#useless GDR facts

[skarsgard-daydreams]

East Germany had a massive border, one which ran adjacent to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and West Germany. When I started researching the ways that people escaped from the GDR, I wondered why so many escape attempts centered on Berlin. Surely in a more rural area, it would be easier to slip through to a neighboring state. But it turns out that Berlin was the easiest place to cross the border. Beyond the confines of the densely-packed city, the border fortifications were much more intense. There were two walls, and in between them was an area referred to as the Sperrzone or the exclusion zone. Guards monitored this open area from watchtowers and would shoot unauthorized persons on sight. It was littered with mines and tripwires and barbed wire and ditches and “Czech hedgehogs,” the cross-like devices shown above, which were designed to stop vehicles. Even in Berlin, most of these fortifications existed on a smaller scale. We often think of the ubiquitous line of concrete stretching across the city when we think of the Berlin Wall, but it was so much more than that. 

[gilbertgeilschmidt]

From the Start it Was All Meant to Be

@hetaliawritersdiscord

On ao3

Prussia always hopes for something more, Russia thinks it's useless to want what is impossible, but both cling to what they have, even when it is nothing but the whisper of a memory. A fic for the Hetalia discord writer's otp event using the prompts "fate" and "do you trust me."

1817

It had been a beautiful wedding and the festivities continued for some time afterwards. Of course Prussia took full advantage of the fact. Even if she was not marrying an heir to the Russian throne it wasn’t every day a Prussian princess got married. He was happy for little Charlotte too, since the last time he spoke to her she seemed so happy and so in love with Nicolas. That was good, it would make things easier for her at least. That had not been their final good-bye, that would come later when it was time for him to leave. However it was their final in depth talk and there was something bittersweet about it for he had a unique fondness for the children of his beloved dead queen Louise.

It was not the time to think of such things though, it was the time to enjoy himself and to indulge in dancing, gossip, good food, and drink. As he was recovering from his latest dance he felt a presence behind him and turned around, it was Russia.

“If you’re trying to sneak up on me to attack me you should know you can’t woo me like that at little Charlotte’s party,” he said with a sly looking smirk.

Russia raised an eyebrow. He didn’t really understand what Prussia was getting at, or that he was seriously flirting with him. Still he found his behavior amusing, though mildly irritating as well.

There was no need to attack him, Russia thought, were they not allies? “I had no intention to, do you not trust me?” Prussia’s smirk widened, “No.” Then he gave a quick wink, which confused Russia further, though he knew there was some jest involved so a small smile appeared on his face.

“It seems the feeling is mutual.”

Prussia got closer, almost leaning into Russia’s face. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Before Russia could do anything about this or even register how close he was Prussia backed away and in a more serious tone said, “But seriously, take care of Charlotte ok? She’s a good girl, like her mother. Maybe a bit more simple but she’s still fun and she’s got a good heart and a good head on her shoulders. She shouldn’t be a problem and I’m sure she’ll make Nicolas a good wife.”

The concern was such a turn around from before so it surprised Russia, and also, though he wouldn’t fully admit it, slightly touched his heart. He felt the same at times towards the grand duchesses who were married off. He thought it was never good to be too attached, but he had met Louise briefly a few times and agreed she had been an exceptional woman. Given her early death no wonder Prussia held her children dear.

“She is called Alexandera Feodorovna now…but I shall. Given this involves someone other than yourself, someone that my prince adores very much you can trust me on that at least.”

Prussia smiled a little, “You got me there.” By now he was in a pensive mood and his face betrayed that. His usual smirk was gone and was replaced with a more thoughtful and serious expression. Prussia didn’t notice this, but Russia did. Despite himself he unwillingly thought for a moment that Prussia was almost handsome, but that his horrible smirk and worse mouth and personality ruined everything. Troubled by this that thought was quickly whisked away and tucked into the recesses of his mind.

“It’s nice really, how taken they are with each other. Let’s hope it lasts,” Prussia said.

Russia nodded, “It is nice, it was almost at first sight. Do you believe in fate?”

Prussia shuddered and turned to him, what a horrible word. “No.”

-

Years later when Alexandra and Nicolas became tsar and tsarinia of Russia he turned to Prussia again and asked him the same question. Once more Prussia said, “Of course not. Just cause Alexander I died doesn't mean it was fate. People die of typhus all the damn time.”

The subject was then changed and the coronation continued. However Russia noted a tinge of fear in Prussia’s eyes and a thirst for something, it unsettled him greatly.

He wasn’t wrong. Prussia greatly feared the concept of fate. If there was anything he craved it was control, to be in charge of his own nation’s destiny and path, to move forward and advance and grow powerful with no restrictions. Fate hemmed him in and made him subject to powers greater than himself with no choice or way to change what would be, a notion that left him powerless and helpless and all his efforts for naught. Prussia wanted to grab life by the hand and bend it to his will, Prussia wanted to make his mark in the world and make him and his people great in order to survive and live. Fate played no part in his plans.

Russia meanwhile greatly believed in the idea of fate, and although he wanted power to protect himself as well, was much more fatalistic. To him Prussia’s response was horribly western and terribly arrogant. Yet, there was something admirable in that thirst and fire that Prussia had. He enjoyed watching it and a part of him hoped it would never be quenched. “Perhaps you are right in that matter. I hope Nicolas shall rule well, but we’ll see. Oh and my trust in one matter has been kept. Alexandra Feodorovna is well, though she told me to tell you she misses you, her homeland, very much.”

In that moment Russia was terribly surprised once more, for a warm nostalgic smile crept upon Prussia’s face and there was a tenderness in his eyes. For a moment he once again looked handsome, but then it quickly passed.

-

1989-

Years later both Alexandra and Nicolas were dead, and the monarchy for both Prussia and Russia had long passed as well. Prussia was gone too, yet the personification that had once been Prussia remained, grasping to life and becoming something else, changing his skin as he had done before and becoming the German Democratic Republic.

Russia had not wanted him dead, as furious as he was with him ,and watched with cautious amazement as he continued to live and to thrive against all odds. It seemed the GDR truly had put a choke-hold on fate and he was both captivated and saddened, for it came at a terrible price; to be reduced to a deranged shadow of his former self, a pathetic figure desperate for recognition and a second chance. In the end though he deemed it needed for it benefited him and his people, and they came first.

By the 1980′s Russia mused that fate had caught up with both of them and both of them held a disgust towards themselves, towards one another, and towards the ideology they no longer truly believed in. Neither recalled their previous conversations, but once again Russia thought of everything in the past century and bitterly considered it both their fates.

It was a classic tragedy, their hubris had brought both of them down, he thought, as he looked at the city of Moscow. Then he turned to the GDR who was smoking a cigarette and nursing a large bottle of vodka. He looked like a wreck, but Russia knew he did too.

The GDR certainly felt like a wreck, but refused to admit it as he felt the people’s anger and his own simmering in his heart, feelings long denied and locked away.

“Do you think all this has been fated?” came Russia’s piercing question. As the GDR looked at him he had the eyes of a desperate caged animal and few rasping coughs came out. “No, he said. “Don’t talk bullshit. There’s no such fucking thing. I’ve survived on my own and I’ll keep living no matter what I have to fucking do.”

“What about what your people wish?"Russia asked, it was a question directed at himself as much as it was towards the German Democratic Republic.

However he didn’t see that and glared at him again, his heart torn in many different directions. “Like I said shut up, why the hell should I listen to you? I don’t trust you.”

Russia smiled softly, that spirit was still there, corrupted as it was. “You never have, remember?”

The German Democratic Republic did not wish to remember the past as of yet, but he knew he had to eventually. A hollow laugh crept out, “I guess some shit never changes then.” But more would change drastically in the coming months, though they knew it not.

-

2018-

Several decades later since those changes had come to pass they stood in the former Winter Palace in St Petersburg, now the Hermitage Museum. It was closed for maintenance for the day and Russia had taken that as an opportunity to visit the museum at his leisure without the crowds so often filling it.

Since he could have some sense of privacy he decided to treat Gilbert for once and take him as well. The two of them walked in its vast gilded halls, and as they did and viewed the objects of days past they were steeped in thought and feelings.

In that moment Gilbert partly wanted to ask Russia if he missed it, if he missed being an empire, if he got the feeling he himself always got when he visited the Sanssouci, but he decided not to. It simply wasn’t the same, even if Russia did miss it he could never understand the hollow empty feeling in Gilbert’s soul, that terrible aching feeling of longing he always had. He himself often refused to acknowledge it. It was simply too painful. To no longer have a people, a land, a nation, that was him.

“You look unusually serious. Are you thinking about something?” Russia asked, secretly thinking Gilbert handsome in that moment and feeling slightly flustered in his secret heart at his internal acknowledgment of that feeling.

“It’s nothing,” Gilbert said. They both knew he was lying.

“Are you sure?”” Russia asked.

Gilbert nodded, “”Yeah, you trust me?”

Russia snorted and said, “Of course not.”

Gilbert then smirked and gave Russia a slight press on his foot with his boot which Russia returned in a slightly harder fashion. “Same here and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Gilbert said.

They continued walking onward till they went to a room which had once upon a time held people dancing gaily amid music, laughter, and light. Now it held simply painting and the memories of two beings centuries old.

Gilbert turned to Russia and said, “”Hey remember when little Charlotte got married and there was this really kickass reception here and remember that time a few months afterwards there was this ball and she missed me so much I even got my self invited cause she requested my presence. Bet you didn’t expect to see me, huh? Bet I took your breath away with how dashing and hot I was.” He was partly joking, but he was also flirting and cemented that fact with a sly grin and a playful wink.

Russia turned his face away slightly, but the vaguely amused look on it and the slight blush coating his cheeks was evident. “Of course I wasn’t surprised. She told me, and you looked terrible.”

Gilbert pouted, “Nice joke, but I know the truth. Anyway thinking about balls…you sure no one’s here?”

Russia nodded, “I’m quite sure. I wouldn’t have taken you otherwise.”

“Because like a fair maiden you’re embarrassed at being involved with someone so sexy I see!”

Russia snorted, but Gilbert ignored that and kept talking. “Anyways, since there’s no one around I figure what’s the harm if we pretend it’s how it used to be and that we’re at a ball. Since it was the 1800′s we never did get to dance together. Isn’t that sorta like a missed opportunity we can make up now if we pretend hard enough?”

For a moment Russia was surprised, but then a nostalgic almost tender look came into his eyes. His voice remained impassive however as he said, “I suppose one dance couldn’t hurt. It’s a pity there’s no music.”

“Want me to hum?” Gilbert asked.

“No,” Russia said bluntly. Anything but that, he thought.

“Fine, but you’re missing out. I’m amazing at it,” and then they took one another’s worn rough hands and began their dance. It was a simple waltz wordlessly agreed upon by both and while Gilbert attempted to lead he was quickly beaten in his efforts by Russia who was taller and had more leverage. He grumbled but the two kept dancing, keeping rhythm to the remembered melody of times past in their heads.

Gilbert was filled with nostalgia as he recalled candlelit ballrooms, floating gowns of long dead women, and the light and laughter of times passed as people danced wildly into the early hours of the night and people talked and gossiped and drank, nobility all thronging around the great room. He missed it, he missed it desperately. It would never return and he would never have the chance to expedience it with Russia or dance with him again. He was lost forevermore, a shadow of the past, a ghost dancing in a memory.

Russia too was nostalgic, but he had life and a future before him. Even so he was lost too, looking back yet forgetting always and knowing he would never get this chance with Gilbert again, and no matter how hard either pretended it could never be as it was. Even the Prussia he loved was simply a memory, he had died long ago. He wasn’t sure when, perhaps in 1947 or perhaps in 1990. All he knew was the Gilbert before him was a broken whisper of the being he still loved, an ember that sputtered every so often where there was once a roaring flame.

Decades later some time after Gilbert’s death on one grey winter morning Russia visited his grave in the bone bare forests near Kaliningrad and thought to himself, ”Yes, this was fate.”

