Culture | Inside the GDR

“Beyond the Wall” adds depth to caricatures of East Germany

“There was oppression and brutality,” Katja Hoyer writes, but also “opportunity and belonging”

An East German policeman (Vopo) looks at East German Trabant cars, as heavy East to West traffic clogged the Glienicker Bridge, the bridge where East West spy exchanges traditionnally took place, on November 21, 1989. On November 09, Gunter Schabowski, the East Berlin Communist party boss, declared that starting from midnight, East Germans would be free to leave the country, without permission, at any point along the border, including the crossing-points through the Wall in Berlin. The Berlin concrete wall was built by the East German government 13 August 1961 to seal off East Berlin from the part of the city occupied by the three main Western powers to prevent mass illegal immigration to the West. According to the "August 13 Association" which specialises in the history of the Berlin Wall, at least 938 people - 255 in Berlin alone - died, shot by East German border guards, attempting to flee to West Berlin or West Germany. The wall was opened 09 November 1989 and has been demolished since then. (Photo credit should read GERARD MALIE/AFP via Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images

In the eyes of its critics, the communist-run part of Germany was never a proper country. The Kremlin-backed puppet state belied its moniker, being neither German, nor Democratic, nor a Republic. To the day of its incorporation into West Germany in 1990, it was at most the “GDR”, written with inverted commas, or more contemptuously, the Zone—recalling its original status as the Soviet-occupied bit of defeated Nazi Germany.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The lives of others”

Culture March 25th 2023

From the March 25th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
Reuse this content

Discover more

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola looks pensive with fans blurred in the background.

Pep Guardiola, football’s greatest coach, is in a bind 

A serial winner is learning how to lose 

Someone reading a book upside down

The Economist’s word of the year for 2024

The Greeks knew how to talk about politics and power

This illustration shows a cracked egg, with its yolk and egg white spilled onto a flat surface. Two halves of the brown eggshell are placed on either side of the spill, and the yolk forms a triangle-like shape.

What do feta, cucumbers and cottage cheese have in common?

Social media and the internet are changing how people cook and relate to food

Germany’s former chancellor sets out to restore her reputation

But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds

The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist

Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies

What to read to understand Elon Musk

The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction