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Life in East Germany


gwb123
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Having just watched the mini-series Deutschland 83, I was reminded of a couple of books I read about life in the East German police state. The first one was:

 

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

by Anna Funder.

 

Funder is an Australian journalist and author.

 

From the book jacket:

 

"In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterward the two Germanys reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. Anna Funder’s bestselling Stasiland brings us extraordinary tales of real lives in the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, who tried to escape to West Berlin as a sixteen-year-old; hears the heartbreaking story of Frau Paul, who was separated from her baby by the Berlin Wall; and gets drunk with the legendary “Mik Jegger of the East,” once declared by the authorities—to his face—“no longer to exist.” And she meets the Stasi men themselves, still proud of their surveillance methods. Funder’s powerful account of that brutal world has become a contemporary classic."

 

Funder tells both sides of the story: both about those who worked for the Stasi and those who worked against. She even went as far as to run newspaper classified ads to find former members who would be willing to talk to her. An excellent read to understand how the surveillance state was made to work.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062077325/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Stasiland.jpg

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Next up:

 

The Wall Jumper: A Berlin Story

 

Peter Sneider

 

From Amazon:

 

"When the Berlin Wall was still the most tangible representation of the Cold War, Peter Schneider made this political and ideological symbol into something personal, that could be perceived on a human level, from more than one side. In Schneider's Berlin, real people cross the Wall not to defect but to quarrel with their lovers, see Hollywood movies, and sometimes just because they can't help themselves—the Wall has divided their emotions as much as it has their country."

 

https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Jumper-Berlin-Story/dp/0226739414/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544673003&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wall+jumper

 

People who got caught going across the wall into West Berlin could be severely punished. One of the more interesting stories was of a teenage girl who worked out completely on her own a route across the barrier, and tested it several times. When she finally was caught, the authorities jailed and harassed her to name the names of those who had helped her, not wishing to believe that she did it completely on her own. After telling them the truth multiple times, she finally made up a list of names and non-existent safe points just to make her interrogators happy. And with that, they just let her go!

 

The absurdity of what should have been a draconian situation fills the book with story after story. An engaging and easy read offering insight to the craziness of the times.

 

 

 

Wall Jumper.jpg

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  • 3 years later...
Dune Panther

I have a recommendation for anyone interested in the topic of Life in East Germany, and the sort of extremism it bred into one then-young man:

 

From the dust jacket: "Ingo Hasselbach... grew up as the son of members of the Communist elite in the looking-glass world of the German Democratic Republic [East Germany]. Rebelling against the state, he found himself spending his adolescence in and out of prisons. His avuncular old cellmate, the former Gestapo chief of Dresden, persuaded him that a world Jewish conspiracy was bringing ruin and division to Germany. Upon Hasselbach's release from prison in 1988, he founded the country's first neo-Nazi political party."

 

Hasselbach's book is titled Führer-Ex, Memoirs of a Former neo-Nazi, and it takes one on a detailed journey of everyday life in a country that no longer exists. A life that  included relentless state propaganda & surveillance, lack of basic personal freedoms, and for the author and many others - police and Stasi interrogations, beatings, imprisonment and slave labor; all is described by Hasselbach firsthand. By the time Hasselbach manages to escape from East Germany to the West, he is a hardened & violent extremist ready to embrace and spread ever more virulently refined hate.

 

Hasselbach also describes, in detail, life in the West Berlin that he moved to, of trips back into East Germany and what it was like as the country was in its final decline, of soccer hooligans, looting and deadly riots, of training for terrorism underground and an almost casual violence and street fighting brutality reminiscent of Nazi-era Brownshirt Stormtroopers. And finally, what caused him to leave it all behind. While the topic of the book is Hasselbach's descent into extremism and eventual recovery, he does such a great job of describing his environments that anybody interested in what the East Germany and the West Berlin of his time were like will gain a vivid picture of it here. 

 

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Führer-Ex-Memoirs-Neo-Nazi-Ingo-Hasselbach/dp/0679438254/

 

(Another strong recommendation, although not a book but a movie, is The Lives of Others, an outstanding & fact-based fictional drama of a Stasi officer and a particular investigation, an excellent film that also accurately depicts what life was like on the other side of the Wall. Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Others-Martina-Gedeck/dp/B000OVLBGC/.)

 

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As noted, The Lives of Others is definitely recommended for viewing. It will make you wonder how people lived under such conditions.

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Dune Panther
3 hours ago, gwb123 said:

As noted, The Lives of Others is definitely recommended for viewing. It will make you wonder how people lived under such conditions.

Great point! In fact, whenever things in the US seem particularly troubled (concerning politics and various social issues), watching The Lives of Others sure puts things into perspective (at least for me). Because they had it so much worse. And the filmmakers took the time and trouble to ensure accuracy consistently, from Stasi psychology & operational techniques right down to the uniforms and insignia they wore. And how it played out on a captive population. An extremely compelling story!    

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Dune Panther:

 

You might like Deutschland 83.  It features a Border Policeman who is coopted to take on a mission in the West when both the Russians and East Germans thought the US was going to use Exercise Able Archer to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.  I believe in the notes on this one they used the actual Stasi offices as filming locations for the scenes involving his handlers in the East.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deutschland-83-Season-Jonas-Nay/dp/B00ZYW5N1U/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1FNGHA9FMBQ5S&keywords=deutschland+83&qid=1655091595&sprefix=deutschland%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-2

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Dune Panther
47 minutes ago, gwb123 said:

Dune Panther:

 

You might like Deutschland 83.  It features a Border Policeman who is coopted to take on a mission in the West when both the Russians and East Germans thought the US was going to use Exercise Able Archer to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.  I believe in the notes on this one they used the actual Stasi offices as filming locations for the scenes involving his handlers in the East.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deutschland-83-Season-Jonas-Nay/dp/B00ZYW5N1U/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1FNGHA9FMBQ5S&keywords=deutschland+83&qid=1655091595&sprefix=deutschland%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-2

Yes! Many thanks! I will seek this out. Appreciate your recommendation.    

 

 

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I will second that "Deutschland 83" is an excellent series.  It works as a period piece showing life in the DDR as it was as well as a good spy thriller.  Some neat characters in the cast as well.

 

 

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Dune Panther
On 6/13/2022 at 7:14 AM, SARGE said:

I will second that "Deutschland 83" is an excellent series.  It works as a period piece showing life in the DDR as it was as well as a good spy thriller.  Some neat characters in the cast as well.

 

 

Excellent! Have it on order and can't wait to start watching. And why I can appreciate a forum like this one, to exchange information like this.

 

 

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