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

In celebration of the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall: another installment of the East Germany Spy AU

(aka the fic I desperately want to exist without me having to write it)

Click here for Part One

Cassian leaned back in his vaguely uncomfortable chair – it seemed to him a big part of socialist architecture was making sure the proletariat never felt like sitting down too long, and this particular piece of furniture was making an admirable contribution to The Cause – and stirred in his cup. If he kept up this pace, Draven would probably start reprimanding him for spending gross amounts of US government money on whatever it was that passed for coffee this side of the Iron Curtain.

It wasn’t his fault. Jyn liked coffee, and he found it hard to be easy and charming in her presence.

This wasn’t a regular occurrence for him. Wrapping people around his finger was part of his job, and he’d never had any issues with it – it was what he was good at, his biggest selling point. It was what made him useful to the CIA, his charms and his lies, despite the fact he spoke German and even English with an accent and his Russian was passable at best.

(It was his lack of an American passport that made him expendable, and perhaps that would have irked him, except it meant he was allowed to run about the GDR however he pleased. The reasoning behind this, though nobody would ever admit it to his face, being that even if the Stasi should get a hold of him – he was useless for the Soviets, nobody would exchange him for a jailed Russian spy. He knew no state secrets and his disappearance wasn’t going to start an uproar in the US. No political incident. No embarrassing newspaper reports. Nobody to miss him.)

He was charming, usually – well. Cassian wasn’t. Javier, the computer engineering student from Havana, was, in an unobtrusive, quiet sort of way of course. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that he stuck out like a sore thumb at this place. East Berlin would have provided better cover, but he didn’t mind. Blending in was the one thing he had always been good at, and the dusty grey uniformity of this city once famed for its beauty* was nothing he could not handle.

Her, he minded somewhat more. She was unsettling him. She was hard to steer, never did quite what he expected her to, never quite answered to his questions the way he would like, and her green eyes cut through his words and constantly made him feel like she was onto him.

So Javi grew even quieter, and bought her coffees and they sat in long silences. Sometimes, he shared bits and pieces of a well-forged childhood in Cuba – he had made an effort with her, as though he was selling this cover to a foreign spy instead of a physicist’s daughter. She was clever, no doubt, but she didn’t really have any way to know what was going on, and she blamed the wrong institution for her paranoia.

She was jittery, even now, sipping at her coffee; glancing around the room, searching for familiar faces, for people watching her, listening. That was the scary part, of course – never knowing who was telling on you, never knowing which of your friends and family might type up reports about you. That vast network of spies, hidden in plain sight.

(He didn’t see how the CIA was any better, with him sitting here in the guise of a hapless classmate, cataloguing her every word to be typed up and analysed later. With Kay listening in on her night after night.)

They talked a little about classes, professors, about the struggle of finding the last copy of a book at the library, while rain streamed down the window panes of the café. Out on the street, someone attempted to start their car, the cold two-stroke engine making angry sputtering noises that reverberated through the alley.

The leaves on the trees were still bright yellow dots among the dark grey of wet concrete, glowing oranges and reds; rare dashes of colour - much like her pretty green eyes that he was having such a hard time not staring at.

“You must hate this weather,” she said idly, sipping at her coffee, and he tried for a smile.

“I knew it would be cold.”

“It’ll be nicer in December.”

“It will be just as cold, won’t it?” he asked with a smile and she returned it for just a moment. Her smiles never seemed to last long, and he had no way to tell whether that was because of him or because of her paranoia or just the way she was.

“It might snow, that’s much less messy,” she replied with a shrug. “And you can get mulled wine at the Striezelmarkt**.”

Cassian nodded, smiled, stared into his coffee and thought that if said wine was of the same quality as the other hot beverages, that really wasn’t all that comforting.

Perhaps he should take to drinking tea. Then again, the good black tea from Russia was expensive, too***.

“I’ve heard of that,” he answers, refusing to even attempt to pronounce the name of the famous Christmas market. It seemed a bizarre notion to him, publicly celebrating a religious occasion under a Socialist government, and in view of the blackened heap of rubble that had once been the city’s most famous landmark**** as well. He couldn’t quite imagine how that should become a cheerful event.

She didn’t really look that enthusiastic about it, either, her efforts to produce a smile less and less effective.

