With Every Right To Hate Revisited.

Berlin, 1990. One November day Gilbert Furian stood on an escalator climbing upwards in a supermarket on Alexanderplatz. While going up, he recognizes the man passing slowly by going downwards. It’s an old foe. The Berlin Wall is gone, two Germanys have become one, and now Furian finally found his former tormentor. On top he changes escalator and goes after the man.

The end of East Germany swapped upper and lower hand, winner and loser, in the reunified German society. It’s easy to imagine the difficult art of shaping two nations with unimaginable differences into one. Especially when one side are bringing open wounds and old accounts to the marriage. The fact that the years after 1989 remained civilized and not, as in Romania, where the Ceauceascu’s were shot down in a backyard cannot be underestimated, says author Gilbert Furian. He himself was in the clutches of an Stasi-interrogator.

This journalist have over the course of three years, corresponded with Gilbert Furian. A German author, mediate of history and perennial dedicated guide in the former Stasi prison Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Where he once were imprisoned himself. Furian has vividly talked about the dark sides of GDR, the art of self-control, forgiveness and a higher goal in mind than just revenge.

About:

• Born 1945 in Görlitz
• Expelled by FDJ (young communists) because of divergent political views
• Forced to quit studies at Leipzig University in 1970 due to connections with Church communities
• Arrested and sentenced to prison for 14 months in 1985 for ‘writing which likely would harm interest of East Germany’
• Attented Round-table talks in 1990 for New Forum in Berlin-Pankow area
• Starts guiding tours at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen in 1995. Have since led thousands of visitors through the memorial
• Living with his wife in Fürstenwalde outside Berlin

Gilbert Furian, (78). Political prisoner in the former East Germany. Photo: Hans-Leinberger-Gymnasium Landshut.

“The atmosphere in 1989 was shaped by the fact that people came with candles in hand from churches and shouted, ‘no violence’ “, says Furian. “My first feeling when I saw my old interrogator was not hate. I only thought of interview him for my book”.

Back in the supermarket on Alexanderplatz Furian sees the man stops at a garbage station and goes straight on.

“I say his name, and he turns and exclaims ‘Gilbert! After four years, he knew immediately who I was. My heart pounded, but not from fear. I was the winner because his whole world had just collapsed”.

Furians book would be Flour from Mielke’s mills – Political convicted. With his own Stasi-interrogator major Wolfgang Mascher as an integral source. The book is based on Furians own experiences, interviews and his hefty case in the Stasi archives, consisting of monitoring reports, descriptions of Stasi visits to his apartment, conversations with landlords and a lot of minor details, like what time he gets up in the morning and he appears unshaven. Many would think precisely such reading of surveillance makes it unfeasible to forgive? And therefore many Germans feel it’s offensive to the sense of justice, that only two Stasi employees ever received a prison sentence after the reunification.

“I wanted to learn about the man who questioned me. It was a rule of decision that my interrogation leader’s work could not bring him to justice. I respect that. Although many of my colleagues who also was detained, fells very different about it”, emphasizes Furian.

Who is Bauerschmidt?

In March 1985, Gilbert Furian worked at a planning office. In his spare time, he wrote articles on the punk environment in East Berlin. His mother had retirement permission to cross the border and was handed the articles with her on a trip to West Berlin. Her smuggling was discovered.

“ I underestimated the whole thing totally”, admits Furian. “I thought, if they caught it, they would pull me in, scream at me and send me back home”.

Early morning in March 1985 four men in plainclothes asks him to follow with them and ‘clarifying facts’. He ends up in a van with five cells and zero windows jolting through East Berlin. The car stops at Stasi prison Hohenschönhausen where interrogator major Wolfgang Mascher waits in room 385.

Wolfgang Mascher, 1970s. Furians typewriter and experts examining of it, played a key role in the case Mascher was building up. Photo: BStU.

Thin curtains cover the only window in the interrogation room. There was a wardrobe and a filing cabinet along one wall, on the desk a telephone and a small box with alarm buttons. Interrogations lasted from morning to late night, interrupted only by lunch, which took place in the cell. For seven months the two men only meets each other in room 385.

“He asked, I answered, and then he wrote down my answers”, recalls Furian. “One day he made a mistake and showed a document in which his name was on. Knowledge I kept to myself. As a kind of joker in our questioning poker. I knew something he didn’t, and it was very satisfying”.

“He often asked me if I knew one ‘Bauerschmidt’, which surprised me. I always replied that I knew the sculptor Marie-Luise Bauer Schmidt. He wrote it down again and again, even though it wasn’t the answer he was fishing for”.

After the interrogation Furian was handed Wolfgang Maschers handwritten notes for perusal. He always noted the heavy bureaucratic language, but never saw a typo. Occasionally Mascher would tell how a bird had messed the flower box on his balcony or what his sons wanted to study.

“His interrogation strategy was obviously kindness. But with an ulterior motive”, Furian explains. “He never threatened me. Never shouted. I think it made him a far more successful interrogator than those who roared and threatened”.

Furian served seven months before he was told of release and a sent off to West Germany. An offer Furian rejected.

“Right until the very day I wasn’t sure if they would deport me or not. An officer asked me how a release sounded and I answered ‘very good, if the direction is correct’, meaning not being sent to the west”.

He was then released and allowed to remain in East Germany. When released into freedom, it is from a prison in Cottbus with a ticket back to Berlin. Back home his apartment stood as he left it, that morning he left for work.

– What did you do first?

“Johannes Brahms”, accentuate Furian with exclamation points! “I put his first symphony on and turned up. I could not bear to talk to someone. And Mozart had been too silly”.

Winds of change

After the Berlin Wall fell Stasi’s archives was opened. Gilbert Furian expected a file, but was left stunned when a Office clerk came with three huge folders on a trolley. He read to his surprise, that the monitoring of him already began in 1966. The reason is a comment to colleagues that the upcoming elections are not free. Criticism of the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 brings him more of Stasi’s attention. In the hands of Wolfgang Mascher his code name was ‘Schreiber’, but in other reports he is called both ‘Copernicus’, ‘Revisionist’ and ‘Thursday’s Circle’.

In the wake of the reunification around 92,000 Stasi officers was dismissed. A past in the Stasi is no way to professional advancement. After a short intermezzo as security chief at a hotel Wolfgang Mascher ends up with an early retirement. In early 1991, Gilbert Furian knocks on the door in a dismal communist apartment block. Ironically the flat lies opposite of the former Stasi headquarters in Berlin, which today is a museum and memorial. Inside, he was not greeted by luxury. Wolfgang Maschers apartment exudes nothing in socialist privileges.

“My wife thought it was insane to meet with him. But I wanted to know this man. Every time we met, I put my feelings aside. The contempt I felt for his work. I was never provoked by his views, because I knew his power was gone and my life was better than his. I was the winner and therefore had profit in these conversations. “

It was the first of many meetings between the two men, formerly enemies, but now got together in a mutual understanding of the need to talk. Wolfgang Mascher cut off all contacts with his past and even left the apartment block where many Stasi officers still lived because he could no longer endure the whining generals and officers, he drove with in the elevator every day.

The good and the evil

Author and inquire. Gilbert Furian (L) and Wolfgang Mascher in 1999 at a book reception. Photo: private.

“I have always spoken openly about my experiences because something in me said, that if I didn’t it would strangle me,” says Furian.

Since 1995 he has been a tour guide in Hohenschönhausen which he knows so well from the inside. He passes on the story about an East Germany, who pretended to know better than its citizens and oppressed in that spirit.

Gilbert Furian giving a tour to then-Bundes Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Photo: Zeitzeugen-Büro.

– Who was Bauerschmidt then?

“Mascher told me after the reunification, he hoped to prove a connection between me and Jürgen Bauerschmidt, who was involved in the civil movement, since it would have worsened my situation.”

– How do you put your feelings away with someone who has made you suffer?

“By not only looking at the function, but on the person behind that function”.

– It sounds like you have forgiven him?

“To his advantage speeches, that he answered all my questions and made his knowledge available to historians. He told for instance which rooms was for questioning and which ones were not. I think he wished to compensate for something with it. The fact that he behaved like someone who wanted to do right, made it possible for me to forgive him”.

– Was Wolfgang Mascher a better person than the work he did?

“That’s a really good question. I did not know him as a father, husband or colleague, but our meetings gave me the impression of a man, where person and work were one. In the end, he worked on getting people convicted who was innocent in the legal sense. Something many would find utterly wrong”.

– Why did you not seek revenge?

“It’s important that I give a complex picture of a near past with much information, some evaluation and no unilateral judgments. In East Germany, you didn’t fear unemployment or homelessness as many do today. And what is created by that? Frustration, doubts and longings for something else. We must remember that the East German regime controlled what could be seen, read and be written. For that, no State in the world can be loved. I hope my tours serves as more than a tourist magnet, but as a place of information, which achieves insight to appreciate democracy despite all the errors”.

