GDR

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall

How time flies! It’s 30 years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and 5 years since Border Crossings, my account of a long-term connection between a group of young Scots and young East Germans, came out on Kindle. Many of the hopes of those heady days of November 1989 have come to fruition, though not all. Intolerance and inequality are on the rise at an alarming rate. But there’s a growing resistance to that hatred and greed. Every new generation has to stand up against the evils of their own time – and understanding past struggles can be a pointer to what can be achieved. So to mark the achievements of those young Germans that I have known for so many years, I’m re-posting this piece about that Scottish-German friendship, a friendship that began in 1978 and has played such an important part of my life.

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It’s 25 years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall – 9th November 1989.  A quarter of a century ago the seemingly impossible happened and that grotesque symbol of a brutal totalitarian regime was breached.  Not through violence or bloodshed, but through the non-violent, patient, persistent refusal of the people of the GDR – East Germany – to tolerate any longer the brutal, unjust and economically inept rule of a decaying communist regime. It was a day not many had foreseen but what a day of rejoicing it was!

Sunday 9th November 2014 is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and I was delighted to be asked to take part in BBC Radio Scotland’s “Sunday Morning with Ricky Ross” programme to discuss that exciting time.  It was an historic turning point for Europe – and the world – and I was privileged to have made many visits to East Germany both before and after those amazing days.

The courage, determination and hope of the people who lived through that brutal regime is remarkable.  The endless shortages, the ban on travel to the West, the constant spying and fear of the dreaded Stasi (the secret police) made life extraordinarily hard.  But in the end the regime fell and life changed for the people of the former East Germany.

Bringing down that hated wall!

My friends there live a very different life now and although the transitional period was not always easy,  there was a whole new Europe for them and their children to explore, enjoy and contribute to. Political reform is rarely easy as those with power seldom wish to relinquish any of it!  But events in what was East Germany – and the other countries in the former Soviet Bloc – show what can be done if people are determined, courageous and persistent enough!

Links:

Sunday Morning with Ricky Ross,

BBC Radio Scotland, The Fall of the Wall, 9th Nov 2014

Border Crossings Kindle Edition

A Piece of the Berlin Wall

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DDR Museum – the ‘Living History’ of East Germany

Life in the DDR – East Germany – becomes ‘living history’ in this fascinating museum

It’s not often that the immediate past becomes history as quickly as did that of the erstwhile East Germany.  The hated communist regime of the DDR (or GDR or East Germany) vanished almost overnight in 1989.  But now, 25 years after the end of the Cold War, life in the former soviet satellite state is being looked at and explored as never before.  That the regime of the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) was a brutal and cruel one is obvious to all, but the majority of East Germany’s citizens were decent human beings living their lives as ‘normally’ as possible despite such difficult circumstances.

The DDR Museum in Berlin does a wonderful job of showing how ordinary people lived. Through familiar, everyday things, it shows how East Germans made the best of a bad job and tried to make life as bearable as possible for themselves and their families.  It also offers remarkable insights into the insidious ways the state attempted to manipulate, bully and threaten its citizens into silent conformity to a regime that was patently unfair, corrupt and inhuman. The propaganda machine rumbled on for 40 years spewing out distortions and half-truths – but most people saw through the lies.  And it was the people of East Germany themselves who finally had the courage to stand up and be counted and who brought down that hated regime.

When we visited last week, I was pleased to see that the positive role of the church has been acknowledged too: the protection it offered to dissenters, the space to be quiet, to think, to articulate peaceful protest against the regime.  The church was not a political party, but neither was it a pawn of the state.  As one of the exhibition boards says: “The SED forced the church onto the margins of society, challenging its existence, symbols and articles of faith. The discrimination against church members in the educational system and the professions was designed to weaken its membership. Nevertheless, the persecution strengthened the church, which then developed into a politicized public space.  Initially a rallying point for small groups, the Protestant Church attracted thousands in the 1980s and provided the starting point for the peaceful revolution.”

The church played an important role in bringing down the communist regime in East Germany

But one thing in particular really came home to me during our visit.  So much of what we saw there could apply just as easily to Britain today: from the ‘propaganda’ used daily in our newspapers, to the lies and half-truths told by our politicians as they abuse our system to line their own pockets, blatantly ignoring the wishes of the people they were elected to represent.  Democracy is a very, very fragile thing and needs to be carefully guarded and nourished.  Like the people of East Germany back then, we need to be committed to playing our part in the life of our country.  Some things can’t be left to politicians or to those who use money and privilege to abuse power.

“Wir sind das Volk!” – “We are the people!” was the cry that was heard in the streets of East Germany 25 years ago.  It’s a cry that has begun to be heard again in this country and one that needs to continue to be heard loud and clear if Britain is to become a better place for all its people – not just for the few.  We need to re-engage with politics.  We need to have the courage to stand up and be counted.  Without doubt, we could learn a thing or two from the people of the former DDR!

Link to the museum: The DDR Museum in Berlin

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“Border Crossings” now available as an eBook

“Go, Trabi, Go!” – right through the Berlin Wall!

