Growing up in Cold War Germany

Reflections of a baby boomer

The upcoming election on 27 September 2009 has Germany in the headlines again. I have just finished reading the article Germany’s Unhealed Wounds in TIME magazine and had my own struggles resurfacing with Germany’s past and its social wall still standing.

No, I never was an Ossie, but I grew up very close to the former East-German border in the small village of Hambach (near Schweinfurt). We lived so close by, that my uncle – the only one among my relatives who possessed a car – took me and some other family members on a Sunday outing to the newly set mine ditches, separating the East from the West. I was kindergarten age, and I remember constantly being told not to step here and there. I watched the adults staring over to the East, pointing out security guards on towers observing us. There was an eerie silence; some people only whispered as we walked along the trenches filled with explosives. Everybody watched their step, their speech, and action. I heard my aunt recalling stories of torn apart families, of suffering, of tears.

At that age I thought a trip to the zoo would have been more pleasant.

That same night I had a dream in which this ditch grew like a snake past the border into my village. It came to a halt on Main Street, but separated our house into East and West Germany.

I woke up crying.

When I was in 7th grade, I learned more of Germany’s history. Not that much of the history class went beyond Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany, but I had heard enough to question my parents about this prewar time. I peppered them with questions and secretively thought the Germans, in solidarity, could have stopped the Nazis if they had wanted to. I did not realize that hunger, poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy were such powerful companions for Hitler’s plans.

I was a baby boomer with plenty of food and good schooling, unlike my parents, and my literacy enabled me to question the past.

In the 70s, coming back from school, I often passed this conspicuous bus, parked in a nearby pedestrian zone. One could see young people get on and off with sheets of paper in hand. This bus, among many others, was touring West Germany and trying to attract young people to move to Berlin. This program promised tax-cuts, low-cost housing, and other financial benefits. The city was in need of younger people to save its infrastructure. Berlin, being a political island, needed extra incentives to attract young and healthy minds. The wall, the mine ditches and my childhood nightmare put Berlin in a locked closet.

I never even wanted to set foot on that bus.

In the mid-80s I went to visit a friend in West Berlin. She lived in Kreuzberg and I remember tasting my first döner kebab there. I also spent one day in East Berlin, and I had a very hard time spending the 25 East German Marks  (about €13), the mandatory currency purchase. There were two reason for that: on one hand everything was so low priced; on the other hand, there was not much merchandise for sale. Whatever money was not spent before heading back into West Berlin, had to be turned in to the border control. I ended up buying a cactus for my friend just to spend the rest of the money.

Gloomy skies, dreary buildings, wary faces: East Berlin

In the late 80s, before the wall came down, I had my first acquaintance with an Ossie in Schweinfurt. Klaus, the Ossie, told me of his resentment towards the other Ossies who were piling into the country now: “These Ossies are getting spoiled. They got the easy way out. I tried to escape, got locked up for two years in prison, and had to sweep Berlin’s streets, laden with snow in the winter, every morning at 3 o’clock. No, I am not a free rider. I worked my way out.” Klaus was one of these guys that the West-German government paid hard currency for when buying dissidents their freedom. The former GDR sold its political prisoners to West Germany, a valued customer.

Then: Jubilant Ossies, jubilant Wessies, tears of joy: 08 November 1989

While living in Japan in the early 90s, I was often asked about life in the early stages of reunification. But I didn’t really know that much as I had left the Germany in the summer of 1990. This half a year I had spent in a reunified Germany, I watched some talk shows interviewing former East-German citizens airing their first complaints about their new lives. Surprise. Shock. Deformed in the East . Annual one-week paid leave for a sick child is not enough. Discrimination. Ossies. Wessies. Hurt. Disappointment.

The social wall had not even begun to crumble yet.

Employed Germans started to pay a new form of tax in the name of solidarity, implemented to help in rebuilding the new German states. One derogatory statement, sometimes meant as a bad joke, made its rounds: Instead of tearing down the wall, we should have raised it.

I used to think it would take one generation for all of us to become equal. Back then, this looked like a long time. Germany still has a long way to go and right now, the chance of becoming one people, looks as slim as the fall of yet another wall. This cultural wall might be even stronger as it took 44 years to build it.

Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall from Amazon Germany

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall from Amazon U.K.

DDR

Our topic in October is the DDR – the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

The DDR (GDR in English) existed from 7th October 1949 until 2nd October 1990 and was created out of the Soviet occupation zone as a repsonse to the creation of the German Federal Republic several weeks earlier.

Today we talk about the creation and the economic and political systems that we set in place in the DDR and how the country was structured.  We also talk our own personal experiences when visiting the country.

Find out more in the podcast

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Buy a Transcript

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Diese Webseite verwendet Cookies. Wenn Sie auf der Seite weitersurfen, stimmen Sie der Cookie-Nutzung zu. Mehr Informationen

Diese Webseite verwendet so genannte Cookies. Sie dienen dazu, unser Angebot nutzerfreundlicher, effektiver und sicherer zu machen. Cookies sind kleine Textdateien, die auf Ihrem Rechner abgelegt werden und die Ihr Browser speichert. Die meisten der von uns verwendeten Cookies sind so genannte "Session-Cookies". Sie werden nach Ende Ihres Besuchs automatisch gelöscht. Cookies richten auf Ihrem Rechner keinen Schaden an und enthalten keine Viren. Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Seite “Datenschutzerklärung”.

Close