The Real Story Of Communist East Germany | Katja Hoyer | Downstream
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and the experiment of communist East Germany drew to an end. Yet for a time it was a successful project, raising living standards against massive odds and providing stability for the first time in half a century.
So is it time to re-assess Europe's most wealthy, and advanced communist country, the DDR?
Aaron Bastani speaks to historian Katja Hoyer, author of the bestselling “Beyond The Wall”.
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I lived in Berlin several years ago. The former East Germans that i befriended were some of the most open minded, friendly and intelligent people that I've ever met.
AfD?
Living here in Hanoi, Vietnam, many of my work colleagues studied in the former DDR and they all have positive comments on their experience. It seems that the East Germans were very friendly and well informed regarding Vietnamese history , and not once did they feel racism or exclusion. Haters of the DDR need to remember that many less developed countries benefitted from the generosity of the socialist block and the Vietnamese will never forget who are their true friends.
LOL!
@@bestcomsystems4458 Good point well made. And it did not escape my attention that the Aaron made zero reference to the massive and systemic espionage efforts that the state directed against its own citizens as a routine part of governance and social control.
@@bestcomsystems4458 Germany was a kind of social and political experiment: divide it into two parts, put a formidable barrier along the dividing line, install a decmocratic capitalist regime in one half and an authoritarian collectivist regime in the other, and place a small puncture through which citizens can freely move from one side to the other. Observe how people respond to the incentives offered by their politico-economic environment. 3.5 million East Germans crossed to the west via West Berlin between 1949 and 1961. The population of East Germany declined almost continuously, even when every other European country was growing and having a baby boom, and even after the Wall was built, which should in theory have closed the population leak. Also makes a bit of a mockery of the 'progressive' policy of very generous childcare policies and very high rates of female participation in the labour market, which seemed to excite Aaron no end.
@@baltasarnoreno5973Aaron seemed to be pretty condemning
@@Ocinneade345 You must hear things very differently from me. I barely heard a harsh word from Aaron's mouth about the DDR. Nice development projects about farming coffee in Vietnam or free kindergartens for young children son't really outweigh the basic and very ugly characteristics of the DDR. It was kept in place by thee pillars: enormous and lethally armed frontiers with West Germany and around West Berlin, a pervasive secret police that systematically snooped into the lives of everyone, and Soviet tanks looming in the background as the ultimate guarantor and enforcer of the political and social order and a reminder of what would happen if the citizenry got too uppity.
I visited the GDR throughout the 1970's and 1980's and it was an interesting mix: nudist beaches, punk bands, gay bars, censorship, constant police presence.
Interesting
They had gay bars?
@@bodyloverz30 Yes. While in West Germany homosexuality remained criminalised until 1990, the GDR had de-criminalised it by 1968.
@@dschoene57 not true, west Germany decriminalized homosexuality in 1969. the Stasi still monitored groups that diverted from "the norm"
@@moukka1760 In West Germany homosexual intercourse was still illegal for people under the age of 21, while the age of consent for heterosexual intercourse was 18. In East Germany the age of consent was the same for heterosexual and homosexual intercourse since 1968.
More of this sort of content and I’ll engage more with Novara. Real socialist history.
I was a bit depressed Bruni de le Motte wasn't on
Socialism is a failure. The economy of East germany (EG) was 1/4 the size of the west. EG was oppressive, with its people having few rights. It was so bad people risked a bullet to flee
Hi comrade! are you going to continue making videos? big fans of yours
@PC42190 socialism and communism should be stopped at all costs. It's the worst failure of the 20th century. Socialism and communism were extremely oppressive and in return for having no rights they got terrible living standards. Homeless people in capitalist nations eat better than workers in socialist states.
Fascism was the socialisation of the means of production by the stat. it's what the left today still believe state run economy. Fascism was progressive for the time, and everyone living in the time period said so, it wasn't till history was re written after the war they moved fascism and national socialism to the right to save their Precious communism ideals. Just read Das kapital he's says the Jews invented capitalism to enslave the working class. it's all in the original books and communist manifesto that are the foundation to socialism.
Sigmund Jähn, East German cosmonaut who became the first German in space in 1978.
I travelled around East Germany in the summer of 1969. I must say that I found the East German people ,without exception, to be much friendlier and more polite and mannerly than the West Germans!
I found that with our tour guides when I went to Berlin for the day in early 1990. They were still separate countries then but with more freedom in East Germany than before. If you are used to living on one side of the Berlin Wall, you would find it difficult to adjust to living on the other side of it.
Leftist logic: "I travelled through East Germany and everyone was so friendly, therefore East Germany was on the right side of history, capitalism should be overthrown, and communism is a great philosophy that should be universally embraced"
AfD?
I'm from EE and the "western liberation" in the 90s was the same - the shock therapy. However, a lot of people/the young were desperate for luxuries, so they put up with the sneering and the negation of their previous life. I couldn't talk about this with anyone my age, everyone was gung-ho about capitalism. Our small town shrunk since then, all my friends and I left etc. I guess it's like in the UK, in a way, you gotta be based in the big cities and work in finance, business or IT and then you're ok.
The sneering/negation (for the governments) was valid in many many respects, countries like Poland/Baltic countries post Warsaw bloc/"communism" greatly improved with market liberalization, with a miraculous steps forward in their economies and day to day lives. The fond nostalgia/'Ostalgie' as it were, is very much in the minority in EE and former East Germany for very good reason
@@ce1834 Statistically such nostalgia is not all that uncommon at all. Certainly East Germany has a sizeable number of people that view especially the social structures and traditions of East Germany as better even if they do not agree with the authoritarian nature of the soviet regime.
from Eastern Europe? no one would've guessed, Bogdan.
@@ce1834Eastern Europe was destroyed economically (& socially full of reactionaries & fascists but that’s a topic for another time) after the collapse of the socialist bloc & has only survived by extreme subsidies from the EU. Each country receives huge amounts of capital from the union in such stark contrast to their contributions. They are essentially only surviving by being subsidised & propped up by the Western states & it’s not only for their labour but also for geopolitical reasons. Which is ironic because that’s what people claimed was happening with regards to the USSR.
