West, only the “greatest hits” were sold, because PROFIT was all that counted. So, as strange as it sounds, communism was not all bad….
Notes on East Germany……. gleaned from my parents who travelled back and forth to that country from my native Scotland.
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Why would they do that? Well, my father was a specialist in chest medicine and was invited there to give papers at medical conferences……which he did, in German……. and so, was very popular over there. Lung disease was rife in both west Scotland and east Germany, due to high levels of smoking and severe air pollution consequential to the continuance of antiquated heavy industries in both countries.
1) The watcher of the neighbourhood.
My father, who had the ingrained habit of going for a 2hr walk every day, hadn’t been there long, before he was befriended by a charming, inquisitive chap, who happened to live in one of the larger flats at the end of the block…..Yes, this was your local, friendly Stasi agent, just checking out this new arrival in the neighbourhood. Any chance of illegally sneaking into this country? You’ve got to be out of your tiny little mind to contemplate such an idea for a second.
2)The primary school teacher as Stasi agent.( desperately trying to earn Brownie points)
Kiddies’ cartoon tv programme…. Der Sandman kommt…..The Sandman comes.
East and West Germany( west Berlin) have their own versions. The east one has a red hat. The west one has a blue hat.
“And what programme did you watch last night young Ilse?” “I watched der Sandman”, replies young Ilse.
And what colour of hat did he have, Ilse?
Here’s hoping the poor wee lassie gives the ‘right’ answer…….. otherwise her parents are for the high jump.
Want a divorce? Better review in great detail, all utterances over the last 5-10 yrs, said in private, in confidence….. but now to become public. Anything that you say, or have said, can be taken down and used as evidence against you.
3) Snitching on rivals as a way to work up the social ladder.
No point in working any harder. That won’t get you anywhere. You won’t get paid more.
That’s communism/ socialism for you. No, what you do instead is attend plenty of party meetings and ingratiate yourself with your superiors, then look for faults, misdemeanours, illegality, intentional or accidental, in any potential rivals, and report this to the Stasi. That’s the way forward….not hard work or innovation.
In summary, a horrible way of life when I heard about it in the Seventies. I recoiled from it then, and I do so now……
Oh sure, everybody was employed and fed….but can Man live by bread alone, trudging on from day to day, with no other prospect than his funeral?
Maybe some can. This one can’t…….but then I’m not a German or a Stockholm syndrome infected Scandi. I’m a Scotsman…..awkward, chippy, argumentative, ever up for a fight.