Born in the GDR

by Vaizey, Hester

  Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the FDJ, in 1987 Mirko did derive satisfaction from being selected to go on a four-week ‘Pioneer Republic Camp’. It was not the lectures, workshops, military, or leadership training at the camp that appealed to Mirko. It was rather the fact that he had been picked over others in his year, and that he got to miss regular school. At the time, Mirko says, the ideological and military emphasis of the camp did not seem strange in the least. Two years later, in the summer of 1989, Mirko attended a military training camp for all boys his age living in the Freiberg area. Here he was filled with horror at the emphasis on the military. Looking back, he finds it weird to think that the leaders were all working to groom him into the perfect socialist personality. The unquestioning way in which he and the majority of his contemporaries participated in the FDJ activities, Mirko reflects, makes it easier for him to understand how so many Germans participated in the Hitler Youth during the 1930s.7

  Growing up in the GDR felt normal to Mirko. His family were comfortably off and he certainly had enough to eat, contrary to what Westerners had learned through Cold War era propaganda. Some of his friends’ families had contacts in the West who sent over parcels of scarce or expensive goods but since Mirko’s family had very little contact with their Western relatives, they had to make do with what was available in the GDR. None of this bothered Mirko, he says. He was not jealous of his contemporaries who had Western things, he says, because, like Lisa, he has never been that interested in material things.

  Likewise, Mirko did not feel constrained by the travel restrictions imposed on GDR citizens. Having greater freedom to explore other countries would have been nice, he remembers thinking, but it did not make him unhappy. As a lover of aeroplanes though, he remembers going to watch planes take off: ‘It was a funny feeling to see the planes leaving for places I would never be able to travel to.’ For most of Mirko’s childhood, then, with no benchmark for comparison, he accepted uncritically the circumstances in which he lived.8

  Despite having no contact with the West, Mirko began to view the East German regime in a more critical light in his teenage years. A number of things he had been told either in school or by his parents no longer added up. Everyone seemed to be so keen to tell him how terrible life in the West was, yet when his friends’ relatives came over from the Federal Republic they arrived in amazingly smart, modern cars. For Mirko this cast doubt on the anti-Western propaganda he had been fed. He also began to wonder why there was such a strong military presence in the GDR, given that its leaders claimed to champion peace.9

  The demand for conformity, too, began to grate on Mirko. As he grew older, he wanted to express himself as an individual rather than as an unthinking, regime-supporting robot. There were many times, Mirko says, when he stopped himself from voicing his true opinion, aware that it did not fit within the accepted socialist narrative. There were certain topics, he explains, that he just knew not to mention, including the Stasi, the army, relations with the Soviet Union, the poor conditions that pensioners were forced to live in, and the fact that East German hospitals were outdated in comparison to West German ones.10 In school therefore, it was easiest to trot out approved stock phrases, which would guarantee good marks.11 Mirko’s contemporary, Robert Ide, also recalls watching what he said at school very carefully: ‘Silence, I quickly learned, was the best way of avoiding trouble’, he explains. He took further steps to find out who it was safe to talk to. Exploiting a quiet moment at break time, he looked through his class’s register, where all the students’ names were listed. Next to each student, there was a column which detailed what job his or her parents did. Scanning the register in haste, Robert noticed that next to some of these entries about the parents were the big red letters ‘SED’, indicating that they were Party members. This, he remembers, was really useful information, because when he went on school trips afterwards, he knew which parents he could talk to about his love of certain West German TV series, and which parents to avoid.12

  figure 24 Mirko as a teenager on his first solo visits to East Berlin. (above) aged 16; (below) aged 15.

  Courtesy of Mirko Sennewald.

  The political pressure on Mirko intensified in the final years of the regime. He was put into a so-called S-Klasse (Spezialklasse or Special Class) when he transferred to the Erweiterte Oberschule (German equivalent to a sixth form college) to study for his A levels and this coincided with the period when he began to question the regime. Being in the elite class came with a particular political pressure: Mirko and his classmates were meant to be good examples of socialist citizens. It did not work too well in his class, Mirko explains. His teacher was duty-bound to try to encourage the boys in the class to sign up for more than the obligatory eighteen months of GDR military service. It was a well-known fact that those who had served in the army for three years instead of eighteen months were far more likely to be offered a place on a university course of their choice. Nonetheless, when Mirko’s teacher raised the subject of military service with the seven boys in his class, none of them wanted to sign up for officer training. A Stasi representative came to the school to interview each of the boys in the hope of persuading a few to sign up. It was made very clear in the interview that unless the boys signed up for three years of military service, they would not get a place to study at university. None of the boys changed their minds, but, Mirko said, this pressure was very stressful at the time.13

  At school, too, although he got good marks, Mirko ran into difficulties for having long hair and for refusing to remove his headband when the teacher asked him to. Of course all schools are familiar with pupils pushing the boundaries of dress codes but teachers in the GDR were duty-bound to root out anything that deviated from the socialist norm—unusual hairstyles or clothing were indicative of nonconformity.14 Mirko, like Robert in Chapter 6, had dared to be different. Perhaps the reason why Mirko dug his heels in lies in the fact that so much of his life had already come to feel controlled by the authorities.