He caught himself wishing, for the hundredth time – stupid things. That he could make her laugh, take her hand. (Just tell her his real name, God, how he’d love that.)

That he could just open his mouth and tell her the truth – that she had done nothing wrong, that nobody was going to come and cart her off to prison, that he was sorry.

(A part of him, a foolish part, wanted to tell her that she was in no danger, that they were the good guys – but not only was he not allowed to say that, it would have been a lie.

There were no good guys in this, no matter how much both sides insisted they were the heroes of the story. So he sipped at his horrible coffee and tried to swallow all these thoughts down, but they wouldn’t go.)

This place broke people like her, ground them into dust as grey as this city, over time. This was how it started, and the sight of it tore at his heart.

Cassian sipped his coffee and tried and tried not to give in to the most dangerous, most stupid wish of them all –

That he could get her away from this place. That he could save her.

(He just wanted her to know what real coffee tasted like.)

*The city of Dresden was fairly famous in Europe for its beautiful baroque architecture; in the 18th century a “leading European city for technology and art” (quoting the wikipedia article here, forgive me, I’m writing this in a lecture…) - some of it has been rebuilt or is in the process of being rebuilt, but most of the original architecture was lost in WWII.

**oldest Christmas market in Germany, founded in 1434, still happening and worth a visit!

***I have no basis for this claim - my parents always talk about how expensive the coffee was, but I just reckon the good stuff from Russia would have been expensive as well because tea would be regarded as a luxury item?

****Dresden Frauenkirche, famous church, most prominent building in the skyline, destroyed in the Allied air raid in February ‘45; ruin preserved as war memorial by the GDR government, rebuilt after reunification and finished in 2005

[skarsgard-daydreams]

While researching child-rearing in post-war Germany, I discovered that Nazi parenting advice continued to affect generations of children born long after the collapse of the Third Reich. In a parenting book that remained popular after the war, a Nazi physician recommended that mothers withhold affection from their babies to create model citizens for the regime—children who were “tough, unemotional and unempathetic.”

Haarer viewed children, especially babies, as nuisances whose wills needed to be broken. “The child is to be fed, bathed, and dried off; apart from that left completely alone,” she counseled. She recommended that children be isolated for 24 hours after the birth; instead of using “insipid-distorted ‘children’s language,’” the mother should speak to her child only in “sensible German”; and if the child cries, let him cry.

Sleep time was no exception. In The German Mother and Her First Child, Haarer wrote, “It is best if the child is in his own room, where he can be left alone.” If the child starts to cry, it is best to ignore him: “Whatever you do, do not pick the child up from his bed, carry him around, cradle him, stroke him, hold him on your lap, or even nurse him.” Otherwise, “the child will quickly understand that all he needs to do is cry in order to attract a sympathetic soul and become the object of caring. Within a short time, he will demand this service as a right, leave you no peace until he is carried again, cradled, or stroked—and with that a tiny but implacable house tyrant is formed!”

Researchers in 2003 found that the contemporary German mothers they studied still expressed a fear of “spoiling” their babies. Even though the book in question has been relegated to the back of the shelf, its teachings still persist in some ways because the experiences of one’s own childhood often color the way one raises the next generation.

Studies have also shown that East German parenting styles were more rigid and authoritarian, and that children in the GDR spent a lot more time away from their parents as they were more likely to have working mothers than their West German counterparts. The intensity of state surveillance served to create even more distance between family members as children grew up since even family members were often compelled to inform on their loved ones.

Merkel would surely be affected by these factors. I see his parents as hard, but loving in their own way. They try hard to raise him right, which might entail harsh discipline when he’s caught running around acting like an anti-conformist little punk because they fear what will happen to him if he gets himself into real trouble. His grandmother was stern, but they baked cookies together every holiday. His grandfather was a former Nazi, but he let Merkel smoke his cigarettes and taught him how to hunt deer and hold his liquor. His father beat him when he misbehaved, but he instilled in him an appreciation for music, teaching him all about Mozart and Bach and Mendelssohn and Beethoven. His mother walloped him upside the head with a newspaper when she caught him wearing eyeliner, but when she found the leather jacket hidden away in his closet, she never informed on him to his father. She just hissed at him that she ought to, then piled another helping of Spätzle onto his plate and fussed that he needed to be fattened up.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

