Forward To the Bright Future of Socialism. Was it Really Bright?
Ostalgie is a concept that refers to nostalgia for communism and life in the GDR or East Germany. We had the privilege to listen to the perspective of someone who happened to live during that time in GDR, Dr. Ina Sammler. She now is a professor at the University of Cyprus and lives in Nicosia. However, once she was a girl who experienced the communist regime in East Germany and witnessed the unification of the two countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I understand that her experience is shocking to people who have zero connection to communism but I grew up in the post-Soviet country, ex-USSR, Russia, and have heard stories similar to Dr. Sammler’s. My parents are almost the same age as Ina (they were born a few years earlier than her) and I was able to catch many similarities between what I heard growing up and what Dr. Sammler has shared about her experience. Just like Ina, my parents have a feeling of nostalgia for the good old days before the collapse of the USSR; though, they would not want to go back and experience the same lifestyle.
Dr. Sammler offers a firsthand account of her daily life in East Germany under the GDR. Though she was raised in a relatively privileged household, where her family ran a cheese factory her freedom was limited and the same applied to anyone in the country. She remembers a phrase someone once said to her “You cannot eat money”, implying that people had the same income: they were equally poor or equally wealthy. Regardless of that citizens of GDR were unable to buy any typical consumer goods in any amount due to their limited availability. Dr. Sammler mentions that even apples were considered a luxury good. My mother who was born and raised in a small provincial town in Russia (ex-USSR) remembers walking into a grocery store and seeing just bread and milk. Sometimes, she told me, she would not see anything because of the deficit. Dr. Sammler’s parents turned to illegal activities like barter just to get scarce products like coffee in exchange for something they had.
At school, Dr. Sammler remembers how the GDR regimen punished any aspect of critical thinking. Communism strived to create a mass of people with the same way of thinking. The focus was on making people obey to the rules and follow communist propaganda. Socialist ideology and Leninist thought were drilled into students from a very young age, fostering a culture of false utopianism centered around the worship of state authorities. Open questioning regarding politics and life outside the country was harshly discouraged, with teachers practicing military-styled punishments on students. The constant monitoring of the Stasi secret police, the German version of KGB, bred fear and developed self-censorship. I appreciated Dr. Sammler’s vulnerability to speak about Stasi because exposure to them was a traumatic experience for anyone who ever had to deal with them. She mentioned her brother was incentivized to join a Stasi group in exchange for benefits like quality higher education. My mother remembers propaganda was so strong and foreign media was prohibited, so they had no idea what was like to live in a western country. Because my parents grew up in a province, they said reporting neighbors in the community was not a common practice, so I assume it was less controlled in contrast to major cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Something that Dr. Sammler and my parents shared in common was an initiation to pioneers at the age of 6. I believe this age is a standard for any communist society. At the age of 15, I was allowed to go to the biggest Russian summer camp, Artek. Formally, winning a travel package to Artek through government subsidy was a privilege for any soviet child and only outstanding students went there. Right now, Artek is a definition of Ostalgie but in Russia. The idea was to replicate a true Soviet experience through the uniform, slogans, vintage posters, and daily routine, where we learned some elements of military prep. Ina said, as pioneers they had to make the salutatory gesture associated with Soviet Young Pioneer youth organizations — right arm extended upright with palm flat and facing outward. The same applied to the USSR pioneers. While Artek never required us to practice this gesture, the picture below shows me demonstrating it for the picture. I stood in front of the typical soviet poster (this one presents Yuri Gagarin).
When Dr. Sammler says there was a strong sense of community, she means it. This is probably the only thing my parents miss so much about communism. Just like Dr. Sammler, they were never jealous of anything because everyone had the same clothes and the same toys. With kindness and warmth, she remembers her first trip to West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Approximately during the same time, the generation of my parents experienced Perestroika — the Russian version of the fall of the Berlin wall. Perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall both symbolize the fade of the communistic regime and the end of the Cold War. Because I was one of the first generations to be born after this, even writing about it makes me very emotional. My parents were attempting to explain what emotions they had when they were finally given freedom but they always struggled to find the right words to describe this euphoria.
While the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall was welcomed by Dr. Sammler’s family, it unleashed economic turmoil in the East. Factories closed due to reduced demand for GDR products. With limited opportunities, there was a mass migration of young skilled workers to the western half, further hampering redevelopment. Today, eastern Germany continues to lag by many economic measures as a result of migration that happened right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. According to Dr. Sammler, the per-capita GDP is 22% lower in the former East German states even nowadays. Out of the social displacement has emerged extremist politics, like the far-right AfD party. Playing on anti-immigrant sentiment, the AfD has achieved considerable success through targeted social media campaigns aimed at economically frustrated eastern Germans.
Almost thirty years later, Dr. Sammler remains astonished and saddened that inequality between the former east and west remains persistent. Yet she holds onto an enduring nostalgia, Ostalgie, for the community solidarity and simpler products of her past life as a former citizen of GDR. While communism had its unique features, it left a mark on the souls like Dr. Sammler’s and my parents’.
