Germany was divided between 1945 and 1990. Exactly 70 years after the foundation of East Germany, and 30 years after the peaceful revolution that spelled its demise, that division remains palpable.
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The German Democratic Republic, or GDR, also simply known as East Germany, was founded as a second German state on October 7, 1949 — four years after the end of World War II. The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or more commonly known as West Germany, was founded just four months prior.
The partitioning of Germany was a reflection of the claims laid down by the victorious Allied forces in 1945. On one side there were the US, France and the UK; on the other, the Soviet Union. They had joined forces to defeat fascist Germany, but went their separate ways after that.
The Western Allies established a parliamentary democracy in West Germany, while Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's territorial dominion spread across almost all of Eastern Europe. The most clearly recognizable characteristics of Eastern European states: Planned economies, no rule of law, no freedom of the press, no freedom of movement. Poland, Hungary, Romania and East Germany were just some of the countries forced to live under those rules until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989/1990. Ideologically, they saw themselves as people's democracies, but were, in fact, dictatorships.
East Germany occupied a special geographic and political role within the Eastern Bloc, for free Europe was situated at its western border. Moreover, the similarly divided city of Berlin — the former capital of Nazi Germany — was situated in the heart of its territory. The city had been a symbol of Nazi Germany and all of the Allies wanted a piece of it. Thus, West Berlin also became an island of freedom in communist East Germany.
In divided Berlin, the clash between the competing systems of capitalism and socialism could not have been more stark. The city, with a total of 3.3 million residents, was the hotspot of the Cold War — and, until 1961, it was also the hole through which refugees fled. But that hole was plugged with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Until that point, more than one million people, fed up with the economy of lack and the intellectual climate of an unfree society, had turned their backs on the GDR.
After the Wall went up, people across Germany became ever more estranged. Still, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy of detente with the East led to diplomatic rapprochement in the 1970s. Brandt, a Social Democrat, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. In 1973, both German states became full members of the United Nations (UN), cementing their existence.
Gorbachev expedites GDR downfall
Despite that, relative stability in the GDR was short-lived, lasting only a few years. The regime was simply not economically viable. Historian Frank Bösch says economic hardship was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the East German dictatorship. As an example, Bösch, who is director of the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), points to the large amount of debt the GDR had amassed with Western countries.
He says another contributing factor was the dissatisfaction of the citizenry, "which manifested itself in an incredible desire to leave." When Mikhail Gorbachev, who was seen as a reformer, took the helm in the Soviet Union in 1985, many people in the GDR hoped he would also bring change to their system. Yet, East German leader Erich Honecker remained steadfast.
The people expressed their anger not only through mass demonstrations in the streets, but also by filing in ever more applications for permission to travel outside the GDR. Within two years, the number of applications for travel documents doubled from 53,000 to more than 105,000. That said, only a fraction of applicants were in fact allowed to travel outside the country.
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen is where the former East German secret state police, the "Stasi," had their central remand center. Today it is a memorial site to those who suffered persecution under the Communist dictatorship.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Old building with a dark history
In 1945 the Soviet occupying forces turned the former commercial kitchen compound into an internment camp. The cellar was converted by the prisoners into a remand center. Victims reported that they were tormented by sleep deprivation, beatings, kickings, being forced to stand for hours or subjected to water torture. Food, clothing, and hygiene standards were terrible. Some 1,000 people died.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Prison known as 'U-Boot'
In 1951 the newly-formed East German secret state police, the Stasi, took over the prison. During the 50s most inmates were those opposed to the communist dictatorship, such as reformers and strike leaders involved in the 17 June 1953 uprising. As there was never any daylight in the damp cells, the inmates nick-named the prison 'U-Boot," German for submarine.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
New building
At the end of the 50s a new building with more than 200 cells and interrogation rooms replaced the old cellar jail. Physical violence was replaced by psychological torture. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 most inmates were those who had attempted to escape or leave East Germany, but also writers and civil rights activists.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Disguised prisoner transports
In the 70s most prisoners were brought through the city to the jail in Hohenschönhausen in these Barkas B 1000 vehicles. Made to appear outwardly as fish or vegetable delivery vans, these vehicles had five tiny windowless cells, which meant inmates had no idea where they had been taken. The Stasi succeeded in pressuring 90 percent of inmates to make damning statements in their first interrogation.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Loneliness of a cell block
In prison every inmate was addressed not by name but by their cell number. To socially ostracize them they were often put into isolation cells for months, where even talking to the guards was forbidden. The only human contact was therefore with the interrogator - an insidious way to make inmates talk.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Prison cell
Up to three inmates were housed in the different sized cells. They were unable to see anything through the cell windows, which were made of glass blocks. A mirror and hot water was only made available as of 1983. During the day inmates were not allowed to lie on their cots, at night they had to assume the same position: lying on their backs, facing the door with their hands on top of the blanket.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Spy in the door
Inmates found being permanently watched in their cells through the spy hole in the door very stressful. Guards would keep a check on the prisoners even when they were washing or using the toilet. At night the lights would be switched on every ten to twelve minutes. Heating and light could only be controlled from outside the cells. This all served to make the inmates feel utterly powerless.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Alarm system
A wire was mounted along the walls of the cell block corridor. When a prisoner was taken from his cell to be interrogated, the guards pulled the wire, which made red warning lights light up. Any inmate in the corridor would then have to face the wall immediately. This was intended to prevent prisoners encountering one another.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Interrogation block
The cell block and the interrogation rooms where separated by barred doors. To this day the linoleum floor still smells of the disinfectant used in East Germany. All 120 interrogation rooms were equipped with double padded doors, behind which inmates where subjected to hours of questioning over several months. Prisoners were expected to incriminate themselves so that they could be sentenced.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Interrogation
Stasi police used elaborate psychological interrogation methods. Initially they would threaten the inmate with long prison terms or the arrest of their family members. Panic and uncertainty were intended to wear them down. Those who cooperated were promised an easing of detention conditions: medical attention, a book, or half an hour of yard exercise.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Prison yard
In these cell-like compounds inmates could see the sky and breathe some fresh air. They themselves called the yards "tiger cages." It was forbidden to talk, sing, stop, or to go anywhere near the four-meter (4.1-yard) prison wall. An armed guard was always on patrol above the wire mesh.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Memorial site
The fall of the Berlin Wall put an end to the Stasi remand center. But only few interrogators were ever made accountable for what had happened behind these walls, and none were sent to jail. As the prison buildings and the interior survived unharmed, today's memorial site of Hohenschönhausen gives an authentic insight into the former East German justice system.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
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October 7, 1989: The GDR's last birthday celebration
Honecker and the Ministry for State Security, known colloquially as the Stasi, could no longer halt the collapse of the GDR. People were also protesting in other East European countries, especially Poland and Hungary. Historian Bösch says that was only possible because the Soviet Union had dismantled its traditional military support for local regimes.