  Seeing the police violence in dealing with the crowds who had come to watch the refugee train pass was a crystallizing moment for Mirko. Even without provoking the policemen or being aggressive, it was difficult to avoid being beaten, Mirko recalls. And whilst Mirko was witnessing this state-sanctioned violence for the first time amid the crowds on Freiberg station platform, his father was actually part of the official operation to keep East Germans from getting too close to the trains as they passed. The next day in school a teacher asked the class who had been at the station, leaving Mirko feeling worried after he had confessed to being there. Prompted by his experience on the station platform, Mirko went along to the Nikolaikirche in Freiberg where there were discussions about reforming the GDR. It was around this time too that Mirko left the FDJ and joined an alternative political group with liberal values called LILA (links liberale Alternative, the Liberal Left Alternative).15 LILA’s belief system was very different to the FDJ as it was keen to support East Germans in their growing demands for freedom in various forms. Their ideals far better matched Mirko’s own ideas and seemed far more convincing to him than those the FDJ, which appeared outdated and inflexible. Consequently, Mirko was very engaged in politics at the time of the Wende, supporting LILA’s position on rapid reunification rather than the FDJ’s preference for reform within the GDR.

  Mirko slept through the night of 9 November, only learning of the fall of the Wall on the radio the next day. ‘It was unimaginable to me that this would happen,’ he explains:

  From September onward, it was clear that something would change, but it was still surprising how things developed in November. The system which had seemed invincible was suddenly gone. I had hoped for reform, he said, but neither the opening up of the Wall nor reunification was predictable. What followed was a period of uncertainty; there was a lack of direction and people wondered what would happen next. There was also a sense of breathing out, of relaxing.

  Mirko went to school as normal on 10 November. All le
ssons were cancelled and many pupils did not turn up. This merely intensified an existing trend as, from May 1989 onwards, when the border between Austria and Hungary had been opened up, more and more children across the GDR simply failed to come to school since their families had fled to the West.16 On 10 November, however, Mirko remembers that those who did come to school sat around discussing what had happened and what would happen next. Around this time, Mirko jotted down some of the more absurd quotations of the socialist leaders, reflecting his growing scepticism towards the SED. Demonstrating a particularly detailed knowledge of current affairs, even for a 15-year-old growing up in the heavily politicized GDR, Mirko cited Erich Honecker’s declaration from a speech on 19 January 1989 that ‘The Wall will be standing in fifty and even in a hundred years, if the reasons for it are not yet removed’, poking fun at the former General Secretary of the SED who had clearly been proven wrong.

  figure 25 ‘ … and it [the Wall] will still be standing in a hundred years … ’ Erich Honecker speaking in Berlin on 19 January 1989.

  Courtesy of Mirko Sennewald.

  Throughout its forty-year existence, adults and children alike told jokes at the expense of the regime. Such jokes were dangerous, but were an excellent way to let off steam about the frustrations of daily life in the GDR. A common joke in schools, which alluded to the limited meal options at lunchtime, was ‘Our canteen offers a choice. Either you eat it, or you leave it.’ Numerous other jokes involved the three statesmen Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Erich Honecker meeting God in heaven. Erich Honecker, it seems, was always the butt of the joke:

  Erich Honecker, Ronald Reagan, and Mikhail Gorbachev meet God in heaven and ask him what the future of their countries will be. ‘The USA ’, God says, ‘will become a communist state.’ Reagan turns around and begins to cry bitterly. ‘The Soviet Union’, God continues, ‘will disappear altogether.’ Gorbachev too turns around and begins to cry bitterly. ‘And what about the DDR?’ Honecker asks. God looks at him, turns round, and begins to cry bitterly.

  Erich Honecker has lost his watch. He calls the Minister for State Security and asks him to investigate. The next day Honecker finds his watch under the bed. He immediately calls the minister to tell him to stop the investigation. ‘Too late,’ the minister replies, ‘We have already arrested ten people, all of whom have confessed.’

  Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the Communist Party, is delivering a speech. He asks the people: ‘Who is your mother?’—‘The German Democratic Republic’—‘Who is your father?’—‘You!’—‘And what do you want to become.’—‘Orphans!’17

  Despite his evidently keen sense of irony in the Wende period, Mirko was extremely serious about his desire for reunification with West Germany rather than reform within East Germany. To emphasize this point, he drew a sketch of the GDR flag in his exercise book and then scribbled it out. (See Figure 28.)