There has been a continuous population decline ever since they liberalised. 9 out of 10 of the world’s fastest shrinking countries are in this region.
And the government minders every 3 feet weren't really that bad when you get down to it
I wish people with a political axe to grind actually read the book before foaming at the mouth about the contents. I realise that you're going more off this interview which is understandable but even so.
One point though for people who thinks she's an apologist for the GDR, which she isn't by the way. Again, read the book.
I grew up in a so-called communist country. I was acutely aware of the downsides. I was in my early thirties with two kids by the time the system collapsed. I was never a party member. But when I used to hear 'westerners' talking about my country (Czechoslovakia) I used to get equally irritated by those who praised it and those who criticised it too much. Those who used to praise it made me despair that they were unable to see the reality as opposed to the propaganda. We had to pretend we believed it but they really did and it was annoying. On the other hand, those who'd just describe how awful it all was made me defensive because a country is not just its regime and system. It's everyone. It was our home, we worked hard, we lived and we did achieve some things we were proud of.
It's like a family. You might have a bit of a dysfunctional family and you might moan to people about it. But if somebody comes up to you and starts telling you abruptly how awful your family is, it hurts and you'll get defensive and want to point out some good things about them. So if sometimes people wish to point out other things apart from the (not so) secret police and the oppression then please allow them to do it without thinking they don't even know about the bad things. Believe me, they do. Better than you.
They won't read the book because to them the GDR equals the Wall and Stasi. There was nothing else there....
- "We were born, went to school, got a job, got married, got children, got old and died"
- "You're an apologist of communism!"
Yes. Thanks.
I realise your comment was 11 months ago, however I have criticism of all of her statements in this interview.
In short in the interview she is just making things up ,it is her opinion and very little fact.
Her long reply about women in the DDR military was total lies .
She knows nothing of the system and the roles of those individual Military officers.
In fact she just rambled about most things with no factual evidence.
Realising that the interviewer was clueless.
She could not even describe correctly why people move .
Rambled as if it does not happen in another country.
Ramble About disillusioned youth.
Britain at that time had three million unemployed . Destroyed all of its heavy industry and most of the support network from cars ,Trucks ,buses , motorcycles, aircraft ,airlines shipbuilding to steel production and coal all gone.
So what was her point .?
Rational
In the list of groups of people murdered in extermination camps Red Army prisoners always seem to be overlooked.A German court has ruled that Soviet flags cannot be flown at Victory Day memorials for Russian servicemen. Pretty shameful really.
Who cares? The reds are dead, they do not fly swastika flags either.
Soviet Russia was one of the authors of the start of WWII
What total crap.
There are memorials and military cemeteries all over Germany for Soviet soldiers in the east they are kept in good order
@@tonycollyweston6182 As were the UK and France. The majority of the blame is obviously Germany but their main enablers were the French and British.
Real shame there was not more discussion on the desater of the 90s and still really shows today for working classes in east Germany
I absolutely agree. All the interviews which are supposed to talk about East Germany end up talking about World War II. 20 minutes of this, a third of the whole interview. 😮
@@andrewrobinson2565 I think the left miss a real trick with this I work in construction and the amount of Eastern Europeans who slate the 90s and preferred the times when there was work for them in their own countries is definitely the majority
@@jameshazelwood9433 The Brexiteers in your industry must be really happy now - lots of work for everyone, just need the penny-pinching government to get building houses. I left England in 1986. Too many posh boys 🇨🇵🇪🇺.
Yes. The question of what was problematic in the reunification process, is answered with only the smallest sidenote about the re-privatization, the shameless land grab of western companies, the almost enforced empoverishment of the eastern workers. Miss Hoyer does mention the emotional damage it caused, but no word about the long lasting economic damage done by Helmut Kohl's (that time chanceller) corrupted give-away of Eastern german state property to his business buddies.
Also, talking about Angela Merkel as a success story feels like getting spit in my face.
@@jameshazelwood9433no way b/c that work was for pitiful wages that had very limited purchasing power due to constant shortages of nearly everything
This interview and the one with Lea Ypi make for a pair of fascinating conversations
The wall came down for a reason
One of them was the wall going up 😋
All walls come down eventually.
The entry-points had to be opened up .
I would argue Burkina Faso as the best attempt for where communism, or more the point, where socialism nearly worked. Thomas Sankara achieved so much in the four years leading up to his assassination. Sankara's policies did more to improve the lives of his people in only a few short years than most nations do in a hundred. Read Thomas Sankara's speeches, which are collected in a book titled We Are the Heirs of the World's Revolutions: Speeches from the Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-1987. His speeches go into some detail about specific plans the Revolution implemented, the editors even put in some statistics about the country before and after the Revolution, showing substantial growth in things like literacy and life expectancy and substantial curbing of things like infant and maternal mortality and deaths by treatable diseases.
I do agree with you, Sankara was definitely a real great man... but don't forget Cuba, a country that, despite a complete economic blocus by the USA and their western vassals, has achieved to create from scratch a much better health and education system than the USA. 😀
And, even if they are not actually communist countries, don't forget Bolivia and Venezuela, where real left-wing governments made huge progress for poor people in these countries... Bolivia is the only real economic miracle of the 2000's with a GDP growth of 800% in 8 years, with a much better wealth redistribution... not a single capitalist neoliberal country comes close to what the MAS led by Evo Morales has achieved in Bolivia 😀... far, very far from it. 😀
True socialism CANNOT come from the "top", from the State. It has to come from the People. As much as I love Sankara, I do, going socialist didn't depend on him but on the Burkinabe people, and they decided not to go that road ... The Russian people didn't either nor did the east-Germans. They may have been wrong, but anyway, Stalin's socialism was definitely not socialism. Do you know how the "forced collectivisation " happened ? A Red Army detail would show up in a village, round-up people, kill or deport opponents as "kulaks" and declare the village a cooperative with a boss named by the Kremlin and not elected by the people. Then they were told that 1/ they couldn't leave the cooperative, nor could their kids and 2 / they had to work in the cooperative, as well as their kids. Not sure what it looks like to you, but to me this is called ... serfdom ... as it existed until 1865 and was "officially" abolished by the Tsar but without the peasants even knowing about it and their landlords not relaying the news. What the bolsheviks did was just reactivating serfdom because it never really disappeared ... This is not socialism ...or is it ?