TIL East Germany made government-sanctioned porn mags during the Cold War because there had to be an alternative to Western *everything* lmao

[skarsgard-daydreams]

A couple of German punks in 1984. The girl in the leopard print coat reminds me of Sonja.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

The car that Merkel's crew uses is a Trabant, which was GDR produced and widely considered to be the worst car ever made. Even though it was terrible, there was a years-long waiting list to get one. It pretty much ran on a lawn mower engine. A lawnmower might have better acceleration. Merkel fucking hates it.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

My favorite anecdote in Burning Down the Haus so far is that, in the early 1980s, East Berlin punks became such a thorn in the side of the GDR that the state banned them from gathering places like bars or clubs. The punks suddenly found themselves with nowhere to go. But a Lutheran pastor unexpectedly offered up space in his church on nights when it was open for community use. Ten punks showed up the first night. Soon it grew to gatherings of 100, and people were contacting other churches to find out if they would make space available too. Most of those churches said no. The Lutheran Church didn't officially sanction holding punk gatherings, which would later turn into full blown dissident movements, in their buildings. But a number of pastors did it anyway without the organization's permission. It should be noted that religious organizations were persecuted by the state as well, so it makes sense that those pastors would be open to opposition movements and people who were angry with the government. I love the image of a bunch of radical punks with their crazy hair, ripped up clothes, and bottled rage meeting in a church. I also love the idea of the rebellious pastors becoming a little punk as well. Merkel would have been in his early 20's at that time, no longer a lil teenage punk, but still decidedly punk nonetheless.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

I’m reading Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and I am delighted by how many people interviewed in the book say that their punk awakening began when they discovered the Sex Pistols.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

World War II ruins in East Berlin display the words “never war again” in graffiti, 1974. Photo by Thomas Hoepker. 

[skarsgard-daydreams]

A pretty badass punk seated on the U-Bahn next to a Volkspolizei officer in East Berlin in 1986

[skarsgard-daydreams]

In June 1987, David Bowie played concerts in West Berlin over 3 nights along with the Eurythmics, Genesis, and Bruce Hornsby. It was held close enough to the wall that massive crowds gathered on the East side as well. The police in the East cracked down on the crowds with batons and arrested some of the people who gathered. The outrage in the East following the police response is sometimes credited with helping bring down the Berlin Wall.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

There are still some extant sections of the Berlin Wall, but they’re all covered in art and graffiti, like this segment that I photographed (badly) in 2014.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

In this country, any kind of printing was forbidden unless authorized. The Stasi had even developed a science of connecting individual typewriters to the print they made, as if to fingerprint thought.

Anna Funder, Stasiland

[skarsgard-daydreams]

The Berlin Wall fell 31 years ago today. Though there are a few pieces of the wall that still exist, in many places you will simply see a line of bricks like this, marking the place where the wall used to stand. I took this picture on a trip in 2014 during which I must have walked “over” the Berlin wall dozens of times. During that trip, I thought a lot about how I didn’t learn about the darker parts of the history of the United States until I was an adult—how it felt like the American way is to sweep things under the rug. It was not so in Berlin. No matter where I went in the city, I never seemed to escape the scars of WWII and the division of the Cold War. It was always in the corner of my eye, in the form of ruined buildings, memorial installations, or pieces of the wall. My travel companions and I developed so much respect for the way that Berliners (and probably Germans as a whole) maintain that awareness of the past.

[skarsgard-daydreams]

Citizens of East Germany had to deal with regular shortages of consumer goods. Although basic dry goods were usually available, people would often wait in line for fresh produce or fresh meat, especially if it had to be imported. One notable shortage happened in 1977: The East Germany Coffee Crisis. In order to meet the demand of GDR citizens despite the shortage, the state produced Kaffee-Mix, which was 51% coffee and 49% filler. Outrage and protests ensued. Sporadic shortages continued into the 1980′s. You can bet your ass that Merkel was smuggling real coffee at that time. He fucking loathes Kaffee-Mix.