As November 2014 saw the 25th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I thought it would be a good time to publish “Border Crossings” as an eBook and I’m pleased to say it is now available to download through Amazon Kindle:

Border Crossings eBook

Many of you will have seen the excellent films “Good Bye, Lenin!” and “The Lives of Others”, both of which gave insights into the lives of the East German people during and just after the fall of communism. Two very different films, but both showing that even in the face of an oppressive regime people are still living, breathing and caring human beings.  And that for every person prepared to betray their fellows, there were others prepared to stand by those they loved and cared for – whatever the cost.  It was this humanity that won through in the end and that is truly something worth celebrating and remembering. Looking back over 36 years of a Scottish-German friendship that began in East Berlin in 1978, this book tries to do just that!

Ordinary people can change history!

Click HERE for Reviews of Border Crossings by Martin Dey, David Pattie, Kerstin Jorna and others

Amazon Bestseller Religious Studies ratings 20th December 2014:

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall – BBC Radio Scotland

Bringing down the hated Berlin Wall, 1990

It is 25 years to the day since the Fall of the Berlin Wall – 9th November 1989.  A quarter of a century ago the seemingly impossible happened and that grotesque symbol of a brutal totalitarian regime was breached.  Not through violence or bloodshed, but through the non-violent, patient, persistent refusal of the people of the GDR – East Germany – to tolerate any longer the brutal, unjust and economically inept rule of a decaying communist regime.

It was a day not many had foreseen but what a day of rejoicing it was!  This morning I took part in a discussion of that wonderful time on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Sunday Morning with Ricky Ross” programme.

The Berlin Wall

 
It’s 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. We recall that historic turning point through the perspective of two people who had unique experiences of it at the time, Hans-Dieter Robel and Vivien Martin.
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A Piece of the Berlin Wall

A piece of the Berlin Wall just months after ‘The Peaceful Revolution’ when the Wall was finally breached

Believe it or not, but it’s 25 years since the Berlin Wall came down – or rather was brought down by the people of East Germany.  No-one thought it would ever go.  Set in stone, or more accurately in huge slabs of concrete, the Berlin Wall seemed to be there for all time, the bleak physical emblem of a brutal and hypocritical regime, dividing the lives of so many people.  An insurmountable and ever-present barrier.  Yet the spirit and courage of ordinary people were to prove that to be untrue.

From the late 1970s I had been in touch with young East Germans, friends made during an unforgettable visit behind the Iron Curtain in 1978.  I was one of a group of young Scots on a church exchange that was in fact no exchange.  We could enter the GDR, but they were not able to visit us in return.  On our departure at the end of that first remarkable trip we bought our S-Bahn tickets – one way – back to the West.  “Tickets to freedom…” as one of our new friends commented wryly, “…for only a few pfennigs“.  It was a tearful farewell – it didn’t seem likely that we would ever see each other again.

It had been hard enough for us to get there in the first place.  The visit had been discouraged by the GDR, an avowedly atheistic state that regarded both us and our hosts as holding undesirable beliefs, incompatible with the state ideology.  But it was also seen as undesirable in the eyes of the British authorities, who paid me a visit before our departure to encourage us to think twice about going.  However, go we did, facing a long and arduous journey from West to East, past heavily armed guards and grim border crossing points to get there.

Despite all obstacles though, we were determined that from that initial visit onwards this contact should be maintained and we visited whenever we could – later even taking our young daughter Alison with us.  These visits were of immense importance to us all.  We grew to understand the full extent of lives lived under a totalitarian regime, while for our East German friends we were the lifeline to a world outside, proof that other ways were possible. They asked us not to forget them. Through all those years we were deeply impressed by their dignity and courage and determination not to give up hope.

And it was this courage and determination that eventually proved too much for the regime – in November 1989 the Wall came down.  During those exciting – and dangerous – days, our friends would phone us, uncertain as to how much we were able to see in the West.  “Do you know what’s happening?”, “Can you see what’s going on?”  Then a momentous call when Dietmar and Martina rang from Berlin – “The Wall is breached!  We are in West Berlin!  We can hardly believe it’s true!”

But true it was.  I remember so vividly those heady days as the unimaginable happened and the whole edifice of Soviet control began to crumble, finally swept away for good.  As soon as possible we travelled to Berlin and, along with our friends, took up hammer and chisel and helped to bring down that hated edifice that had separated families and countries for so long.

It’s not been an easy transition – no system of government is perfect, but some are definitely better than others.  My friends faced a huge change from one of life to another – new and often daunting challenges – but now they were free from the mental and physical tortures used by the regime to keep the people down.  The Berlin Wall, monstrous in itself, had hidden from the West many of the horrific things done to people who dared to question the state in any way.

The piece of the Berlin Wall that I brought home from that visit is a treasured possession.  The symbol of the courage of my friends, who without weapons, took on a hated regime and brought it down.  My piece of the Wall is a constant reminder to me of their determination in the face of what seemed an indestructible and permanent evil.  My piece of the Wall is a tangible witness to enduring friendships that continue to this day.  Something I will treasure forever.

The story of these remarkable events is told in full in Border Crossings 

Reviews of Border Crossings from Martin Dey and David Pattie