@@claudemadrid4950 I thought socialism would make people able to overcome any difficulty. Why would socialist Cuba even need the US ??? Socialism that depends on capitalism and the greatest imperialism on Earth to succeed, is it socialism ??
@@TonThonFraisdEau You know that change comes when extraordinary people like Sankara are raising for the People, it's the reason why you have assassinated Sankara, Lumumba, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and the Black Panthers... to name a few of them.😀
I feel like there's some glossing over how horrible Stasi was. I was friends with a German woman that broke down crying from the memory of not knowing if her dad would make come home or not on days where he came home later than anticipated, so there was definitely tensions.
I agree. There's no mention of the Stasi's role in east German society to monitor and control its citizens. People didn't just flee to West Germany for economic reasons or for status. They also wanted a sense of freedom and choice.
The book itself has massive sections on the Stasi and she discusses it on many other podcasts so it's all there!
Does it need to be repeated again how horrible the Stasi were? the name of the book is Beyond the Wall and the Stasi and walls are all some people know or care to know about the GDR. This book is about going further than those cliches that have already been written about many times to look at the real social, political and economic history of the GDR.
and how it turned people against each other.
sounds like your German friend is a little baby. we have to worry about getting shot up every day in the US and we're not all weepy
About the cooperation between Vietnam and DDR: Not mentioned here were the thousands of Vietnamese workers who were left "marooned" in the DDR after reunification. Where are they now? Where are their children??
Most of them stayed and simply integrated, although not without obstacles as a considerable amount was involved in petty crime and smuggling. Their kids speak perfect German, went to German schools, have normal careers. I happen to know two of those.
Still here, I'm married to one :D
They have wokman restaurants in west germany
YUGOSLAVIA born and raised as YU no matter nationaliy and I will die as Yugoslav
Right.........Were you hit on the head by a Serb
May it stand as one again! ❤
Then go ahead and do so.
Yugoslavia is amazing
@@ZambeziKidthanks for your opinion. It will be ignored.
Thanks for this Aaron. I lived in Berlin 10 years before the wall came down and used to go to the East quite a lot. The West Berlin family I was friendly with said that if the wall were to come down then, people in East Berlin would largely stay where they were and not want to move to the West. They knew this because they had relatives in the East.
that is interesting, how easy was your travel? Did it make a difference if you were going W-E or E-W?
@@helenswan705 Westerners could travel to the East (important source of revenue for East Germany) but few East German citizens were allowed to travel to the West while they were working age. The East German regime allowed elderly people out because once people were no longer working they would only draw benefits but could no longer be used for labor so it was no loss to the regime. Few East Germans could afford to buy a house in the West though and their pension was in the East etc so they usually just visited and returned.
How easy Did you find entry fm PPR into DDR regarding visas ?
I was born in 1978 in the GDR. Most people didn't care about "political freedom". They wanted to drive Golfs instead of having to wait 10 years on a Trabant, go on holiday to Spain instead of Bulgaria or Rügen. The Stasi, despite being powerful, was nowhere perceived as oppressive as people in the West think. While they did keep close tabs on certain people universal mass surveillance wasn´t a thing. They neither had the manpower nor the technical means to achieve that.
ok apologist
@@afuzzycreature8387 Well, if you want to believe nonsense then I guess no one can stop you.
@@afuzzycreature8387 It's no secret that capitalism reigns supreme in the Western world. However, when we take a closer look, it becomes apparent that this economic system is far more oppressive than any communist regime has ever been. While it's alleged that communism is notorious for its tyrannical leaders and totalitarian practices, capitalism has found a way to keep tabs on every aspect of our lives through sophisticated espionage and data mining.
In fact, the level of surveillance we currently endure is so advanced that it would make George Orwell and Joseph Goebbels tremble in fear if they could see into the future. And let's not forget about the USA's Patriot Act, which essentially legalised government spying on American citizens following the tragedy of 9/11.
This insidious act of surveillance has since been expanded upon with a massive NSA surveillance program, which Edward Snowden famously exposed. This, if you remember, was also elegantly and silently extended onto the entire world. It's alarming to think that our every move, every thought, and every conversation could, in fact, be monitored without our knowledge or consent.
When we look at the bigger picture, it's clear that capitalism is far from the utopia it's made out to be. In reality, it's just another tool for those in power to maintain their control over the masses. So the next time you hear someone singing capitalism's praises, remember the insidious tactics used to keep us all under watchful eyes.
@@seanpol9863 👏
@@hargydon Most of what these people hear about former socialist countries is projection. Whatever they are accused of, capitalist countries do multiple times more. Although nobody denies they were faultless. Though as Molotov once said in an interview with Felix Chuev, "We could not pause to go into a person's record thoroughly and get the objective facts about him. We did not have the time or the resources to defer action." - Feliks Ivanovich Chuev, Molotov Remembers, page 270.
Wonderful interview, what a wonderful knowledge Katja can share, thank you. As a member of a rock band, I visited DDR and found the people friendly, warm and hospitable. On one occasion we played in a large sports arena, brutalist in architectural style and almost wholly constructed from concrete and steel. After a thunderous and typical evening of rock music, as usual, I went back out on stage to pack up my keyboards. Usually in this scenario there are some audience members being the last to leave the venue and the room is a mess of cans, plastic glasses and detritus. On this occasion, many youth were tidying up the sports hall and as I was packed and taking my stuff to the van, I looked and the whole place was spotless. To me, it seemed a model of an egalitarian society. I have many pleasant memories of the DDR.
