I mean it was a grey and sad soceity without personal freedom and did in not so few ways resemble Nazi-Germany. Where the swastika had been replaced my Hammer and Sickel. Stasi for instance was build by former Gestapo officer's and so on.
So why do some people continue to idealize the GDR??
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If you mean the former GDR residents, I'm no expert in these things, but from what I've picked up over the years I think that for quite a lot of them Reunification didn't really bring hoped-for benefits: they may have lost the jobs/status/security that they had and have felt that things were more certain under the GDR (see this Wikipedia article and the link to "Ostalgia" to get a better idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification). As with any of the former Communist countries, it must have been one heck of a culture shock to have to adapt to Western ways, and some people would surely hanker after the past.
As for people outside the former GDR, I can't imagine why anyone would idealise it, but there will always be someone who will, I'm sure.
Very few people idealise the actual DDR. But you have to realise that the picture you have in your head of doom and gloom is also not a very accurate portrayal of the country. For a lot of people, life was just life. It was all they knew, and sure they would loved to have been able in theory to buy as much as people in the West apparently did, to have all the beautiful packaging and what not, but for the average person there was nothing actually terrible about life in the DDR. It was unsatisfying in plenty of ways, and there was danger of being overheard by Stasi, but lots of people were not political and did normal things like shop for groceries and go to work and argue about who had to take out the rubbish. Once the borders opened up, people flocked to the West in herds - if not to flee, to go shopping and experience indulgent, capitalist life - and a lot of them were disappointed after a few weeks.
The thing was that beautiful packaging and huge selection of things to buy didn't make them happy after the initial excitement wore off. The old DDR products disappeared from the shelves so quickly, and most people had thrown things away and bought all the western products they could at the beginning, that they had little to nothing left of what had been their world for 40 years. They suddenly had to adjust to a new brand and taste of coffee, new brands of food, of clothing, of cleaning products and furniture and everything else. The east German mindset "waste not want not" didn't pass to the new capitalist system. East German buyers bought items that would last a long time, something looking great was less important if they could only use it for half the time. Also, all the products they had grown up with were a part of their culture, of their national - and partly, personal - identity. And then it disappeared.
The feelings of longing for the "DDR" that you see are not longing for an oppressive political system. They don't want the Stasi and the Wall and having to apply for permission to go on vacation and wait years for a telephone. They want an identity. They are not West Germans and so cannot fully pass to the "German" identity. They have their own history and had a culture, and having lost that culture so suddenly and completely, began to dig up old relics of it in almost cultish way. Ostalgie is nothing more than commercialisation of newly-created DDR culture that never existed in the way that it is presented today. Ostalgie is a culture people created through irony, memories of their childhoods and products they were fond of, songs they sang, clothes they wore, jokes they told, the cars that were parked in their neighbourhoods and all in front of the backdrop of a socialist state that many "Ostalgikers" had little to do with, because they weren't political people, the politics were never the important part. It's the safety of having a culture and identity you can call your own that drives people to Ostalgie. That is the Ideal, not the government.
Also, the DDR was a socialist and not a communist country.
One of my wife's relatives came from Cuba in the 1990s; as she put it, living in 'The West (Miami to be specific)' was EXTREMELY hard BUT...she also found the harder she worked, the better her life became; she went from renter to owner of a trailer to owning an actual ranch style-home in fairly short order, but she DID have to work hard to get there.
sharethe picture you have in your head of doom and gloom is also not a very accurate portrayal of the country. For a lot of people, life was just life.
"This is an important point. For most people their daily life didn't consist of going around being oppressed. It was just daily life."
Your everyday existence was "just daily life" up to the moment where you wanted to do or say something, anything, that was not sanctioned by the "big bosses" and their ideology. Then "just daily life" ceased to exist.
Jessica Rabbit
"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."
Also, the DDR was a socialist and not a communist country.