  Mirko’s exercise book further demonstrates his contempt for the regime by referring to the moment when Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, was jeered and booed in the East German parliament for the first time on 13 November 1989. (See Figure 29.) Criticized for addressing his colleagues as comrades, Mielke was taken aback by the hostility against him and apologized, explaining ‘But I love you all’—an embarrassing utterance that fell on deaf ears in the Volkskammer and was captured live on television. The doodled hangmen in Mirko’s notebook are quite prophetic. This moment marked the abrupt end to Mielke’s power, and by 7 December he had been detained in custody.

  Over the following months, after reunification was decided upon, East German schools experienced rather a hiatus. Ideological components of the old syllabus such as citizenship lessons and the FDJ were quickly dropped, and strongly socialist teachers swiftly disappeared from the classrooms, but it was unclear what the new syllabus would be. Schools suddenly adopted a Western approach to education, but as most of the teachers were from the old system, they lacked confidence in using these new teaching methods.18 Over the coming years Mirko sat his A levels in reunited Germany, before taking a job working for Airbus building aeroplanes.

  While for young people like Mirko there were more options and greater choice in reunited Germany, this was not the case for everybody. His father, for example, lost his job teaching the regime’s ideology, and, as a firm believer in socialism, felt like a fish out of water, holding views contrary to those of the prevailing government (much as opponents of the SED had felt in the GDR). Since Mirko holds very different political views to his father, he chooses not to talk about politics with him, knowing that it will lead to arguments. He simply says, ‘We hardly ever have discussions about politics because we disagree. It is easier that way.’19

  figure 26 Extract from Mirko’s exercise book.

  Courtesy of Mirko Sennewald.

  figure 27 ‘But I love you all … ’ Erick Mielke addressing the Volkskammer on 13 November 1989.

  Courtesy of Mirko Sennewald.

  Much of Mirko’s life story after 1989 seems to have been shaped by growing up in communist East Germany. For the past few years, for example, he has run a cultural institute which arranges exchanges for young Germans with young people from Eastern Europe. The participants learn about foreign cultures and different types of government through their visits abroad. Through this work, Mirko has also given talks to local governments in the Balkans, presenting the developments in Saxony after 1990 as a model for transforming a cultural sector from a socialist system to a Western one. Motivated by the lack of freedom in Belarus, Mirko has worked with an oppositional youth movement there, sharing his experiences from East Germany in 1989 and the transition that followed afterwards. For Mirko this is in part a political mission, driven by his own experience of living in the GDR.

  Unlike many of his contemporaries, including Carola, who avoid having any formal political affiliation, due to their toxic memories of the dictatorial set-up in the GDR, Mirko is actively involved in politics at a local level, striving to improve the situation in his community as a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany (Freie Demokratische Partei or FDP) in Dresden Neustadt. Growing up in the GDR and living through the transition to unification, Mirko explains, has encouraged his belief that individuals have an important part to play in shaping their circumstances.

  Mirko is not the least bit nostalgic for life in the GDR. He views the possibilities as much greater in reunited Germany but at the same time believes that freedoms are more limited currently than is widely acknowledged: ‘You have a lot more choice about what you do, but it’s not like there aren’t any barriers and boundaries in reunified Germany.’ In theory, of course, all Germans can now travel around the world, all Germans can now say what they want without fear of reproach, and all Germans can now live their lives free of close monitoring from the likes of the Stasi. Mirko concurs that it is much better to be able to travel freely, explaining, ‘Whenever I fly anywhere, I am aware that it is a great freedom and I am grateful.’ However, ‘Freedom to travel for example is fantastic in theory, but a lack of money prevents many people from exploiting this freedom.’20 He adds, ‘There can be bureaucratic or financial limitations, for example, which mean you can’t do certain things, so in some cases self-determination comes to an end relatively quickly.’ Indeed, as one East German noted, looking back on the high hopes pinned on the West German capitalist model, ‘When we drove in our Trabant to West Berlin, I had the feeling that we could buy whatever we wanted. I soon realized, however, that everything cost a lot more money than we had.’21 Freedom of speech is another much-vaunted virtue of modern democracies, but are we really free to say what we think? The existence of predominantly accepted views means that it can still be a challenge to voice unpopular or unusual ones. Also, though the Stasi no longer collects detailed information, in Mirko’s experience the state in united Germany holds a great deal of information about every individual, and, in order to receive state benefits for example, one has no choice but to give this infor
mation. In fact, as one contemporary wrote, concurring with Mirko’s views on the shortcomings of the new system, ‘the search for individual happiness is possible in both systems. Only under capitalism it is harder to explain why you sometimes do not find it.’22 In the wake of communism’s collapse in Europe, triumphalist narratives endure about the virtues of democracy versus the pitfalls of socialism. For Mirko, who has lived in both systems, this binary distinction is too simple and serves to mask discussion about how the status quo could be improved.