Thank you Sir for that very telling observation of a well adjusted and responsible societal ethos.
@@onanysundrymule3144 LOL nevermind about the Stasi
Too bad that training the masses to be neat freaks (which is a good thing) combined with economic policies from a failed ancient ideology (AKA Marxism) doesn't lead to the kind of societal and financial success that would to successful nation-building, eh?
Great interview, so enlightening. ❤️ More of this sort of stuff please 🙏
The first non-Russian or American in space was Czech. Vladimir Remek (Soyuz 28, 2 March 1978). The East German Sigmund Jahn was a few months later (Soyuz 31, 26 August).
Sigmund Jähn WAS the first German in space - something most West Germans don´t even know. They still think it was Ulf Merbold.
@@cehaem2 I knew of Jähn - Merbold I've never even heard about.
"West" German guy.
@@HauntedXXXPancake he appeared lots of times on national TV in the past.
No, Comrade, - the first was a Cuban!
In the early 90s in ireland while driving i picked up 2 hitch hikers from east germany, as we crossed the border we went through a permanent military checkpoint. The hitch hikers were shocked by this checkpoint they couldn't believe there are borders in western europe just the same as the border in germany that had recently come down.
The kind of militarised place i lived in had surveillance and stasi type agents everywhere.
So called democracys have a history of repression too.
"a history of repression"
There was a nasty terrorist war going on in Northern Ireland.
The surveillance repression that the Stasi pioneered in East Germany has now been imported to the West and the political Left have run cover for it
Speaking as an East German. When I visited Northern Ireland I was shocked about residential areas with blocks of flats with walls and iron gates and barbed wire and watchtowers between them.
And military vehicles with machine guns behind every corner.
@@henryseidel5469 Because there was a near civil war going on. You must know that surely? Two ethnic groups trying to kill each other. Hardly the same as a communist state
@@henryseidel5469Irland was in a civil war situation when you visited the country?
@@tomaszstriner7761Civil War had been much earlier.
i went to east Berlin shortly after the wall came down and was working with some ex east berliners , you could see that they were coming more and more to the realisation that maybe not everything was rosy in the west . As many of them said at the time "at least we all had jobs ".
People from former socialist states (or more commonly known as communist states, which is an oxymoron) thought they could get all the benefits of capitalism, e.g. all nice shiny consumer goods once transitioned to capitalism, plus keep all the benefits of socialism, e.g. free education, healthcare, subsidised housing, etc. Instead, what they got was extortionate prices for healthcare, thousands in student loan debt, and high rent payments to their parasitic landlords.
To quote Heinz Kessler, former GDR defense minister, "Sure, I heard about the new freedom that people are enjoying in Eastern Europe, but how do you define freedom? Millions of people in Eastern Europe are now free from employment, free from safe streets, free from healthcare, free from social security."
@@seanpol9863 If you want to simp for DDR, lets get the facts right, university had been free in West Germany since 1971 (and before was around 130 marks per term though means based, Germany's current health system isn't radically different to what it was in BRD, with insurance systems, subsidised/covered by government for many, especially with cost control reforms in 1989. Also quoting Kessler, who killed defectors trying to escape and went to jail, isn't really a ringing endorsement lmao
@@ce1834 Who mentioned the GDR? And what part of "People from former socialist states" don't you understand? Quoting Kessler may have been a mistake, though I was just trying to highlight a point, in general terms. Make of it as you wish.
I have this experience with a Nigerian facebook friend. He was all over coming to the UK and I felt I had to say, we are horribly racist, you may not get a job, it's expensive and the govt is shit, etc etc. He was shocked. Myths are pervasive.
@@ce1834 In order to attend university most young people have to move out of their parents' home, move to another city, rent a room etc. All of that costs money that some people don't have
Communism as an economic ideology has never happened yet, not in the marxist sense. Communism comes after the fall of Capitalism.
There is no incentive for anyone to work in a communist state. Unless there is some sort of reward what's the point?
@MRW 😅
In the Marxist sense, it comes after socialism.
its almost impossible without it. Its difficult to abandon money when money is still the chief form of payment.
Correct. People willfully confuse totalitarianism with Communism.
I was 16 when visiting DDR and I loved it (being from Poland). Seemed closer to the WEST with stores almost full, girls opened to adventure with unknown man (it was a catch for me). I noticed that they praised their communist GOV vs. me criticizing polish GOV. I felt being a rebel.
One young woman asked me whether I HATED her because of WW2. It was suprising to me.
Great conversation Aaron.
I went to Berlin on a school trip as a child in the early 70’s, we went through check point Charlie, armed guards checked our bus for anyone else trying to get through. We bought items in a gift shop there and the store keepers were so happy, the gave us extra items for free. We flew on a Laker aircraft, and Freddie was with us. I remember German Shepard dogs and their handlers at the airport.
Cool story.
Oh that’s cool. In elementary school, my 4th grade teacher’s husband was a Colonel in the Army and they lived in Europe and all around. She wasn’t from Texas where I grew up. She would show us pictures of West and East Germany. Discussed both systems. It was the early 80’s. I remember during the Falklands War, her husband came in uniform and discussed the basis of the conflict and the US position. It was a great exposure to geopolitics at such a young age.
@@johnbaugh2437 That's a great story .Americans are constantly accused of being ignorant of anything happening in other locations in the world you had a great teacher.
Pity Texas has gone backwards since then, the current governor being particularly determined with his war on women and backward thinking on all things education Texas is a cesspit of ignorance.
Вопрос восточным немцам. Вы владели имуществом ГДР (собственность, принадлежащая народу). Далее ваши заводы и фермы скупили по дешевке. Вам хоть сколько-нибудь заплатили из тех денег, за которые было продано имущество, которым вы владели ранее? Если сейчас какой-нибудь Тройханд продаст Гугл или Теслу, то акционеры получат хорошие деньги. Вам, владельцам заводов, теплосетей, энергетики и прочего сколько заплатили после распродажи?