While East Germans were happy to get rid of the dictatorial aspects of their government, some eventually came to miss old familiar cultural symbols and brands which had been part of life in the GDR and which got replaced by western ones upon reunification.
While there was a lot which was bad in the GDR, people who experience Ostalgie don't see everything about it as being bad.
While people weren't rich in the GDR, they weren't poor either. The Communist system there guaranteed full employment. Also, East Germany suffered from a lot of economic dislocation after reunification with the West. For example, IIRC Berlin was a major manufacturing center in the GDR. But after the captive market of the communist state collapsed, the industries there had a hard time competing with the West. Unemployment spiked in the east after reunification and it's still, from what I've read, not fully come up to the level of the rest of the country.
From what I read there was personal freedom and it existed everywhere, it was just limited and not as much as in other countries
"Countries should emulate the good of the DDR whilst learning from the mistakes the DDR made".
First of all, these were no "mistakes", but rather a universal policy of oppression. And what are these "good things", anyway? Sure, in DDR, there may have been a greater economic equality (while the general living standard was, of course, incomparably lower than that of BRD), and a greater social security, preventing the fall into outright miserable poverty, but that's security of a prison environment we're talking here, where you also have your bunk, roof overhead and are guaranteed three meals a day as long as you behave. I strongly suspect, however, that given a choice between such "security" on one hand and freedom with all its inherent dangers and hazards on the other, most people would choose the latter (and, of course, they did - as illustrated by escaping to the West en masse, so that a wall had to be erected to stop it... and toppling the evil regime at the first realistic opportunity in 1989). The folks are experiencing Ostalgie because from a distance, the bad things - as long as they're not outright horrors - have a tendency of fading from memory while the good lingers. Realities such as not being able to express oneself freely, not having the right to participate in deciding your country's policies via free elections or not being able to travel abroad at will, may just not seem so real in hindsight. In short, while I do recognize the merits of socialism, the former Eastern European police states are far from commendable examples of such.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
First of all, these were no "mistakes", but rather a universal policy of oppression
And what are these "good things", anyway?
Sure, in DDR, there may have been a greater economic equality (while the general living standard was, of course, incomparably lower than that of BRD), and a greater social security,
and, of course, they did - as illustrated by escaping to the West en masse
In short, while I do recognize the merits of socialism, the former Eastern European police states are far from commendable examples of such.
"Oppression in all walks of life which wasn't the case".
In all walks of life that really matter when it comes to personal freedoms. Sure, GDR wasn't exactly your North Korea, but that's not much of a consolation. And when, for one thing, you cannot openly criticize your government or political system without punishment... that's pretty bad.
"They even had elections".
Yes - ones where you could essentially elect either one Communist Party candidate or another Communist Party candidate. This charade was played out in Soviet Union, as well.
"Found life harder than it was in GDR".
I believe many may have done so, yes - after all, life in BRD required one to fend for him/herself more and adapt a rather different, more active attitude, more independent mindset compared to GDR where everything was decided and determined by the state.
"Most wished to return".
'Some' may have wished to return; as said, life in prison does have its meager perks, as perverse as it may seem.
"When the wall fell, most East German people regretted the destruction of their state".
Absolutely incorrect (although many may have regretted or come to regret giving up on the ideals they'd been indoctrinated with, there wasn't much to regret about the reality they'd experienced). For one thing, if the Commies had any notable support left, they would not have stepped down in the first place.
"Nor really a police state though it had a horrid amount of surveillance (just less than the modern UK)".
Indeed, as of 1989, there were about 250 000 people spying on the others, both officially and unofficially - if that doesn't make it a police state in effect, I don't know what does. And you'd better substanciate the claim concerning UK - because frankly, it sounds like a very silly thing to say.
"Workers were more free".
Free to do what? Sit around in their drab domestic environment (compared to West), spending their meager income (compared to West) on products and services of poor quality (compared to West), while always worried someone might report them to Stasi for things they either did or didn't do?
"In reality "bad socialists" usually have pure socialist motives".
