Matters of Propaganda...Or: how was the West portrayed in Poland?

Well...I didn't start that "messing" around. It wasn't me calling one people "tougher" than the other without any reason..

The wall was to keep individuals in. What was that mass DDR anti-communist movement called again?

Nobody really resisted the communists except the Hungarians who were dissilusioned.Hungarians had weapons.
Czechs voted the commies in 1948,there were no soviet troops in Czechoslovakia till 1968.

Erm....really? I hadn't thought of that...


The church more or less!
There was the only place the dissidents could meet....

And you thought that was to keep those bad West Berliners out of DDR's paradise?


How strong was the movement? Any achievements by any chance?

Well..that's what we were told in school all the time! ;)

Antifaschistischer Schutz.It was meant to keep fascism out of the DDR.

So it was called.


Never....western Germany wasn't fascist and it was build only after so many people left already, with more packing their bags that schools had to be closed because there weren't any teachers left or no milk could get delivered because not enough milkmen left etc.etc.etc.

"Ein Land ohne Menschen!"

You were very afraid of Poles. I went to DDR for summer language camp and they gave us a state handler. We were 15-16 yo kids! The level of indoctrination was stunning. And your lousy cuisine didn't help either :)

Yes,DDR leaders used to say ''we will never become like Poland.''

Hey, I went to a similar language camp, although it was in Poland, right on the border, organized by UNESCO. My impressions were the same. Initially we thought Germans were just kidding with their pompous Marxismus und Leninismus stuff. You know, the official part had to be the way it had to be, but on our own time we hoped to have some honest chat with other kids (I was also around 15/16 at the time). But that was a no go.

Some of the kids were honest (and frankly brave) enough to tell us they were forbidden from any kind of political honesty, and from entering any personal relationships with Poles. These kids screamed fear in their eyes.

Long story short, there was some intervention from DDR Ministry of education as a reaction to Poles being a little bit too honest in their political views.

You were very afraid of Poles[/quote]

Come on BB don't you know by now the the Poles won WW2 and brought down the iron curtain single handed.

You were lucky that you were even allowed to any contact with the German kids. We were there for 6 weeks and we had only ONE meeting with them. Everything was organized and structured that we were never left alone. But the teachers were the worst: like you, we thought they had to pretend at the beginning that they believe this whole Marxismus/Leninismus cr.ap but they really did! We told them we don't like this indoctrination in our daily language exercises (after all, we were Polish kids and we payed for that camp!) and they were stunned. They tried to scared us but we stood ground and they eased bit.

I'm still fighting the fight...;)

I remember when the Berlin wall came down.
My mates were selling bits of the wall across the road to people as "a piece of historically importance" and "it will get more valuable with age".

A bargain for a fiver :P

That made me laugh.

I might have been one of the suckers;)

I have bits of the Berlin Wall in my patio amongst the York Stone.

The exact reason for the visit of the DDR's ministry of education rep. During one of the indoctrination meetings we were supposed to sing The International. The Germans did. We sang Rota. It was a huuuge mess :)

It felt good though.

Yes,in Germany some hardcore communists existed for sure and still exist.But I have noticed that Germans support their views passionately if sb is a communist he is a real one,the same with right wing,nationalists etc.They are not moderate in their views,do not try to hide them either.

I was in Dresden this August and I was surprised to listen to communists(young ones) on protests on the street talking about Demokraten,Faschisten etc,it was the same language DDR politicians were using.

The first time I ever entered the Eastern Bloc was when I went to Berlin. You could get special passes which granted you access to Berlin, but not to the rest of the DDR. There was a special train that stopped nowhere between (I seem to remember that it was) Hannover and Berlin. If you went by car, there was only one highway you could take and there were no exits, if there were, they were blocked. And you were not allowed to stop anywhere. If you had to pee, you had to wait until you were within the city limits of West Berlin.

