It was 20 years ago today
I remember hearing about an East Berliner who– just after the wall was breached– went to a bookshop in West Berlin and bought a copy of Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” which of course had been unavailable in the German Democratic Republic. The shop owner gave him a discount.
Of course there are those who have fond memories of the GDR and can only bring themselves to call the building of the wall “tragic,” while basically excusing the government that built it and killed more than 100 people trying to cross it.
Writing for The Morning Star, Neil Clark remembers those golden days before the wall fell and sheds a verbal tear or two for East German cuisine:
Instead of Western fast-food chains serving unhealthy junk food, the GDR, in common with other socialist countries, was full of publicly owned self-service restaurants where ordinary people could eat good hearty fare at affordable prices in a communal atmosphere.
For some reason, “ordinary people” gave up the “good hearty fare” at the first opportunity.
(Hat tip: Shiraz Socialist)
Comments
| 9 November 2009, 8:31 pm |
Or let’s not forget George Galloway who said, day that the Soviet Union fell as the worst day of his life.
| 9 November 2009, 8:35 pm |
Christopher Hitchens:
This 20th anniversary has seen yet another crop of boring articles about how so many people, especially in former East Germany, are supposedly “nostalgic” for the security of the old Stalinist system. Such sentimental piffle—which got a good airing in that irritating movie Good Bye Lenin!—would not long survive a reading of another new book: Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire, by Victor Sebestyen. Making effective use of archives opened since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Sebestyen describes the day in late October 1989 when the head of State Planning in the German Democratic Republic, Gerhard Schürer, presented the party leadership with the unvarnished economic news. “Nearly 60 per cent of East Germany’s entire economic base could be written off as scrap, and productivity in mines and factories was nearly 50 per cent behind the West.” Even more appalling was the 12-fold increase in the GDR’s national debt—a situation so grotesque that it had been classified as a state secret lest loans from Western creditors dry up. “Just to avoid further indebtedness,” wrote Schürer, “would mean a lowering next year of living standards by 25 to 30 per cent, and make the GDR ungovernable.” So the wall came down just before the hermetic state that it enclosed would have imploded. I doubt that there would have been much “nostalgia” for that.
| 9 November 2009, 8:36 pm |
Why did it have to be you posting this?
Why indeed?
| 9 November 2009, 8:37 pm |
Why did it have to be you posting this?
What the hell is wrong with Gene posting this?
| 9 November 2009, 8:59 pm |
Gene: I’m glad you posted it, thank you.
| 9 November 2009, 9:08 pm |
Bugger socialism, and bugger you Eugene.
Of the dear treasured friends I loved and some I lost, one was shot and wounded at Magdeburg, one was illiterate, hiding on a ship, hoping it wouldn’t dock anywhere in the east, and finally a family sliced apart with malice aforethought. Not a lot left to say really, except the redemption thing was a little late coming.
This time, for me, is forever bittersweet. Because they are not here.
| 9 November 2009, 9:44 pm |
It’s a great shame that one world leader in particular was simply too busy to attend today’s commemoration — President Obama.
I’m not sure what was so urgent that he couldn’t attend, it’s not clear from the White House schedule that he has anything going on beyond a golf game and some basketball to watch on the TV, but we will all be relieved to know that he WILL be finding the time to go to Norway in December and be presented with his richly merited Peace Prize.
| 9 November 2009, 9:46 pm |
The worst day of George Galloway’s life is, now, 6 November 2009:
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2009/11/passion-for-cigars-had-to-be-b.html
I hope Vic Allen (still not dead) is tearing out his eyes today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/09/99/britain_betrayed/451366.stm
| 9 November 2009, 10:13 pm |
Thanks Gene for posting this.
On Saturday night, the History channel had a fine two hour special on the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately for some unknown reason they showed it 10 PM to Midnight, Eastern time, instead of earlier. I fell asleep around 11:15 PM and missed the last third. What I saw was first rate with a lot of amazing stories. It is well worth watching if you get the chance.
As for all those idiots, nostalgic for the good old days of the GDR, I can only say, in rough paraphase of an anti-Honockler joke in “The Lives of Others”:
“Screw you Commies,
We are in the West Now!”
| 9 November 2009, 10:23 pm |
It’s funny to see a bunch of trots praising a state where they’d have fallen down the stairs while trying to escape quicker than you can say “left opposition”.
As one of the posters says they – the SED – were lucky not have followed old Romanian Nicky into the court yard.
| 9 November 2009, 10:44 pm |
The joke is worth repeating in full for everyone who has not seen the film.
One summer’s day Eric Honnecker walks into his office in the morning and says “Good morning comrade Sun” to the Sun and the Sun replies “Good morning comrade Honnecker”
A midday Honnecker again sees the Sun and says “Good day comrade Sun” and the Sun replies “Good day comrade Honnecker.”
Then that evening Honnecker sees the Sun and says “Good Evening comrade Sun” to which the Sun replies “Screw you Honnecker, I’m in the West now”
| 9 November 2009, 11:10 pm |
| 9 November 2009, 11:15 pm |
Thanks, Actually Existing Socialist. The equally funny part is where and by whom the joke is told. For that, though, you have to see “The Lives of Others”.
