love my Oma, she’s turning 90 next week (born 1934!) and was the first person I came out as bi to. Defo hanging one or two of these up in my dorm
Whenever people imply communism = lack of incentive for human greatness, I think about how my grandparents had lower class parents and were extremely poor (even starving) in their post-war childhood, but ended up leading pretty impressive lives, despite knowing they wouldn’t live much above the material reality of their neighbors for it.
My grandma was an interior architect and my grandpa an astrophysics professor and professional photographer. Both were gymnasts in their 20’s (my grandpa has a couple medals below). They didn’t do any of that shit for luxury, they figured they’d lead a modest life in the standard plattenblau housing block as the other working people of their town (small but cute and cozy apartment, I was there not too long ago), and that’s what they wanted.
They never needed to drive a car in their lives, and often visited countries across the Eastern Bloc by bike/public transit. My grandma always had a thing for making fruit preserves and cool pottery (still killing it), and my grandpa for art from wood carving (he was also a mountain climber). They had a nice community garden they always tended to too. It’s a beautiful town with a lot to see, honestly can’t wait to visit again
My mom was 19 when the Berlin Wall fell. She studied english abroad when everything went to shit under capitalism. Ended up moving to the US just because she met my dad. Usually when she tells an American she grew up in the DDR, they look all shocked and ask some insane shit like if she was starving to death, or if she knew anyone who was shot and killed trying to climb the wall (💀⁉️). Certainly no one was starving by the 70s/80s. My mom and all her friends and acquaintances had great childhoods. She had a small town, middle of nowhere school system that pushed sports, music, art, multilingualism, sciences, etc. on her heavily (when I did track and field in high school she always told me how her school’s facility was 10x better lmao). The DDR fostered genuine human greatness. But ig they didn’t have bananas at grocery stores and a hundred car brands like the west 🤷♂️
Was grandpa one though? What reference did he have for disliking it since Germany in his lifetime was never good
What about “No” do you not understand? You just had to look to west Germany and would see an economically easier life. Also DDR was not exactly a real demoncary, so this was frustrating, too.
Grandpa was wrong if he couldnt see how and why West Germany got that money
Could be. Still wrong to imprison people just for wanting to leave. Also it’s not like DDR was perfect with handling their workers, they did shit things, too
DDR were probably justified if the alternative is becoming a capitalist colonialist puppet state
Removed by mod
Thats just a dishonest and ignorant take
Then please show me west german colonies. Both east and west germany might have benefitted from their colonial past in which both were involved. To my knowledge germany lost all of it’s colonies in first world war. Also why do you think the GDR was not a puppet state itself?
Also hot Take: Mods removing my comment but not others which aim to be insulting on a personal level is problematic.
The US government pumped West germany with reconstruction money which in turn came from mass exploitation of any part of the world that could not resist it. Also, please note that Germany still has many American military bases, Germany is a puppet state and the money the US pumped into it wasn’t done out of good will and the greatness of capitalism. It doesnt matter if it does or doesnt have a colonies itself its a willing participant in the oppression of the global south and is a dog of the US.
No one cares. This isnt the place to humor liberalism.