Books on East Germany?

[Engel]

I was wondering if anyone had any recomendations for a book about the life in the DDR. I'd like something that encompassed the social, economic, political aspects of life in the DDR. I'm sure someone has some kind of memoir type book published about this but I don't know what. Also a book about the history of East Germany, it's relations to other Eastern Bloc states, its domestic policies and its economic policies. Thank you in advance comrades!

[Ismail]

The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker by Mary Fulbrook. For what it's worth there is a memoir from an American communist defector (named Victor Grossman) to the GDR entitled Crossing the River.

[eyeheartlenin]

There is an outstanding film, The Lives of Others, Das Leben der Anderen, (I think) on DVD, about a Stasi official, that anyone interested in the DDR should see. That is just about the best film I ever saw. Admittedly, it's fiction. You probably saw it already. Pls forgive my off-topic intervention.

When I was an admin assistant in a prominent university in Massachusetts, I saw a book in the library there that highlighted the role played by popular demonstrations against the government of the DDR, in the downfall of that state, but I cannot, for the life of me, remember the name of it or find it in their on-line catalog. I tried. The thesis of that book, as I remember it, is that there was a pact between the government of the DDR and the citizens: citizens gave the state their loyalty, in exchange for a (relatively) comfortable life. When that comfort was no longer available for ordinary Germans in the DDR, the population withdrew its support, and the state collapsed. The demonstrations against the DDR's leadership represented an entry into politics by vast numbers of citizens; the state, which used violence against its own population, was defeated by massive popular, overwhelmingly peaceful, protest.

There is a book that situates popular resistance to state repression in the DDR in the wider context of fundamental change in the Eastern European (what I would call) "workers states." The title is "No Longer Comrades," and, although the book is written from a bourgeois point of view, the facts are really interesting.

[Os Cangaceiros]

"The Wall Jumper" is pretty good. It's a fictional book, but it's based mostly on fact.

It's composed of multiple stories, but the title story is about a guy who jumps over lesser-guarded sections of the Berlin Wall for fun.

[Ismail]

The thesis of that book, as I remember it, is that there was a pact between the government of the DDR and the citizens: citizens gave the state their loyalty, in exchange for a (relatively) comfortable life. When that comfort was no longer available for ordinary Germans in the DDR, the population withdrew its support, and the state collapsed.That isn't something unique. Constantine Pleshakov's book There Is No Freedom Without Bread! makes that point as well.

[JoeySteel]

The Triumph of Evil is a book written by a finance professor who was in the GDR when the wall came down. The book centres on 2 basic points: that the bad guys won the cold war and that the GDR was a superior system to the FRG. Its not definitive and covers other topics besides East Germany but it's very interesting and the guy put a lot of work into studying the east German economy.

[Ismail]

The Triumph of Evil is a book written by a finance professor who was in the GDR when the wall came down. The book centres on 2 basic points: that the bad guys won the cold war and that the GDR was a superior system to the FRG. Its not definitive and covers other topics besides East Germany but it's very interesting and the guy put a lot of work into studying the east German economy.I assume you mean The Triumph of Evil: The Reality of the USA's Cold War Victory by Austin Murphy? I have also heard it's an interesting book.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The Lives Of Others is a very, very exaggerated and in some ways historically incorrect portrayal of the Stasi.

It is, however, a very well put together film, well acted and if you already know a bit about the GDR then there's no danger in watching it.

[Delenda Carthago]

I think its called "From Hell"..?

Here, read this and understand that there is no reason to support DDR, specialy if you are a M-L.
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/e-dossier-no-15-malenkov-the-german-question-2-june-1953

[Magdalen]

If you're looking for something quite pro-GDR, Ernie Trory, a member of the New Communist Party of Britain, wrote a rather concise and readable pamphlet called Socialism in Germany, which although out of print, seems to be fairly available second-hand.

[A Marxist Historian]

The Lives Of Others is a very, very exaggerated and in some ways historically incorrect portrayal of the Stasi.

It is, however, a very well put together film, well acted and if you already know a bit about the GDR then there's no danger in watching it.

Yes, it's a good flick, though exaggerated in places, definitely giving you some of the feel of what East Germany was like, though the positive side not so much.

The hero of course is a Stasi agent and true believer in everything he was doing, seeing spying on the citizenry in the former land of Nazism as service to the revolutionary cause.

If understood properly, it is a good answer to all the propaganda about how the Stasi were all forces of darkness and evil and the Berlin Wall was just a crime against humanity.

-M.H.-

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yes, it's a good flick, though exaggerated in places, definitely giving you some of the feel of what East Germany was like, though the positive side not so much.

The hero of course is a Stasi agent and true believer in everything he was doing, seeing spying on the citizenry in the former land of Nazism as service to the revolutionary cause.

If understood properly, it is a good answer to all the propaganda about how the Stasi were all forces of darkness and evil and the Berlin Wall was just a crime against humanity.

-M.H.-

Interesting was that Ulrich Muhe, who played the spy, was actually spied upon by his wife when he lived in the GDR. I thought it was a particularly touching performance from him.

I guess it could be said that it's easy to call the individual elements of the Stasi 'evil forces of darkness' with hindsight, when at the time the individual elements (or some of them) probably went through similar thought processes to Captain Weisler.

As an aside, it seems obvious to me that minister Hempf was modelled on Erich Mielke, who comes across as a genuine force of darkness. I really do despise people who advocate Stasi-esque style population control, it's really the anti-thesis to Socialism in terms of power, workers' control etc. The Stasi really does send a chill down my spine. Just think about it!