Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

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It wasn't all bad: East Germany became the most economically successful of the Soviet satellite states (albeit a low pass mark), and the lives and struggles of its people had by the 1970s moments of material success and relative happiness. Their achievements become over time emblematic of the human capacity to survive and even flourish to some extent when circumstances and fate seem to be acting against rational development and humane progress. Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. Rating this book was a bit of a headache, for reasons I will get into shortly. Ultimately, I decided on a 3/5 since any more would be tacit approval of the current state of historiographical discourse regarding East Germany.

BBC Radio 3 - Free Thinking, East Germany BBC Radio 3 - Free Thinking, East Germany

Beyond the Wall" adds depth to caricatures of East Germany". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613 . Retrieved 2023-06-03. a b Mikanowski, Jacob (2023-04-02). "Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712 . Retrieved 2023-06-29. By 1988, the average East German drank 142 litres of beer a year, double the intake of the average West German. The obvious explanation is they drank to escape the unbearable awfulness of being in the German Democratic Republic, with its omnipresent Stasi, clown-car Trabants, travel restrictions, gerontocratic rulers, grim Baltic holidays and laughable elections. But, in “Beyond the Wall,” the German historian Katja Hoyer claims that when it comes to the former East German state this characterisation is not the whole story. Ever since German reunification in 1990, inhabitants of the former West German Federal Republic have exhibited a patronising (at best) attitude towards ‘the Osties’, sneering at their obsolete Marxist state, and dismissing their experiences under that state in such a way that the GDR - and the lives of those who grew up under it - have been “written out of the national narrative”. In writing this book about the origins and history of the East German state, Katja Hoyer says her intention is to show that the GDR was “never a passive Soviet satellite” but was instead a distinct political entity with its own “economic, social, and cultural idiosyncrasies”. Hoyer maintains that the GDR “deserves a history that treats it as more than a walled ‘Stasiland’ and gives it its proper place in German history”. The GDR] was one of the strangest countries to have ever existed, a jewel box of contradictions...These contradictions are beautifully capturedin Beyond the Wall...Craftingan expansive and generoushistoryof East Germany, Hoyer brings long-standing academic scholarship to a broader audience, explaining how the GDR evolved over its 40-year existence, the triumphs and travails of everyday life under state socialism, and why so many East Germans continue to pine for the country they have lost."Unsurprisingly, the insidious reach of the Stasi was a serious deterrent to any potential dissenters. It was common for families and friends to inform on each other, and criticising the regime to almost anyone was incredibly risky and could also be a potentially extremely dangerous thing to do. Fear of losing opportunities, being subjected to a sustained harassment campaign or even torture and imprisonment ensured mass compliance with the regime, despite the hardships it often created. Hoyer argues Germany’s formal division into two separate states in 1949 hadn’t always been inevitable. Initially, Stalin aimed to keep Germany unified and neutral. However, Moscow eventually deemed it necessary to establish a socialist state in East Germany as a buffer between the capitalist West and the socialist East. Indeed w hile the West was rebuilding and forming a partnership with the UK and Americans after World War Two, the Soviet Zone’s gradual nationalisation of the economy made establishing a separate socialist state increasingly desirable to the Russians. Hoyer animates the story of the people of the East by beginning each chapter with an anecdotal snapshot of a personal event that replicates on an individual level broader political and social developments. Otherwise, her account follows a standard historical chronology of the East. It starts with post-war establishment in the late 1940s, and records the struggle to establish a working economy and society in the 1950s and '60s.

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Hachette Book Group Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Hachette Book Group

Hoyer explains that after years of political upheaval, war, economic turmoil and rapid political change, most Germans were exhausted and sought stability, a settled home life, and a future without war and economic disaster. Thus an anti-fascist, socialist one-party state like the GDR appealed to many East Germans. This book has enlightened me to a lot of what happened in the country and why. I did feel, however, that the really dark stuff was rather glossed over. Yes, the word "dictator" was used a time or two. The number of people Stalin made disappear in horrific circumstances was stated. It is accepted that the Stasi was feared. Mielke was mentioned many times, but not in any real depth. Also, no light was shone on the ordinary citizens who spied on their families, friends, neighbors, colleagues.

