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Post by Tim on Aug 6, 2019 17:51:00 GMT -5
I think the most famous celeb to come out of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, is Katerina Witt. She won the gold medal for them by figure skating in the Calgary Olympics in 1988, the last Olympics that the GDR would take part in (because that country would be gone by the time the next Olympics, in 1992, rolled around).
From her Wikipedia entry: Of course, she didn't have to defect, as the GDR ceased to exist just a little more than two years after she won her gold.
Jana, this thread is for you. You spent the first 12 years of your life in what was once the GDR. I would love to hear your insights. This year will mark the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the GDR would limp along for another year, the beginning of the end of the GDR was in 1989, the writing was clearly on the wall (no pun intended).
Of all our active posters, only myself, Jana, Jean, Katie, and Katherine lived in a world where the Berlin Wall existed.
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Post by Melinda Halliwell on Aug 7, 2019 1:18:45 GMT -5
Yeah I was 9 when the news reported that falling down but don't actually remember a lot about it at the time.
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 8, 2019 13:22:18 GMT -5
As said before, I lived it with being born in GDR and all, and being 12 when the wall came down. Exciting times for me! More later.
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Post by Tim on Aug 8, 2019 18:20:16 GMT -5
It was and exciting time to live through. This was the biggest thing to happen in Europe since World War II.
Indeed this was the end of the Europe that had emerged when the war ended in 1945. At the end of the war, the Soviets moved into eastern Germany (and the rest of Eastern Europe) and stayed. 1989 was the start of the end of that world.
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 9, 2019 10:11:52 GMT -5
I still get goosebumps every time I listen to Genscher again in Praha or Scorpions' "Wind of Change". This is what really happened and we got opportunities we'd never dreamed of.
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Post by Tim on Aug 9, 2019 23:20:24 GMT -5
The amazing thing is that no one saw it coming. The Communist regime in the GDR looked like it wasn't gonna go easily, yet it did.
Gotta give Egon Krenz this, he knew when to fold. He knew that the regime couldn't be saved. Yet, to this day he maintains that the GDR was a good thing!
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 10, 2019 9:15:16 GMT -5
Still, many people say that today. I agree with certain aspects, like school and kindergarten but not with the Stasi and all that stuff. I'm sure there's also a file about my family since we still have "west" relatives. My one aunt fled during the 1950ies, I think.
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Post by Tim on Aug 10, 2019 11:26:59 GMT -5
I think the Stasi kept files on almost everyone.
I guess the former members had a hard time fitting in afterwards.
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 10, 2019 15:32:18 GMT -5
Of course, yet I was also a chosen sportswoman at that time - for rowing in my third grade, meaning a kader in German in GDR time. I was also good at speaking foreign languages, especially Russian and could have been chosen there as well but no luck. Good for me, I think. Now I did my research and found the name of Eastern Song Contest: Sopot Festival in Poland, later it was called Intervision Song Contest and the wall came down! Out for this one.
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Post by BettyNewbie on Aug 10, 2019 16:51:50 GMT -5
Time to give my $0.02. The fall of communism was, without a doubt, a positive for Eastern Europe and West Asia. While communism isn't a bad thing at all in principle, the Soviet version of it was an oppressive, autocratic system that constantly lied to its people and kept them trapped in poverty and misery. It was a broken system, and it had to go. But... This broken system still needed to be replaced with a non-broken one, and that never really happened. While some countries like East Germany and Czechoslovakia were able to transition out of communism fairly painlessly, most ended up going the route of the USSR and Yugoslavia -- unraveling into chaos and violence as crony capitalism and hyper-nationalism stepped in to fill the void left by communism. And, we're still living in the aftermath of that chaos and violence. Putin's dictatorship is a direct result of Russia's inability to transition into a healthy, stable democracy after the Soviet Union died. The waves of hardcore fascist/Neo-Nazi groups that have swept Eastern Europe are a direct result of these countries' inability to deal with poverty and longstanding ethnic/racial tensions after communism died. While it's incredible to look back at those powerful old videos of the Berlin Wall coming down or the Soviet Union's final hour, we also need to remember that things did not magically get better across the board in 1991. The transition out of communism was badly handled, and we're still seeing the consequences to this day.
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Post by Tim on Aug 10, 2019 18:30:10 GMT -5
Yeah, sad but true. Some counties had it better than others when Communism died. Neo-Nazis, which the Communists basically ignored, now have come out into the open. Unlike the West, the Communist countries never bothered to deal with the Holocaust and such, so the lesson went unheard.
The GDR was lucky to be absorbed back into the West. While there have been some issues, it isn't as bad as what happened when Yugoslavia disintegrated, back in the 1990's.
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 11, 2019 8:48:44 GMT -5
True, but we also had our neo-nazi encounter back in 1991. There were many in cities around Germany, because back in GDR we were raised as anti-facism citizen and all bad sat in the West. After the wall came down, all this came to the surface and broke through. Just like the series of the NSU during the 2000ies. It took too many years to find out the NSU. We're still not out of the woods, especially here in East Germany now with a party called "Alternative for Germany" ( AfD). They share the same thoughts and all. Scary how they remind of a time we ought to have learned from.
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Post by Tim on Aug 11, 2019 11:27:14 GMT -5
True, but we also had our neo-nazi encounter back in 1991. There were many in cities around Germany, because back in GDR we were raised as anti-facism citizen and all bad sat in the West. After the wall came down, all this came to the surface and broke through. Just like the series of the NSU during the 2000ies. It took too many years to find out the NSU. We're still not out of the woods, especially here in East Germany now with a party called "Alternative for Germany" ( AfD). They share the same thoughts and all. Scary how they remind of a time we ought to have learned from.
Yeah, that was part of the problem. The GDR never dealt with the Nazi Era, never taught students about it. They just swept it under the rug. Since it was never dealt with, the lessons were never learned, and neo-Nazi groups just bid their time until they didn't have to hide anymore.
That AFG party, sounds like the same kind of thinking the current occupant of the White House does.
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Post by Squad 51 on Aug 11, 2019 15:49:05 GMT -5
Indeed, and they also have their idols in France, Netherlands, Italy and so on. I don't need to go on, do I?
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Post by Tim on Aug 11, 2019 17:15:07 GMT -5
No, you don't, Jana. I know exactly what you mean.
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