Probably nothing
Fascinating discussion. Would have been interested to hear a bit more at the end about how far-right extremism made swift inroads into the former East during the 90s, especially in the wake of the Rostock riots of 1992 and the germination of the National Socialist Underground, but I appreciate the main focus was on a fair-minded assessment of the GDR while it still existed.
Reading; 'Stasi State or Socialist Paradise' (2016) by Bruni De La Motte and John Green. Another more balanced view, I visited the Country 1986 and 1987. But never underestimate the foucault's surveillance state view, ie Stasi, but on the other hand all had work, the best communist incomes, etc, When the protections went post 1989, too much, too soon, then the theft of the national industries (like Russia). Also watch 'Good bye Lenin' a comedy, but also another side of the socialist ideals that many citizens believed in.
Katja is fantastic. Her work on Bismarck is equally interesting. As someone who is researching German Communism during the 1910s-1920s for their postgraduate dissertation, this discussion is extremely useful. Thanks Novara for another great podcast; thanks Katja Hoyer for her usual interesting discussion.
Please, read Stasi State or Socialist Paradise by Bruni de la Motte. Much better than this hurried stoppage to the realization that a better future is possible.
The price of this progress was life in a police state where informants were everywhere, houses were bugged en masse you had no freedom of thought or expression and were walled in from escaping it. What's next week's show? 'Robespierre's CPS wasn't that bad?
lol, well put!
Informants everywhere? No. Do you actually know that Staatssicherheit sent most of their agents to the armed forces? Houses bugged? Whose houses? Only of the "selected few". If you complain about the level of invigilation in the GDR you should be more than just furious about all these things that the gov knows on you without telling you. Freedom of thought? Lol. Freedom of expression? Boy, if people in the east drove Mercedeses instead of Trabbis and holidayed in Spain instead of Rügen Honecker would now have a mausoleum on Alexanderplatz.
Its great isn't it when posh, rather overfed individuals tell us that communism wasn't so bad after all.
Capitalism allows “free movement” (in fact it’s the only freedom that matters) because capitalists know and need misery in order to have have cheap labour moving around the world. Of course white collar middle class “workers” will pretend everything is ok when they go shopping
Indeed. There is a very high degree of self-delusion in Aaron's interview. And there is a very simple test of just how splendid things were in the DDR. 3.5 million people from East Germany simply walked unimpeded through the checkpoints into West Berlin between 1949 and 1961. A fifth of the country's population. And there's no reason to think that this gradual demographic haemorrhage would have stopped naturally at any time -- except by putting a f**king great wall around West Berlin.
I reccommend Blackshirts and Reds by Parenti. In the west we have been conditioned to reflexively be derisive towards socialist projects around the world that despite their imperfections, often acheived great and unprecedented things for their citizens. Parenti's work does a lot to help provide a more nuanced and complete picture of this legacy.
+1
Fantastic introduction for people who are curious about 20th Century socialism, capitalism’s relation to fascism & politics in general.
Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is meant to be a good book as well. It's about the complex history that eventually led to the fall of the USSR.
indeed, lying and indoctrination is important to keep the great lie alive.
Or actually ask the people who lived there and the families of those who were murderes by the authorities for simply trying to leave!
@@aninjatuna8576 Thanks for proving you didn’t watch this video nor have read any of the books.
Fascinating to hear a new perspective on East Germany. I remember reading a very snearing article about the Carl Zeiss Jena factory. It basically decried the way all the optical and mechanical components were made in house, even down to tiny screws. The factory produced high quality camera lenses and binoculars, but because it operated under a different system it was portrayed as being anachronistic and inferior. No foubt it was closed to please Carl Zeiss Oberkochen, in West Germany, who would want to impose their copyright on the brand name.
Yep, because the old one which is also the real one, is that 1 / STASI 2 / they ended up way poorer than west-Germany. Also, they exploited the Vietnamese like crazy ... Aaron would have ended up in the STASI's jails for being a Trotskyist, true or not .... And the Shah's Iran was good to women too ... was it ???
Aaron and Katja are in love 🥰
@@TonThonFraisdEau I agree the Stasi - watchword for the *most* oppressive police of all soviet-bloc police states - are a very big black mark on the DDR's past. However it is nice to hear a not entirely one-sided view of the DDR and be reminded that there *are* other ways of doing things in a society. The value comes from taking what was good and trying to avoid the darker aspects of such systems.
@R Tim indeed, better to shoot the homeless for their lack of work in the workers paradise
You don't sneer with your ears 👂👂.
Incredibly interesting conversation! Fascinating to hear more in depth about the post-war dynamics in both Western and Eastern Germany.
The work-point system developed by the chinese during the cultural revolution somehow circumvented the “egalitarian income trap”. Of course you have to consider that china at the time was still coming out of feudal misery
East Germany was never socialist, despite what the ruling Stalinist party then and the current capitalist media claim today. The GDR was also not a communist society, but a society build on a nationalised economy with a dictatorial one party system, that gave privileges to the Stalinist: Socialist Unity Party of Germany. This system only could survive on the political support from the Soviet-Union. Once Moscow said they would not intervene, the GDR collapsed. But not because of socialism as the capitalist media so often claims. East Germany was masked as a bourgeois-democratic state, with a parliament and the flag of the Weimar Republic. Stalin hoped that East Germany could become a model nation for a neutral Germany, this is why the eastern state did not adopted a so called ''socialist'' constitution until 1967. East Germany was not a socialist state as workers did not have any political nor economic control. But it did showed what is possible if the economy is not run by the greed of capitalists. Despite the limitations of the dictatorship!
Indeed in East Germany there was much more private business and gastronomy than today.
These days everything is only in the hands of some money makers.