On October 7, 1989, the communist regime celebrated the founding of the GDR for the very last time: 40 years of the German Democratic Republic. Just one month later, on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. Millions of Germans, in both the East and the West, were ecstatic. Still, that was not the death knell for the GDR; that would not come for another year, on October 3, 1990, when Germany was reunified.
Sites central to the East German dictatorship became memorials and museums after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They show the scope of imprisonment and injustice, and remind us of those who tried to fight back.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Wolfgang Kumm
Checkpoint Charlie
Probably the best known Cold War border crossing was located in the center of Berlin. In 1945 this was where the American and Russian sectors met. The crossing remained after the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, and then served for foreigners to cross between East and West Berlin. Today a private museum depicts the city's division and escape stories - those that succeeded and those that failed.
Image: Lars Wendt
Buchenwald Soviet Special Camp 2
The repression of political opponents began in 1945 with the establishment of special camps, like the one in Buchenwald near Weimar. Here the Soviet secret police imprisoned nearly 30,000 people, often arbitrarily, in a former Nazi concentration camp. The remains of the camp today has exhibits documenting the conditions and stories of theses inmates as well as a memorial near the mass graves.
Image: Peter Hansen, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
The Ministry for State Security
When East Germany was founded in 1949, the new government took charge of all prisoners. From 1950 the Ministry for State Security, known as the Stasi, was responsible for political prisoners. It had its headquarters in Berlin's Normannenstrasse until 1989. Today it is a museum that includes the preserved office of Erich Mielke, the last Minister of State Security.
Image: DW/E. Jahn
Postplatz Square in Dresden
On the June 17, 1953 there was a widespread uprising against the repressive East German government and the country's economic conditions. There was also strike action and protests in Dresden. This tank track on Postplatz square marks the brutal suppression of the uprising with Soviet tanks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Arno Burgi
Stasi remand center in Berlin Hohenschönhausen
The suppression of the 1953 uprising was followed by a wave of arrests. The Stasi, who had not seen the protests coming, responded with force. For political prisoners, the central remand center in Berlin's Hohenschönhausen district was often the first stop. Since 1994, it has been home to the biggest research and memorial site in the former East Germany.
Image: AP
Former Stasi prison Bautzen II
Bautzen II was the most feared of all Stasi secret police prisons in East Germany. Along with the remand center in Hohenschönhausen these "Stasi slammers" have become the embodiment for state repression. Visitors get an impression of prison conditions from inmate's biographies as well as sound and film recordings of the jail.
Image: Gedenkstätte Bautzen
Juvenile detention center Jugendwerkhof Torgau
In 1964, the East German Ministry for Education under Margot Honecker created the juvenile detention center in Torgau. Behind five-meter walls, military style rule was imposed and offences severely punished. This memorial site today confronts what was the most brutal of all disciplinary institutions for juveniles in East Germany.
Image: DIZ Torgau
Emergency Reception Center Sandbostel
Beginning in 1952, parts of the former Stalag prisoner of war camp near Bremen were used as an emergency reception center for refugees from communist East Germany. Sandbostel became a camp for male East Germans under the age of 24 who had succeeded in escaping to the West. As many as 800 refugees were housed here at any given time.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Ingo Wagner
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall became an international symbol of separation and servitude. After its fall in 1989 the original wall all but vanished from the city. The Berlin Wall Memorial, created to commemorate those killed trying to escape, contains one of the last pieces. This is where the official anniversary commemoration will take place on November 9.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Wolfgang Kumm
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Meanwhile, the relatively small country, which had only 17 million residents before it was dissolved, has spent the past 29 years as part of the larger Federal Republic of Germany, today home to 83 million people. Still, no one would think of describing the whole as a unified fatherland. The economy in the west is far stronger than in the east. Workers earn more in the west and very few companies have managers from the east.
Frank Bösch also points to the different attitudes and memories that characterize people from the former GDR: "East Germans have different taste in music and media, they travel differently and make political decisions differently as well."
The historian says he is not betting on assimilation happening any time soon, saying it will take a long time before the GDR disappears from the minds of its former citizens like it disappeared from the world. He says lived history encompasses roughly three generations. Many people know what their grandparents went through because of family stories.
"The Berlin Wall and similar things have become such powerful icons that they will remain present as living memories for some time to come." Pointing to experience with the legacy of Nazism, Bösch predicts the GDR will not truly become a closed chapter in history until 70 or 80 years from now.
Looking back to the era of Nazism that preceded the separation of Germany, he says that dark chapter of history is only now slowly coming to an end as "the last witnesses are no longer alive." Using that metric, the chapter on the GDR won't be closed until 2070 at the earliest.