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In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.

Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany by Katja Hoyer Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany by Katja Hoyer

Myth-busting, artfully constructed history. Hoyer displays a special understanding and wants to present a corrective to previous reductive assessments of the GDR that depict it as a field-gray Stasiland. Her command of detail, broad historical brush strokes, and evident sympathy for her interview partners make fora fascinating read.” Historian and journalist Hoyer ( Blood and Iron) captivates with this compassionate narrative of a lost nation." Moody, Oliver (2023-06-29). "Blood and Iron by Katja Hoyer review — Germany: glued together by enemy blood". ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 2023-06-29. Utterly brilliant.This gripping account of East Germany sheds new light on what for many of us remains an opaque chapter of history. Authoritative, lively, and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-WW2 Europe.” Diesseits der Mauer" von Katja Hoyer ist eines der interessantesten Sachbücher der letzten Monate. Es beschreibt die Geschichte der DDR. Neben der Zeit von 1949 bis 1990 behandelt es auch die Zeit vor der Gründung der DDR und die Zeit nach der sogenannten "Wiedervereinigung". Ich bin Jahrgang 1969. Ich bin im Westen Deutschlands aufgewachsen. Die Zeit seit den 80er-Jahren habe ich über Tageszeitungen, Magazine und Fernsehen mitbekommen. Das Internet gab es noch nicht. In der Schule kam das Thema DDR nur am Rande vor. Eine Ausnahme war die obligatorische Klassenfahrt nach Berlin (in der siebten Klasse). Hier war auch ein Tag im Osten der Stadt eingeplant. Mir ist eigentümlicherweise nur dieses schöne Lenin-Denkmal, welches wir für unsere Fototapete fotografiert haben, in Erinnerung geblieben. Und die Einweisung der Lehrer ("wenn ihr mit Bürgern sprecht, sagt nicht Ost-Berlin, sondern Berlin Hauptstadt der DDR", die Bürger waren ob unserer Ansprache arg verwundert). Über die DDR sagte das alles wenig aus.A rich, counterintuitive history of a country all too often dismissed as a freak or accident of the Cold War.” Forget everything you thought you knew about life in the GDR. This terrifically colourful, surprising and enjoyable history of the socialist state is full of surprises Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times You can find other conversations about German culture and history available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our

Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 eBook : Hoyer, Katja Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 eBook : Hoyer, Katja

It is not an easy message to get across, but Hoyer is uniquely placed to do it. Just four-years-old when the Berlin Wall fell, and now resident in Britain, she shares the frustration of Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor, when details of her early life in East Germany are dismissed as irrelevant. It helps that she’s a historian of immense ability whose early promise has been more than fulfilled with this brilliant follow-up to her debut Blood and Iron. Exhaustively researched, cleverly constructed and beautifully written (in her second language), this much needed history of the GDR should be required reading across her homeland. a b Conradi, Peter (2023-06-03). "Katja Hoyer tried to tell a different story about East Germany. Now Germans are furious". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 2023-06-03.

These features of life in the GDR were fundamental not incidental, whether in its heyday decade after the mid-1960s or its moribund decay in the 1980s. Ms Hoyer rightly highlights the gaps in modern Germany’s understanding of the four decades of oppression in its eastern regions and the resentments that bequeathed. But sentimentality and relativism distort her evaluation of a loathsome dictatorship. ■ One of the best young historians writing in English today. . . Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, Beyond the Wall explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany' Andrew Roberts The reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 marked the end of the division between the democratic West (FRG) and the communist East (GDR), which had persisted since 1949. However, while West Germans continued their lives as usual, the reunification brought about significant changes for East Germans. Rather than focusing on what East Germans lost by its Soviet occupation, Hoyer’s book shines a light on what the East gained that the West never had – in particular around women’s rights. That said, I'm willing to forgive any personal bias of the author because, on top of this being both an excellent and well-researched book, it is also highly entertaining and well-written. In particular, the book is littered throughout with personal stories and personal experiences which are included to illustrate bigger themes. By way of example, the author describes how she, as a four year old child, together with her father and pregnant mother, observed street protests from the Berlin Television Tower in the last days of the republic.