Beyond the Wall is bestselling for a reason: it's excellently written. Highly recommended reading.
And why is it written in English and not in German? I'd think that Germans, especially former East - Germans, can assess the values of this book.
Why did they have to risk their life? Because the east Germans would shoot them. The entire state was a prison, and everyone was a guard.
Not addressing the elephant in the room here is so disappointing.
She literally mentioned that. You all seem to be deaf
As Katja says the focus was on the Holocaust or on Gerrman socialists and Germany still has to come to terms with their crimes against the Polish. There is not enough talked about this and there are no memorials for this.
I find it disturbing how she never even mentions the postvwar ethnic cleansing of germans and the millions of refugees, over 12 million. That had a massive influence on both germanys. In the gdr it was very influential on early agrar reforms.
Yeah, Why didn't she talk about subjects
she wasn't asked about ?! Outrageous !
P.S.: She DID talk about the Volga Germans when the subject
got into that ballpark.
@@HauntedXXXPancake look, she was talking about the early years of the GDR, a time with over 4 million refugees arriving from the expulsion zones. Every citizen had to take in people if they had living space available. Then there were still big refugee camps in many towns and cities. It was a relevant situation for everyone. It was even more personal than the stalinist terror. the early GDR even had to speed up land reform to deal with the situation. The was enough reason to put it into her description of the situation.
The city I was born into here in Britain, in the North of England, had also in a sense "evaporated" by my early to mid teens. I can relate to the sense of rupture, perhaps alienation, melancholy. It took several decades for new infrastructure, architecture; a new economy to emerge. Though there's a definite sense, once again, of decline.
Aaron, I suggest you visit East Berlin and take the tour of the Stasi prison there; I would hope you find it instructive. There are other museums that show much of the horror of the system. If you are going to talk positively about the GDR then I think you are in need of some serious self-reflection.
I assume he knows. Everyone has heard about the horrors, this is an interesting take on some of the better elements of it.
Back to Stuart's OP. My birth town in the North-East of England was also gutted, so I left (the country).
Being born in a place should NEVER tie you to it for life, or any longer than you can put up with it.
I visited East Berlin (Köpenick) in 1982.
@@richardgreenhough and id like to take u around long kesh and the h block concentration camp!
As someone who's lives in socialist Republic of South Yorkshire I couldn't put the phase better myself socialist have work in mupsuital socialism. I personally angree
Great interview
Greetings comrades, from Karl-Marx-Stadt (DDR)
Scheiß Kommunist, Chemnitz wird nie wieder des schrecklichen Namen von Karl Marx tragen. Kommunismus hat meine Heimat ruiniert
Chemnitz
Read a fascinating book a few years ago which I don't think appeared in English, about an East German student couple who travelled independently through the USSR to Mongolia and on to China in the 1980s. Apart from making one aware of travel arrangements between the various socialist states, it also recounted the various gaps in the system and the unofficial alternative zones which existed in East German cities like East Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig. It was actually quite easy for East Germans to travel independently throughout Eastern Europe, even without a passport. The book also gives a fascinating picture of student life, student grants and the sort of standard of living that allowed one.
Is the government watching this video looking for ideas about how to stop our doctors leaving the country?
This is my favourite show on Novara.
Skilled workers from DDR picked up jobs in West germany more easily than other EC nationals .
She’s too young to remember what an absolute nightmarish hellscape East Germany was.
How do you know ? Have you ever lived there ?
Why is Aaron sitting at an angle? Does he think that's his good side? 😂
Because that’s soo important-low concentration span?
@@adriftinaboat3452 Aaron's narcissistic personality is important yes. It's extremely annoying.
Fascinating interview. Katja Hoyer provided a great deal of information I couldn't find in British and American historiography as I tried to piece together my family's story. I can hardly wait to dive into the book.
Fantastic expansion of the narrow frame western/capitalist Cold War propaganda placed on our own view of the DDR. I've ordered the book and am looking forward to a clear assessment of went so woefully wrong, but also what went right and just some human stories from peoples' lived experiences; that's the thing we've been denied.
47:30 whereas under capitalism it may be that the cleaner can't afford to live, and neither can the teacher or the headteacher, because the average house price in the village where the school is is £1 million, and they probably wouldn't be able to rent either, because landlords find it much more profitable to put properties for short-term rent on AirBnB.
On my computer I use AdBlock, but opening RUclips on my phone on the app and what do I get but an ad for AirBnB. AI isn't as clever as some people think. Or maybe its just the Stasi letting me known they're around.
The problems not 'capitalism' it's the fiat money system where governments can create vast some of money out of thin air. That's what's causing the problems so much money is washing through the system it's destroying everyones earnings and ending up in the pockets of the financial sector
@@pallando100 which is capitalism
@@hargydon so what should the solution be?
@@pallando100 Banks create money out of thin air, too. That was a significant factor in the 2008 crash.
Wonderful interview. Only someone who is from the GDR can speak with authority and experience on how it really was. Which is why I only read books about the GDR from people who were born there as Katja was. That's where you get the real truth-from the people who experienced it like my partner, his family and friends. Bought the book today and loving it so far.
It's literally the best explanation of East Germany. Wow!
Aside from the stasi…. It seems that East Germany was quite successful. If you account for inflation, East Germany is wealthier than Japan today. East Germany also had lower income inequality. I guess East Germany might also have been more progressive with regards to female empowerment. 😮
Saying "aside from stasi" is like saying aside from ww2 while talking about the national socialists..
Good Guest - educational , entertaining and enlightening
Wow, what a wonderful conversation. We are so often so caught up in our own situations that we fail to see things from anothers perspective. This has given me a whole new perspective on the development of Europe since WW2. Thank you ❤️
The weak link in any ideology , movement are it's leaders.
@catscan2022 Orwell was a spy who worked for the British State, used to take notes of people he deemed as ‘sympathisers’ for merely having left-wing views & handed them to the intelligence agencies. You should probably take your ideas from theory & practical realities, not a fictional fairytale by some reactionary anticommunist who’s dialectically opposed to the existence of the project & working actively against it.
