Deutschland 83 - Representation

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80's Germany Research

Historical Context 

• The Berlin Wall was built to represent the splitting between western and eastern after the second World War
• The west was capitalist, modern, free owned by the UK and US
• the eastern was communist under the ruling of the soviet union and it was controlled using the secret police "The Stasi". 
• East Germany was also called GDR ( german democratic republic) 
• the wall was almost 13 feet high and distanced 28 miles. 
• GDR were famous for their political jokes. You could get three years for telling the joke and anyone who laughed would get two years. 
• For the first 7 years after the split, people were allowed to travel between the borders which let many people in the east move to the west 
• In August 1961, the border closed splitting Berlin, splitting up families and 87 miles concrete wall was build to divided the two sides, there was 176 watch towers making sure people dodn't cross. 
• There was a space between the wall called the death strip were people would be shot dead if entered, 
• There were several checkpoint that people could cross between, mostly UK and US people. 
• It stood for 26 years but in the 1980s many started to criticize the wall, in a speech from Ronald Reagan. 

Economic Context 

• Salaries were very low life essentials were subsidized and were very cheap 
• Unemployment was non existent.

Social/Culture Context

• over the 28 years it was up, 100.000 people tried to climb over the wall
• Only 171 people died in their attempts 
• roughly 600 border guards escaped to West Germany
• some people jumped over the barbed wire fencing, some dug tunnels underneath the wall. 

What was life like?

• there was a lot of surveillance and most people lived double lives. 
• poverty was also a big thing as people could only afford the bare essentials. 
• people weren't allowed past the Berlin well into the west so many tried to sneak into the country but many failed resulting in death. 

What did young people do for fun, like, listen to? 

• music was heavily censored as authorities, reviewed lyrics for hints of dissent.
• many young people joined youth groups were they would come together to learn socialistic views. 

What was education like?

• instead of being taught English as it is a world language that is usually taught in school across the world.
• many classes included socialism views which taught children basic etiquette and how to work together. 

Why was there so much tension and suspicion?

• many east Germans were put under surveillance if the stasi thought they were being rebellious by associating themselves with western culture.

Why did people want to escape to East? 

• the east was heavily run by the government which meant that people had a lack of freedom in how they lived their life. 

Why did people like and respect the public? 

• there was no unemployment as they didn't believe in the concept therefore was no benefits and workers were the safety of their jobs as they couldn't be fires unless they committed a serious ofende.
• they offered free health care, free places to kindergarten and school had affordable housing. 

What was the relationship between the citizens and the government/stasi nearing the end of the cold war? 

• the stasi which was the largest network of ecret police in history were able to infiltrate every facet of society and it estimated that one in five adults in the country were directly connected to them. 

How did they view the West?

• the west contained midern ideas with the allied countries of the US and UK. This meant they had popular culture such as western music, fashion and ideas. deals.