Book: Born in the GDR : living in the shadow of the Wall by Hester Vaizey
6. You shall protect and enhance state-owned property
I’ve become fascinated by the GDR after multiple trips to Germany over the years, and particularly the GDR museum. And if that didn’t show me how the Western influence had given me a false image, then watching every episode of Deuchland (the theme tune alone is worth it) sure made me think again.
Above is one of the ‘10 commandments’ espoused by the atheist SED party that ruled East Germany for 4 decades. It’s a perfectly sound request. Except it’s not a request.
Someone quoted in this excellent book likened the merger of East and West Germany after 1989; “I looked upon it more as two people walking towards one another with mutual respect than as one taking the other by the hand going in the direction of what they were signing up to”.
All eight people interviewed specifically for this book with differing views about living in the GDR agree that East Germany and West Germany did not merge together when the wall fell. West Germany swallowed up East Germany and covered it with capitalism so that we could not recognise it any more.
The aversion to capitalism comes up a lot, with good reason. Before the West ate the East, there was full employment, no poverty or homelessness and everyone had enough money to buy what they wanted. They had good access to childcare - 98% of women worked! - and abortions and could travel and have holidays. They could own a car, be assured of food on the table and a roof over their heads.
Yes, there wasn’t that much to buy, you couldn’t necessarily choose your career unless you did well at school and were a member of the party and you could only travel in the Eastern bloc and buy one make of car. However, for the most part, people didn’t think beyond that and were happy with their lot. Unless they weren’t and that’s when one of the Stasi 173000 informers would be instructed to spy on you by one of the 91000 people the Stasi employed. To put that in context, the Gestapo only had 7000.
This fascinating book is full of facts like this, woven into the stories of the eight people interviewed.
Petra fought for women’s rights and later became an elected official at the age 25, but acknowledged that far more women were able to work in the East.
Carola also didn’t have any contact with the Stasi but gradually stopped believing the propaganda she was being taught at school and had a longing to travel. After unification, people realised that travel was still out of reach as it was unaffordable.
Lisa was not motivated by money and perfectly content with her life in the GDR.
Mario’s was by far the most difficult story. The only person interviewed who was imprisoned, which is another way of saying tortured - by the Stasi for daring to try to escape. He was incarcerated for a mere three months and yet this has had an everlasting effect on him. He has spent his life waiting to encounter one of his interrogators, which he did quite soon after unification, and is unable to hold down a job.
Katherina was both an enemy of the state and blessed; she is a Christian and somehow had the safety of the church in an atheist society. The church is where activists were able to gather fairly safely and largely how the change came.
Robert talks of people mourning the loss of their home and the West had a distinct advantage as they had nothing new to learn. While East Germans were effectively immigrants. At the time of the book, Roberts is a guide at the GDR museum - I may have bumped into him!
“Socialism was drowned in Coca-Cola and stoned with Haribo gummi bears.”
- Stefan Wolle
While Mirko was attending compulsory military training, he understood how so many blindly went along with the Hitler Youth programme too. Like others, he felt confused by the big military presence in East Germany when they were told the country is at peace. He was at odds with his father.
A defining moment was when aged 15, Mirko witnessed police brutality when East Germans watched a train of refugees going to West Germany. The East Germans had sought asylum at the West German embassy in Prague. His father was part of the team preventing East Germans from leaving safely.
Finally, even Peggy, who was a child in 1989 and yet still feels out of place in a group of West Germans.
“Even a topsy-turvy world is home when everyone lives there.”
Following reunification, many East Germans experienced profound dislocation. While the Berlin Wall had fallen, new invisible barriers emerged, revealing unexpected cultural and economic divides between East and West. East Germans faced soaring rents - in Leipzig, rent went up 5-10 times by 1994 - and diminishing social safety nets, often surviving on a third of their former income. Though new opportunities arose, the fabric of everyday life, once familiar and secure, began to fray.
What people mourned wasn’t the oppressive regime itself but the cultural rhythms and communal values that shaped their lives. For some, even now, with knowledge of the GDR’s flaws and corrupt leadership, its ideals of equality still resonate. East Germans feel the West might yet learn from aspects of that model, particularly around social solidarity and housing, much like practices I’ve heard about in the Netherlands.
Having visited Berlin’s GDR museum a couple of times, I knew there was a different version of events than the one we knew about in the West and this book explores that brilliantly.