The CIA produced the 1st animated feature film which was Animal Farm & used his reactionary anticommunist works to try & turn people into counter-revolutionaries by using balloons to ship them into socialist states during the Cold War.
@R Tim Animal Farm wasn't a criticism of communism, it was a criticism of any structures non-democratic structures and even goes out of its way to point to how interchangeable this "communism" is to capitalism by the end.
There is a tendency, I'd even say plenty quite purposefully, to misinterpret and misrepresent Orwell often without having read any of him at all but with confidence certain books are about certain things with no real reference to the material at all.
The works of Orwell are very clear in their support for communism particularly in the detail to which he gives the utter failures of capitalism.
Great program! There was a lot of anger and resentment among eastern European communist residents that the class that was enforcing the communist system: the stasi, communist party members, army, diplomats and other apparatchiks WERE LIVING BETTER AND HAD WAY MORE PRIVILEGES than ordinary citizens! For example hey had access to grocery stores that were full, can see better doctors and can set up their children better! This in a socialist society were people are supposed to be equal. I guess some were more equal than others. In this way this resembled a capitalist society without the consumerism and comforts!
I would have wanted this last point discussed.
А почему они не должны иметь привилегий и жить лучше? Ну хорошо, теперь нет партии, нет правительства, вы стали жить лучше? Нет, вы стали бичами. Вы никому не нужны, восточный немец - это синоним неудачника и недочеловека. Зато нет привилегий, все равны..
Strong Strong revisionist history going on here with Aaron fan boying along: "Accordingly, before 1961, most of that east-west flow took place between East and West Germany, with over 3.5 million East Germans emigrating to West Germany before 1961, " so the, revisionist, argument is 3.5 million Germans betrayed the nation that taught them advanced valuable skills by stepping across a border purely for selfish, monetary, classist reasons? This is an embarrassment.
East German primary school children were asked if they watched TV with their parents.
If they said yes, they were asked what shape the major markers on the clock were, square or round.
If the child said square, their patents were taken in for questioning, because theyd been viewing West German TV.
Who wouldn't miss those days..?
Children informing on parents...
source?
BS. Western TV wasn´t banned in the GDR. My auntie in Berlin (East) lived in an apartment block with access to cable tv via a communal sat dish. Only party members, policemen, the military and a few other people weren´t allowed but they still watched. Also, western TV was banned in public places, like schools, on military bases or even most of the hotels where we would go on holiday.
@@paiopapa8038 None, they just invented it.
Only a child would believe something so stupid. You’ve been reading some fairytale propaganda again haven’t you
@@cehaem2 I'm sorry that your apologize for the Stasi.
I am surprised there's no mention of the Stasi... In my mind, informants and political repression are the primary image I have been taught of East Germany... Might have to check out the book to see if there's more of that.
I lived in East Germany for thirty five years, and I never came across any Stasi officer during that time. There are lots of horror stories about them published in Western German papers, but my experience is they weren't more active than the secret police in any other country.
No link to the book. Not even it's title in the notes. Had to replay the video.
At least the title is in the description (now).
Thank you Aaron and Katja very revealing! It explained a lot to me, from Vietnamese coffee, which I'd always assumed was introduced by the French. A kind of 'forced' non feminism. The first German in space and much more. Great Interview.
The irony of the Vietnamese coffee industry, which was financed entirely by the GDR to supply the demand from the GDR, was that it didn't deliver its first major crop until 1990, the very same year that the GDR became history. Vietnam is now one of the world's biggest coffee exporters.
Not communism. Socialism!
Yugoslavia.
Does not exist anymore.
@@perfectstorm7379 if your metric for "worked" is "existed forever" then literally no system will meet that bar. All economic systems, societies or even countries will end if you take a big enough time scale.
@@Cryptix001 Yeah, But no Socialist / Communist Country
has even made it past the 100 year mark yet.
I really am baffled how the stasi and state control over private lives is barely mentioned. Im sure she touches on it in the book, but this is a glaring oversight for an interview trying to change our view of a controversial state apparatus.
Clearly you know about that, and the point of the interview is to discuss aspect of the GDR people aren't aware of. Seems like a waste of time no?
Well, what is astonishing for me is the positive manner in which Aaron has this discussion. The GDR was a regime held together by paranoia, fear and mistrust. It was a deeply sick society. I am wondering if Aaron is so desperate and intent upon saying something positive about communism that he is now deluded l. Remarkable if you compare his confrontational style against Prof Matt Goodwin.
@@richardgreenhough Clearly you have had 1st hand experience... obviously not.
That's what the "more-Stalinist-than-Stalin" bit referred to, if you were paying attention.
The CIA did the same thing till the 70’s and no word about it? Hey it was a cold war. What did you expect? Pink colours and rainbows?
Great book. Highly recommended 👍
one of the most fascinating talks on NM so far
Learnt all this at GCSEs yet seems a lot of people don't know this stuff, shows how education in UK is suffering.
Dude Ren is giving you flowers right now and deservedly so!
Readers added context they thought people might want to know: East Germany's GDP per capita in 1950 was 65% that of West Germany. By 1970, it was 59%, and, in 1990, 27%.
East Germany, in 1961, also had to build a wall to keep its citizens in.
They have completely glossed over how miserable life was in East Germany. No freedom of movement, no freedom of press and no media like this could ever have existed in East Germany.
GdP iS a GrEaT wAy To CoMpArE cOuNtRiEs
@@jamieashwell2583 You know it so well because you lived there yourself, right? Oh wait, no, you didn't but I did.
@@cehaem2 Yes I indeed did. Born there 1981. My parents who were born there between 1961 - 1962 also much prefer life in Sweden now.
@@jamieashwell2583 Soso, DDR-Bürger also....wieso glaube ich Dir bloss nicht....