Anyway, on that first trip I was actually kinda suprised that the DDR country-side looked the same as the GDR country-side. After all, for all we knew it was grey and full of soldiers. So, that was the first surprise. Second one was the huge difference between West- and East Berlin. The West was a full fledged "Western" City, neon lights and all and the East was kinda grey indeed, with not much restoration being done but with the distinct advantage that they had left the old buildings (that were still standing after the war) intact as much as pssbl. Later on I heard that this was because they didn't care about it, but still, it gave you a glimpse of what Berlin must've looked like. It was relatively easy for a tourist to get into East Berlin: you went to checkpoint Charly and you paid a certain amount and then you were allowed for a few hours into East Berlin. Over there I learned that communism apparently makes ppl apathic. Not that the ppl I saw in East Berlin were zombies or something, but they just didn't seem to care, yet another difference with West Berlin. Another thing was: we as tourists were not allowed to buy anything in East Berlin. I thought that was weird at the time, but those Russian soldiers looked impressive enough to adhere to the rule. Don't know why that was, maybe because they didn't have anything back then?

Edit: I was just thinking: since we've now established that there was major resistance in several countries of the Eastern Bloc, how about "civil disobedience"? What were the "little" things that ppl did to resist?

>^..^<

M-G (does have fond memories of Berlin)

Nudism.

Nudism? We had that too, but it was more aimed against the morals over here. In Germany they called it FKK (Freie Körper Kultur - Free Body Culture). Surely they didn't do this in Poland, as I seem to remember that not so long ago it was an issue when two women were sunbathing topless on a beach in PL...

I was thinking about little sabotages (to the system?), nothing serious, just enough to cause some disruption without the danger of being arrested...

>^..^<

M-G (Good Morning)

Maybe I can ask an additional question: after Communism was gone, when came the point for you personally when you really felt: "yes, I'm free"? What I mean is: when the euphoria of the Revolution had died down, when came the moment that you felt this sensation? When came the point that it was "back to business as usual", but you felt it was in a different form or shape?

Maybe I'm asking this in the wrong form, if I do, I will certainly be notified of it :) and I will rephrase it. Right now it'll have to do like this.

>^..^<

M-G (grumpy, in need of some good ol' cafeine)

Poznań 1956.

In the 9150's the anti-communist resistance in Poland was still a feature of the Polish struggle for independence that started in september 1939:

The 'cursed soldiers'(Polish: Żołnierze wyklęci) is a name applied to a variety of Polish resistance movements that were formed in the later stages of World War II and afterwards. Created by former members of the Polish underground resistance organizations of World War II, these organizations continued the struggle against the pro-Soviet government of Poland well into the 1950s. Most of these anti-communist groups ceased operations in the late 1940s or 1950s. However, the last known 'cursed soldier', Józef Franczak, was killed in an ambush as late as 1963, almost 20 years after the Soviet take-over of Poland.

Uh..don't tell me...
Many Berliners felt like living in a zoo anyhow! ;)

Bratwurst Boy

Well, Berlin was to us, more than anything else in the Eastern Bloc, a symbol to us. A symbol of division as nowhere else this was more clear than in Berlin. So most of us went to that city. Not only because of this division, the Wall and all, but also because it's a cool city as well :)

>^..^<

M-G (if East-Berlin was a zoo, I wonder if Bratwurst would live in das Affenhaus - Monkeyhouse?)

I don't like apes! ;)

Well, you look like one :)

Anyway, I cannot believe that nudism was the only thing Eastern-Blokes did as act of "civilian disobedience". There must be more as I understand from the several posters on this thread that everybody was so heroice and brave. Surely, there must be something "small" they would do to make life for the Soviets a little less comfortable.

>^..^<

M-G (grumpy)

Nudism as act of civilian disobedience??? Who is talking such crap???
Nudism has it's roots in a "green" lifestyle in Germany back to the beginning of the last century.
Nothing political about it!
And surely nothing "eastern"...

/wiki/Naturism


You only need your helmet anyhow...:)

Just read back on the thread. I asked this question last night and southern answered to it. Pls, see also my response to his reply.

FKK: Freie Körper Kultur - Free Body Culture.

>^..^<

M-G (thinks it's kinda gross that it's nearly always are old and fat men and women you see in pix of nudists' beaches and never a hot young babe)

arguing about the roots of nudism is a little on a hilarious side :)