*The paradox of communist Germany was that it remained more culturally conservative than its capitalist equivalent*
You have to give the communist countries this much: they preserved the homogeneity of their peoples. It was the capitalist countries—the so-called ‘good guys’—which embarked on a programme of diversity and multiculturalism with the express intent, to my way of thinking, of wrecking their people’s way of life. The result is staring us all in the face and yet the people vote for more.
The parents of a German I know have spent all their lives in Magdeburg, East Germany. They say that they felt freer to express their opinions under communism than in today’s Germany. A West German friend who used to be active on social media has closed all his accounts for fear of state reprisal.
I've visited Weimar, in the eastern state of Thuringia, a few times. In a park near the middle of town is a fairly large Soviet cemetery, for Soviets who died in the area during and after the War, containing a lot of hammer-and-sickle imagery. It must have been a hard pill to swallow for the local people. Bad enough to lose a World War so catastrophically, losing countless young men and civilians, without your conquerors then going and building a massive triumphant monument to themselves in the middle of your town. Which you're not even allowed to grumble about.
Whether driven by Soviet triumphalism or not, support for Alternative für Deutschland is strongest in Thuringia:
‘The AfD has reached a new polling high in polls across eastern Germany, putting it in first place in four of the five states there. In the German state of Thuringia, the party is polling at 34 percent’.
Growing up in the late '50s and early '60s, the East Germans seemed especially terrifying. The Russians may have been communist and brutal but they were also inclined to incompetence, romanticism and Vodka.
The Germans on the other hand were communist and good at it. I imagined their tanks all neatly lined up and their sober, stony-faced crews ready to charge across unhindered Autobahnen. This delusion was happily shattered the first time I saw a Trabant, or rather several of them, broken down on the Autobahn hard shoulder.
TE Lawrence on German troops in 1918, from ‘Revolt in the Desert’, Chapter XXXIV:
‘The enemy had tried to halt and camp at sunset, but Khalid had shaken them again into movement. Some marched, some stayed. Many dropped asleep in their tracks with fatigue. They had lost order and coherence, and were drifting through the blast in lorn packets, ready to shoot and run at every contact with us or with each other; and the Arabs were as scattered, and nearly as uncertain.
‘Exceptions were the German detachments; and here, for the first time, I grew proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers. They were two thousand miles from home, without hope and without guides, in conditions mad enough to break the bravest nerves. Yet their sections held together, in firm rank, sheering through the wrack of Turk and Arab like armoured ships, high-faced and silent. When attacked they halted, took position, fired to order. There was no haste, no crying, no hestitation. They were glorious.’
"I grew proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers."
I take your/Lawrence's point of course, but I find myself entirely unable to share such a sentiment. The killing of my brothers must be avenged: death or capitulation (theirs) are the only options. Something from the Norse side, I dare say.
Perhaps Lawrence saw the deeper truth, that Britain and Germany are brother nations, genetically, culturally, religiously, linguistically. The ‘Christmas truce’ shows that the poor bloody infantry, if not the donkeys who led them, recognized their brotherhood. The greatest tragedy for European civilization is that we fought each other in two World Wars, to the benefit of the financiers. A rallying cry of today’s nationalists is ‘No more brother wars’. Please God, no more Dresdens:
If my brother, accompanied by a gang of thugs, tries to harm my family and take my house, he makes himself no longer my brother but my enemy. On the other hand, if a distant cousin from far across the water offers to assist in my struggle, he will be my neighbour - in accordance with our shared culture (see Luke 10:25-37).
When my brother desists from his evil activities, forgiveness is possible but only following a period of admonition, reform and repentance.
2. 1940. ‘Since ending the war with Germany was in his nation’s interest but not his own, Churchill undertook ruthless means to prevent peace sentiments from growing so strong that they overwhelmed his opposition. Along with most other major countries, Britain and Germany had signed international conventions prohibiting the aerial bombardment of civilian urban targets, and although the British leader had very much hoped the Germans would attack his cities, Hitler scrupulously followed these provisions. In desperation, Churchill therefore ordered a series of large-scale bombing raids against the German capital of Berlin, doing considerable damage, and after numerous severe warnings, Hitler finally began to retaliate with similar attacks against British cities. The population saw the heavy destruction inflicted by these German bombing raids and was never informed of the British attacks that had preceded and provoked them, so public sentiment greatly hardened against making peace with the seemingly diabolical German adversary.’
The opinion of Revilo P Oliver, US Military Intelligence, which follows the above quotation, is worth reading.
