Edward

The German Democratic Republic, (Deutche Demokratische Republik in German)
Created on the ruins of the III Reich by German communist under leadership of Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht on 7 October 1947 and moved more or less seamlessly into austere and intolerant communist dictatorship, though slightly less violent than Nazi Germany version of totalitarism
The East Germans, whatever they liked it or not, many had been accustomed to a top-down command economy where mechanisms such as the market could be ignored or circumvented, and daily life, while it might sometimes be tedious and restrictive, had the filling of security and the illusion of permanence.
They had not had the Western Germany forty years of deciding to accept, even love, capitalist democracy with all its faults and flows as well as its virtues.
And after the unification, they experienced nothing the economic miracle the Western Germans had benefited from in the 1950’s-in a very different global market.
The western Germans still call their compatriots from the East “Ossi” (from German word Osten) which has not really kindly meaning.
The East Germans went through all phases of communist form, from Stalinism to Gorbachev perestroika without any major organised protest (with single exception of uprising of 1953) and endured totalitarian system for almost 60 years with a very low level of contact with the west.
The influence of neo-Nazism in today Unified Germany is generally very low and it is probably lower than in other European countries, but it is distinctively higher in the eastern part of unified Germany.
What we know about this “country” from “behind the Iron Curtain “?

Richard Stanbery

East Germany lies on the ash heap of history, along with the USSR, Nazi Germany, the Confederacy, the Roman Empire, The Mongol Empire, the Aztec Empire, and so many others.

Exactly as it needs to. Good riddance to a totalitarian police state.

Albanian Paradox

Albania, the last Eastern European Stalinist regime to fall, had NO uprising or organised protest whatsoever. And people always say that the Soviet or Romanian regimes were the most totalitarian. In Albania, no one would dream of speaking out against the government.

dragoner

I had a girlfriend in Karl-Marx-Stadt, I met her when my chess league played there, she was with a group of Free German Youth, who were there to greet us.

vid

I heard of East Germans calling Czechoslovakia "El Dorado", meaning that people in Czechoslovakia were better off economically than East Germans.

Edward

I do not know which one was better as a standard of life was concerned, but East German economy was on constant drip feed from West Germany. At the end the communist regime East Germany was “selling” their dissidents to the West for hard currency.
Glasnost and Abgrenzung EastGermany.info

Qte"Unlike Poland, where a Solidarity movement was started in 1980, there was no serious dissident movement in East Germany. Thanks to the West Germany policy of paying for dissidents, it was profitable to 'sell' troublesome dissidents for a profit . An estimate 2 to 3 million voted with their feet until the Wall was built in 1961.Over 3,000 were sold this way betweem 1963 and 1989 and was a major factor in a dissident movement failing to develop in East Germany. The movements, when they started were spontaneous, like those in 1953. In the late 70s Honecker began a crackdown singers, actors and intellectuals who were thought to be critical of the state .Many were encouraged to imigrate or had their citizenship revoked when they toured abroad . The most famous case of this was with the singer Wolf Biermann, who East German citizenship while he was touring in West Germany .This sparked a wave of protest from other artists such as Christina Wolf. Some of the dissenters were committed Marxist such as Robert Havermann and Rudolf Bahro. who cticized the gad between the theory and practice of socialism"

Kraken

I've heard from some Germans having grown up in the FGR, that it could have been a hellhole in its own regard. The amount of scrutinized brainwashing had many feeling that they were inherently evil. And to this day, the subject of any kind of German pride is looked down upon severely in some parts.

Edward

Just for clarification;
FGR- Federal German Republic =West Germany
Did you mean West Germany or East Germany?

dragoner

Czechoslovakia was often called "Absurdistan" as well as the other communist satellites. I remember a friend giving a jar of olives as a bribe to border control troops in Czechoslovakia, it was very odd, most of them had never had olives and they all clustered around the guy with the jar to try one.

Kraken

Yes, I meant west Germany. Economically things might have been much better there, but hearing first hand about growing up in the FGR, wasn't as much of a utopia as it is portrayed.