And yes, it is funny that most of those who said then and say now nice things about Communism actually preferred to spend their time here in the supposedly decadant Capitalistic West.
| 10 November 2009, 12:19 am |
You have to love neil Clark:
there was no desire, even among those who did take part in street demonstrations in the autumn of 1989, for a wholesale dismantling of the socialist system. What many people had wanted was a less authoritarian form of socialism
It is hard to think of a more authoritarian form of “socialism” or a more fully worked out version of a totalitarian state than the GDR.
| 10 November 2009, 12:42 am |
British people get nostalgic about the blitz and war time rationing. You can experience nostalgia for pretty much anything.
| 10 November 2009, 1:23 am |
Mesquito, thanks for the link to Christopher Hitchens’ article in Slate. Good that he reminds us that it was not only Communist regimes that collasped in the 1980s; a number of right-wing authortarian govts. were forced by popular protests to democratize as well, most notably in the Phillipines (where the phrase “People Power” came from), South Korea and South Africa.
| 10 November 2009, 1:27 am |
Good that he reminds us that it was not only Communist regimes that collasped in the 1980s; a number of right-wing authortarian govts. were forced by popular protests to democratize as well, most notably in the Phillipines (where the phrase “People Power” came from), South Korea and South Africa.
Yeah. I, too, remember The End Of History.
| 10 November 2009, 1:36 am |
Interesting you overlook the massive collapse in living standards in these regions immediately after the regimes fell.
| 10 November 2009, 1:51 am |
Mesquito: As someone who had a Master and Bachlor’s degree in History, I always thought the phrase, “The End of History” to be nonsense.
“Gorbachev Hailed for Fall of Berlin Wall” at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/09/world/main5588839.shtml
| 10 November 2009, 1:56 am |
I always thought that what Fukuyama was saying was that history in the Hegelian conception of dialectics had come to an end as there were no longer any competing ideologies to drive it and therefore liberalism had won and was the final form of government and arrival of the promised land.
| 10 November 2009, 2:14 am |
As someone who had a Master and Bachlor’s degree in History, I always thought the phrase, “The End of History” to be nonsense.
Har. I only have a Bachelor’s in History, and I know that. I thought is was nonsense at the time, too. It was a remarkable time for democracy, though. The problem is, of course, that as a creed, “democracy” is pretty thin stuff.
Gorbie always bored me. I mean, even when he was speaking extemporaneously, he was full of jargon and bureaucratese. I suppose I’m glad it was him and not, say, Kryuchkov or Ligachev, who presided over communism’s death-rattle.
| 10 November 2009, 2:28 am |
there was no desire, even among those who did take part in street demonstrations in the autumn of 1989, for a wholesale dismantling of the socialist system. What many people had wanted was a less authoritarian form of socialism — neil clark
Like the West German welfare state perchance?
| 10 November 2009, 4:42 am |
“It’s a great shame that one world leader in particular was simply too busy to attend today’s commemoration — President Obama.”
It’s not about him – that’s why he isn’t showing.
| 10 November 2009, 9:37 am |
About this neil clark, it always amazes me how some people prefer to live in a world of fantasies…
Bearing in mind that Obama is fully conscient of the importance of symbolic gestures, because it was the appeal to them that brought him to power, his absense reveals how unimportant Europe is for his priorities, and how keen he is in making it clear.
| 10 November 2009, 2:31 pm |
Neil Clark’s piece of trash and the CiF column picked up by Oliver Kamm just show how many on the Left have completely failed to come to terms with the fact that the nasty little regimes they looked up to and defended for forty-odd years were overthrown by the very workers in whose name they claimed to govern.
| 10 November 2009, 4:30 pm |
I agree that Obama’s absence from the celebrations is striking particularly given him flying to Europe a few months back solely to pitch his adopative hometown, Chicago as the site of the 2016 Olympics. Still, in his defense, I believe that Obama and Michelle are going to Ft. Hood today for a memorial service for all those killed in last week’s shootings. And given the current mourning in the US over Ft. Hood, probably it would not have looked good for the President to off celebrating thousands of miles away with a crowd of Europeans.
| 10 November 2009, 5:26 pm |
“Still, in his defense, I believe that Obama and Michelle are going to Ft. Hood today for a memorial service for all those killed in last week’s shootings.”
He made the decision not to attend weeks ago.
Mind you, those in attendance were blessed with Obama’s presence via video, where he reminded everyone about Obama – whodathunk 20 years ago the USA would have a African American President.
| 12 November 2009, 1:29 am |
mesquito @ 9 November 2009, 8:35 pm
Christopher Hitchens: ” people, especially in former East Germany, are supposedly “nostalgic” for the security of the old Stalinist system. Such sentimental piffle—which got a good airing in that irritating movie Good Bye Lenin!— ”
Someone should tell Hitchens that the film is a comedy, which was a huge hit in Germany. I has a useful side effect in undermining sterotypes of Germans not having a sense of humour.
| 12 November 2009, 1:36 am |
mesquito @ 9 November 2009, 8:35 pm
Christopher Hitchens: “Just to avoid further indebtedness,” wrote Schürer, “would mean a lowering next year of living standards by 25 to 30 per cent, and make the GDR ungovernable.”
&
Andrew Murphy @ 9 November 2009, 8:31 pm
“Or let’s not forget George Galloway who said, day that the Soviet Union fell as the worst day of his life.”
It collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions! Isn’t irony delicious?
Why did it have to be you posting this?