These communists are totally different people to the hammer and sickle brigade on twitter. Not least because they have read some Marx. Not least because they left their bedroom. Not least because they were prepared to sacrifice for their beliefs. Walter Ulbricht was a true believer, who did lead a horrible life in exile and had very little chance of gaining power for all of his life, it took a world war and the invasion of Germany to do that. He was not therefore an obvious power seeker.
Reading the book, I warmed to him and the early GDR, unexpectedly. It wasn’t as successful as the west but did in fact grow the economy successfully enough, with some economic freedoms, in the 50s and 60s.
Very nice article. Makes you wonder if the East Germans might have been the first people in history to make a go of socialism - if only they hadn't been hobbled from the start by the USSR.
I lived in West Berlin from 1979-1982 and went over to East Berlin several times, as well as to East Germany, a couple of times as far as the Polish border which was, stricly speaking, not allowed. The ossies appeared, on average, to be a dour, humourless lot and may well have actually been so. Yet looking back now I feel a certain nostalgia for a culture that would have found smiley-faced Matt Baker an oddity.
‘One of the things I need to explain is that socialists and communists have not stopped thinking. They have not ignored the failures of the 1917 revolution, nor the dead end of Attlee’s nationalisation programme. They have regrouped, re-examined the battlefield, turned to other things. The fact that your opponent is no longer trying to nationalise industry, and the fact that the old Bolshevik-influenced Communist Parties are one with Nineveh and Tyre, does not mean that the revolutionaries have gone away.
‘It just means that, following Antonio Gramsci or Herbert Marcuse (or Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland) they have learned new ways to the old goal of the utopian society…The battle has shifted into sex, marriage, morality, comedy, drugs, rock and roll, the abolition of personal responsibility, the spread of egalitarian and diversity dogma in schools, the civil service, the law, universities, publishing, broadcasting and the NHS, the anti-Christian frenzy, and the attack on national sovereignty.’
*The paradox of communist Germany was that it remained more culturally conservative than its capitalist equivalent*
You have to give the communist countries this much: they preserved the homogeneity of their peoples. It was the capitalist countries—the so-called ‘good guys’—which embarked on a programme of diversity and multiculturalism with the express intent, to my way of thinking, of wrecking their people’s way of life. The result is staring us all in the face and yet the people vote for more.
The parents of a German I know have spent all their lives in Magdeburg, East Germany. They say that they felt freer to express their opinions under communism than in today’s Germany. A West German friend who used to be active on social media has closed all his accounts for fear of state reprisal.
I've visited Weimar, in the eastern state of Thuringia, a few times. In a park near the middle of town is a fairly large Soviet cemetery, for Soviets who died in the area during and after the War, containing a lot of hammer-and-sickle imagery. It must have been a hard pill to swallow for the local people. Bad enough to lose a World War so catastrophically, losing countless young men and civilians, without your conquerors then going and building a massive triumphant monument to themselves in the middle of your town. Which you're not even allowed to grumble about.
Whether driven by Soviet triumphalism or not, support for Alternative für Deutschland is strongest in Thuringia:
‘The AfD has reached a new polling high in polls across eastern Germany, putting it in first place in four of the five states there. In the German state of Thuringia, the party is polling at 34 percent’.
https://rmx.news/germany/germany-afd-party-reaches-another-record-polling-high-achieves-first-place-in-4-out-of-5-eastern-german-states/
Yes, ungracious winners.
** The angry crowd chanted, “Das hat alles keinen Zweck, der Spitzbart muss weg!” – “No point in reform until Goatee is gone!”’ **
I admire their courage, but the slogan lacks a certain zing.
It does kinda rhyme in German.
Perhaps explains why their pop music was so lacklustre.
Good insight.
Growing up in the late '50s and early '60s, the East Germans seemed especially terrifying. The Russians may have been communist and brutal but they were also inclined to incompetence, romanticism and Vodka.
The Germans on the other hand were communist and good at it. I imagined their tanks all neatly lined up and their sober, stony-faced crews ready to charge across unhindered Autobahnen. This delusion was happily shattered the first time I saw a Trabant, or rather several of them, broken down on the Autobahn hard shoulder.
TE Lawrence on German troops in 1918, from ‘Revolt in the Desert’, Chapter XXXIV:
‘The enemy had tried to halt and camp at sunset, but Khalid had shaken them again into movement. Some marched, some stayed. Many dropped asleep in their tracks with fatigue. They had lost order and coherence, and were drifting through the blast in lorn packets, ready to shoot and run at every contact with us or with each other; and the Arabs were as scattered, and nearly as uncertain.
