David Gelber: Chancellors & Chancers - Austria Behind the Mask: Politics of a Nation since 1945 by Paul Lendvai 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 History Hit brings you the stories that shaped the world through our award winning podcast network and an online history channel.

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review - The Guardian

However, the question of the Stasi remained a recurring thought as I read the book. The German Democratic Republic, with its all-pervasive Stasi and political oppression, instilled fear and earned East Germany the reputation of being one of the most severe authoritarian surveillance states. Those familiar with the book Stasiland by Anna Funder will understand the gravity of this. David, Saul (2023-03-20). "Willkommen to the GDR! A warts-and-all history of East Germany". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235 . Retrieved 2023-06-03.

The Arts & Ideas Podcast

Drawing a line under both German states in 1990 was never going to happen. West Germans were too wedded to the idea of 1945 as their “zero hour”, the point at which the tender shoots of democracy grew from the ashes of the Second World War. Proud of West Germany’s prosperity and political stability, they saw it as the continuity state and East Germany as the anomaly.

Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 - Goodreads

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. Insofern sehe ich in „Diesseits der Mauer“ vor allem eine vertane Chance. Ein an sich interessante Buch-Idee, nämlich die DDR-Geschichte aus der Perspektive des Alltagslebens ihrer Bürger nachzuerzählen, scheitert tragisch an der fehlenden geschichtspolitischen Redlichkeit und der ausbleibenden Bereitschaft zur analytischen Tiefe ihrer Autorin

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.