It was one thing to establish a peace group in Poland or Hungary during the Communist era, another entirely in East Germany.
The Wall
Few images from the last days of the Cold War are as enduring in the West as the fall of the Berlin Wall. But in Central and Eastern Europe, a more complex picture emerges.
Conflict Resolution and German Reunification
East and West Germany were like a couple that had rushed into marriage with very little understanding of what it would be like to live together.
Before and After the Berlin Wall Fell, Equal Opportunity for German Women Has Been a Challenge
Like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, Marina Grasse was an ordinary person transforming an East-Central European country.
East Germany’s Stasi a Quarter Century After It Was Dissolved
Reporter David Crawford exposed the Stasi’s real estate assets, pensions, and the names of its agents working undercover.
Countering Sexism in East Germany
Tatjana Bohm: “There is this saying: ‘If you don’t fight back, if you don’t resist, you will end up in the kitchen.’”
Why North Korea Today Is Not East Germany 1989
Policymakers have long predicted that North Korea will go the way of East German Communism. Not so fast.
Not All the Migration After the Fall of the Berlin Wall Was From East to West
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. When the Berlin Wall fell, a tremendous number of people headed for the West, permanently. Between 1989 and 1990, nearly 4 percent of the population of East Germany moved to West Germany. The outmigration rate dropped considerably...
Germany’s Third Generation East
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989. It’s already been nearly a quarter of a century since the two Germanies were reunified. An entire generation that never experienced life in a...
Eating History
The GDR Museum in Berlin is actually two museums in one. And these two parts, both devoted to everyday life in the German Democratic Republic, subtly contradict one another. That might not have been the intention of the museum founders. But this tension actually captures the ambiguities of East Germany and the ambivalence that many Germans feel today about the erstwhile communist state.