‘Exceptions were the German detachments; and here, for the first time, I grew proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers. They were two thousand miles from home, without hope and without guides, in conditions mad enough to break the bravest nerves. Yet their sections held together, in firm rank, sheering through the wrack of Turk and Arab like armoured ships, high-faced and silent. When attacked they halted, took position, fired to order. There was no haste, no crying, no hestitation. They were glorious.’
"I grew proud of the enemy who had killed my brothers."
I take your/Lawrence's point of course, but I find myself entirely unable to share such a sentiment. The killing of my brothers must be avenged: death or capitulation (theirs) are the only options. Something from the Norse side, I dare say.
Perhaps Lawrence saw the deeper truth, that Britain and Germany are brother nations, genetically, culturally, religiously, linguistically. The ‘Christmas truce’ shows that the poor bloody infantry, if not the donkeys who led them, recognized their brotherhood. The greatest tragedy for European civilization is that we fought each other in two World Wars, to the benefit of the financiers. A rallying cry of today’s nationalists is ‘No more brother wars’. Please God, no more Dresdens:
https://www.unz.com/article/how-many-germans-died-under-raf-bombs-at-dresden-in-1945/
If my brother, accompanied by a gang of thugs, tries to harm my family and take my house, he makes himself no longer my brother but my enemy. On the other hand, if a distant cousin from far across the water offers to assist in my struggle, he will be my neighbour - in accordance with our shared culture (see Luke 10:25-37).
When my brother desists from his evil activities, forgiveness is possible but only following a period of admonition, reform and repentance.
1. In 1939, it was Britain that declared war.
2. 1940. ‘Since ending the war with Germany was in his nation’s interest but not his own, Churchill undertook ruthless means to prevent peace sentiments from growing so strong that they overwhelmed his opposition. Along with most other major countries, Britain and Germany had signed international conventions prohibiting the aerial bombardment of civilian urban targets, and although the British leader had very much hoped the Germans would attack his cities, Hitler scrupulously followed these provisions. In desperation, Churchill therefore ordered a series of large-scale bombing raids against the German capital of Berlin, doing considerable damage, and after numerous severe warnings, Hitler finally began to retaliate with similar attacks against British cities. The population saw the heavy destruction inflicted by these German bombing raids and was never informed of the British attacks that had preceded and provoked them, so public sentiment greatly hardened against making peace with the seemingly diabolical German adversary.’
The opinion of Revilo P Oliver, US Military Intelligence, which follows the above quotation, is worth reading.
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-understanding-world-war-ii/#p_1_92
These communists are totally different people to the hammer and sickle brigade on twitter. Not least because they have read some Marx. Not least because they left their bedroom. Not least because they were prepared to sacrifice for their beliefs. Walter Ulbricht was a true believer, who did lead a horrible life in exile and had very little chance of gaining power for all of his life, it took a world war and the invasion of Germany to do that. He was not therefore an obvious power seeker.
Reading the book, I warmed to him and the early GDR, unexpectedly. It wasn’t as successful as the west but did in fact grow the economy successfully enough, with some economic freedoms, in the 50s and 60s.
Very nice article. Makes you wonder if the East Germans might have been the first people in history to make a go of socialism - if only they hadn't been hobbled from the start by the USSR.
I lived in West Berlin from 1979-1982 and went over to East Berlin several times, as well as to East Germany, a couple of times as far as the Polish border which was, stricly speaking, not allowed. The ossies appeared, on average, to be a dour, humourless lot and may well have actually been so. Yet looking back now I feel a certain nostalgia for a culture that would have found smiley-faced Matt Baker an oddity.
Yesterday’s revolutionaries are today’s reactionaries
Another good book on life in Eastern Germany is Maxim Leo’s “Red Love”.
Peter Hitchens, 2013:
‘One of the things I need to explain is that socialists and communists have not stopped thinking. They have not ignored the failures of the 1917 revolution, nor the dead end of Attlee’s nationalisation programme. They have regrouped, re-examined the battlefield, turned to other things. The fact that your opponent is no longer trying to nationalise industry, and the fact that the old Bolshevik-influenced Communist Parties are one with Nineveh and Tyre, does not mean that the revolutionaries have gone away.
‘It just means that, following Antonio Gramsci or Herbert Marcuse (or Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland) they have learned new ways to the old goal of the utopian society…The battle has shifted into sex, marriage, morality, comedy, drugs, rock and roll, the abolition of personal responsibility, the spread of egalitarian and diversity dogma in schools, the civil service, the law, universities, publishing, broadcasting and the NHS, the anti-Christian frenzy, and the attack on national sovereignty.’
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/05/may-day-reflections-on-moscow-useless-tories-and-ukip.html