On the day the Berlin Wall fell, as it happened, I almost died. Constipated from too much chocolate, I battled for my life in an east-Berlin hospital with my panic-stricken mother at my bedside, while my father had been sent out to secure the border. At the age of two and a half, I was not part of the political story. I had my own problems digesting die Wende.
Obviously, I cannot say much about life in the GDR. Nevertheless, the stories of my family were so vivid that it sometimes felt like I lived through it myself. In fact, I did – through their narratives, through their fears and the injustices they felt, which endure until today. The trouble finding a job in the free-market economy, the devaluation of their professional education and the (self-)destructive forces die Wende unleashed: alcoholism, divorce and loneliness. The feeling of having lived through the best times in the GDR prompted much of the (cultural) pessimism that reigns in a large part of the rural east. And it has been handed down to the next generation.
The feeling of having lived through the best times in the GDR prompted much of the (cultural) pessimism that reigns in a large part of the rural East.
For my peers, forming political beliefs has been a tricky issue. With our parents still reluctant to play their part in the citizenship model of reunited Germany, a vacuum evolved that has been filled with swastikas and violence. The Nazis of my generation dominated the various spheres of social life. They were proud of their east German descent and they were cherished by their west German comrades for their steadfastness and ultra-brutality. Becoming a real national socialist was a lifelong aim for some. One of my best friends from primary school went this way. When we met again, he was about to batter me. We recognised each other and he released me. “Was just looking for some reds to beat up”, he said. We went our different ways – but not without another sieg heil as a farewell.