From Terence Wise in UK........That’s very interesting because it was in the 1960s and 1970s that was the most hopeful period in UK.
Fascinating interview, probably my favourite so far. Definitely going to order the book as well
Make sure you read 1984 first and keep it at the back of your mind at all times.
Also, Stasi State or Socialist Paradise. To me, the ultimate book of east Germany.
@@therighthonsirdoug for the love of god, it's prescribed in school like cold medicine. It's a mediocre book
Coz comminism is stupid
The Left Party (die Linke) was to some extent an east german phenomenon, though it managed to expand to the west from the late 2000s when they merged with leftists leaving the SPD following Schröder's labour etc reforms. The Rosa Lux Stiftung was their foundation and they had some impact on the left across Europe through their regional offices in the 2010s. Im afraid in last 5 years or so they went into decline, but still worth knowing about.
Total disaster the entire thing. Germany lost East Prussia and I cannot see how the loss of people and land. Awful place a rump of nothing.
26:00 VW played a direct part in the decline of BL. It would be interesting to compare the level of the playing fields they were operating on. As Katja says VW was encouraged to grow and paid reparations in kind - the Western occupying powers were zipping about in Beetles, not Austins. The British domestic auto market was effectively closed in comparison, with pretty much only the US to target for sales.
No, the British car industry struggled to recover after the war. Most car plants had been turned into munitions factories for the war effort. We were heavily indebted after the war and then in the 1970s it was totally killed off by militant unions.
A good product at a good price will always be a deciding factor in the economy , But if you suppress competition and production then the quality declines and you end up rationing , Also less divers choices, Historical truth.
In German history ,
it is a part of it .
I have heard this author in interviews tell a few falsehoods and I wonder why. For example she likes to claim that most Stasi spying was relatively harmless and she often laughs over this point. Also in this interview she tried to claim that escape attempts were rare and that the balloon eacapes were purely because people wanted to be with family members, but that isn’t true.
Blimey.. you guys believe this.. strewth..
Opinions fromother perspectives have been largely rather simplistic .
Ordered this book it is interesting how growing up in England we are given a narrative of a nasty Eastern system. I can see similarities with East Germany and many deprived areas of the UK. Perhaps their are no border guards in places in Lancashire the north west of England but many people live similar lives. Not travelling far a field an inward look. The league of gentlemen is a great example of this. Many choose a life restricted to just the British Isles for holidays for example. A generation not venturing to foreign lands for fear of foreign foods I have met these people in my home towns. So a similar system of the DDR is I feel in the minds of many individuals in the Uk perhaps not fully aware through education and social mobility problems. How close are many British local authorities to the east german state in their workings ? Things are not as black and white as we are lead to believe or spoonfed from the media. Very interesting chat and how it leaves its mark as you the interviewer asked about losing one's original identity.
A very eye openning history for me. Thank you.
East Germany had one of the best social care systems in the world. The fact that so many women participated in the domestic economy and government sectors, is because the state looked after their children during working hours.
They had an excellent childcare system for the working classes. So mothers went away and children were groomed by the State.
Also, the home occupancy rate was 100% and the unemployment rate was near zero 0%.
Not defending Marxism or the brutality done by the DDR Communists, but there were a lot of positives from which other developing nations can learn.
This was brilliant! I was born and growing up in Czechoslovakia and I could hear lots of similarities with my country. The socialist system is often misrepresented by the media in my country and in the West. It wasn't as tyrannical and dire as they try to portray it. To this day over 60% of people think it was better system than capitalism.. As Katja says if the borders were open people would emigrate for financial reason not they were so opressed. People have actually quite lots of money but certain goods just weren't available and people smuggled them from the West. It would be interesting to find guests from former Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia which I think were the most successful examples of Eastern European economy. On the feminism I would like to add that despite women in Slovakia having almost second job as domestic, they are treated as equal in expressing their opinions. I met with more condescending behaviour and remarks in the UK than in my country.
But how many People think a one-party government is
better than democracy ?
In my book Communism is way more about Politics than economics
- That's one of the reasons why it eventually always fails.
@@HauntedXXXPancake so you think west has democracy? How cute 😂
I was living and working in Czechoslovakia in the early 90’s.
I bitched a lot about the unavailability of stuff then, but, looking back now, I remember it with great memories.
A much more inclusive and affordable country than its successor states today.
Am I the only person who thought at certain points she has a vague resemblance to Lisa Nandy?
As i start the video im in east Berlin living in Dresden so interested to hear what gets discussed, am sceptical though as most people here are pretty clear the DDR/East Germany was completely awful.
They clearly don't know what they're on about. A 22 year old western socialist just told me East Germany was a paradise.
Great interview. I'm looking forward to reading this book.
This is interesting. Obviously I need to read the book to know more, however, although I thought the author explained the points they were making well, I thought the interviewer could have done a better job on pushing on the negatives. Not so much to list more of them but to think about how we frame these negatives. If only a small number of people left East Germany for matters of political or religious freedom or freedom of expression more generally, does that make it okay? Were the challenges to dissent that did exist an aberration - could the regime have existed without them? if not what are the ethical implications of this when we make an analysis of the state or the society? Thanks
Liebsten Dank geehrte Frau Hoyer. Der Schleier ist jetzt mehr zur Seite geschoben worden.
Jetzt verstehe ich Schlingensief's Meinung auch der Satz vom Kettensägen Massaker.
almost worked. STASI will confirm 🤣
So what the hell was the WALL for?
Excellent
Great video on a sadly neglected part of 20th century European history!
The lady uses present terminology for former East German phenomena. Looking from the West into the East like into an aquarium!
Anachronism !
Really interesting discussion.
Has Germany ever understood or come to terms with the destruction and subsequent abolition of East Prussia? The loss of its Eastern Provinces. What is the German view of itself?
Yeah, it's literally a non-issue today. The once mighty "Vertriebenverbände" are powerless
Oh no, the geniuses left the DDR 😂