What does it matter what the original intentions are? By this going we could also start making excuses for people like Stalin or Mao Zedong when the only thing that matters about them is that they were deranged despots who murdered millions.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
ContinentalOp's glowing description does not describe the GDR of the 80s which I saw first-hand becoming poorer and more hardline with increasing desperation setting in.
In many other east European countries there was a loosening-up as the Soviet dominance lessened with failing economic power. The GDR leadership was stubborn, and absolutely the last to move.
When East Germany DID open up there was considerable shock in the west at how backward it really was.
The STASI files were made available as we saw in the film. No other east European countries had a "cancer" at their heart remotely like that.
Yeah, the film shows how much "freedom" people had there...
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Some of the German posters here would be in a better position to answer this, but I think there's a couple of sources for Ostalgie.
I think the major driver is just a reaction against domination by the western part of Germany. We talk about "German Reunification" but in many ways it was really a case of the DDR being absorbed by the BRD. The people in East Germany overthrew most of their governmental institutions and eventually those were replaced by democratic institutions of West Germany or heavily modeled on West Germany. While East Germans were happy to get rid of the dictatorial aspects of their government, some eventually came to miss old familiar cultural symbols and brands which had been part of life in the GDR and which got replaced by western ones upon reunification. Some of this replacement of old symbols can be viewed somewhat as cultural imperialism and I've seen some former East Germans express dissatisfaction with what they see as an attempt to erase fifty years of history of an independent GDR. While there was a lot which was bad in the GDR, people who experience Ostalgie don't see everything about it as being bad.
Aside from concerns about cultural imperialism and nostalgia for old familiar symbols, I think there are some more concrete reasons too. While people weren't rich in the GDR, they weren't poor either. The Communist system there guaranteed full employment. Also, East Germany suffered from a lot of economic dislocation after reunification with the West. For example, IIRC Berlin was a major manufacturing center in the GDR. But after the captive market of the communist state collapsed, the industries there had a hard time competing with the West. Unemployment spiked in the east after reunification and it's still, from what I've read, not fully come up to the level of the rest of the country.
Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I don't think Hugo can track anything.
Just because The Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet union dissolved doesn't mean that Communism died with it. There are still a lot of Reds around young and old that are pushing the Communist agenda only they aren't calling attention to themselves as Communists.
shareIt seems most people here can't tell the difference between communism and totalitarianism.
They are very often associated with each other but they are not the same thing.
Anyone who thinks that the difference between communism and socialism matters - at least as far as East Germany was concerned - is ignoring the basic problem. If there was a difference it made no difference. East Germany was a police state first and an ideology second. It started with an ideology but when it became apparent that it would fail and that everyone - particularly the young people - wanted to leave, it turned into a police state virtually overnight. The Wall went up and the Volkspolitzei expanded rapidly. To make sure nobody was planning to escape, the Stasi began to exert a control which would grow tighter until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989.
Communism and totalitarianism walk arm in arm. The Reds that still walk amongst us want both.
shareThese sorts of generalisations, when coupled with that level of presumption, don't help anyone's understanding of the issues nor the effectiveness of any countermeasures.
As I have said, they are frequently - one might say "usually" - coupled but they are not the same and there are historical examples where this has not been the case.
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From what I read there was personal freedom and it existed everywhere, it was just limited and not as much as in other countries
for some people politics is not interesting, they don't want to talk about it neither exercise it and it happens everywhere
there is something else, some people are used to not working to the maximum, they aren't looking for more money and they don't want to make more effort doing their jobs
those would really like the GDR, there is no competition and there is progress if you worked harder and it is secure even if it wasn't as good financially as the other countries but it was still good enough for them
and I agree with the other reasons the other members mentioned here, it was not as dark as everybody thinks about it, at least not for everyone
and a cultural thing, not everybody can cope the same with such a change
I might feel lost if I changed where I lived and would always miss where I am living now.
It is never about what happened, it is only how you look at it!