“A civilized agreement made reconciliation possible between Wolfgang Mascher and me. And reconciliation is always a good bargain for both parties”.

The ENDgame

During 18 days in June 1991, East German football bleeds to death. Neither trophies nor prayers mattered as the Oberliga clubs played with nothing less at stake than their future. It was all or nothing.

The 1990/91 Oberliga was played in a time of upheaval. The East Germans worried about getting a job and feet their families, not about football. Attendance was sky dropping to about 4.000 in average and the amount of goals scored dropped to the lowest level in over 20 years. 471 yellow and red cards given through the season was a new record. Facilities was outdated, stadiums was in decay and the best player’s knew what they were missing by staying playing in East Germany. The national team wasn’t qualifying for anything. In reality the Oberliga was something of the past.

East Germany had ceased to exist and next in line to finish off and unite were it’s football system. How to do it was the question. The solution became a season in which the Oberliga champion and runner-up went straight into the Bundesliga season of 1991-92 and the next four teams qualified for the 2. Bundesliga. Further two spots was available through playoff. Therefore just six games in 18 days would make the difference between remaining a professional club or sinking into the abyss, that was amateur football.

The Oberliga had it all

It is said of East German football, that the only fair and honest Oberliga-season, was the last one ever played. European success, match fixing, dubious refereeing and close ties between politics and sports was part of the Oberliga from the beginning in 1949. As a fan, you never knew how long your heartclub were in town. Erzgebirge Aue never relocated physically, but were renamed Karl Marx Stadt because they were that good. The regime in East Germany liked football success and the name Karl Marx in the same sentence. In the mid-fifties Dynamo Dresden was moved to Berlin because it suited a capital having a successful football club. Events like that gave life to the strange folklore surrounding the Oberliga.

In a socialist model state there were no professional footballers. It was considered pure western decadence. All players were officially employed at local factories but had the privileged of being relieved for football duties. A modest basic salary got spiced up with payments under the table, benefits and favours. Wolfgang Seguin was part of Magdeburg’s 1974 Cup Winner’s Cup triumph and revealed the secret prize was 5.000 Ostmark and a car without waiting time for each player. For a long time East German football was quality. FC Magdeburg beat mighty AC Milan to win Cup Winner’s Cup in 1974. Carl Zeiss Jena and Lokomotiv Leipzig lost in the final of the same tournament in 1981 and 1987, respectively. East German football was quite capable internationally and Oberliga produced players like Thomas Doll, Ulf Kirsten, Andreas Thom, Mattias Sammer which all went off to great careers in the west and earning caps for Germany.

Head of Stasi, Erich Mielke, was honorary chairman of BFC Dynamo Berlin and a dedicated fan. In 1978 he entered an already celebrating dressing room of newly crowned champions Dynamo Dresden, and terrifying prophetic announced, next year’s championship would end up in Berlin. And so it happened. BFC Dynamo won the next ten championship in a row being totally dominating from 1979 to 1988. Stasi files later revealed how referee’s was called to Mielke’s office for a ‘friendly conversation’ before matches and several of them was working as informants for the Stasi.

East Berlin, 1982. Erich Mielke celebrating that year’s BFC Dynamo Berlin championship.

The struggle of a man and a club

It should have been the game that changed it all, but 2-2 up on the scoreboard is not enough. Not even close to. The whole season had been a downright nightmare as Dirk Stahmann starts chasing an opponent. Within reach, the FC Magdeburg captain, 6,2 feet tall and close to weighing 202 pounds, puts in a flying tackle from behind. While tumbling to the ground, he gets hold of the ball and throws it in the back of the head of his victim, so hard, the ball bounces back in his hands. Back on his feet he knocks out another opponent trying to get the ball from him. Unaffected by the chaos around him, Stahmann tosses the ball away and signals, let’s play on! A red card flies to the air. Dirk Stahmann, the rock solid defender with the characteristic tousled hair and capped 46 times for East Germany, desperately claps his hands at the referee and walks off. It’s over and he knows it. The East German commentator noted the experienced Stahmann ‘blew his fuse’.

Dirk Stahmann had played in FC Magdeburg his entire career and was already a respected legend within the club. After an international tour with the East German national team, Stahmann grew the beard that became his trademark. His coach at the time got a call from Berlin with an order. Make sure Dirk Stahmann get’s a shave! Stahmann simply refused. By June 1991 he was facing either a continuous of life, perhaps even better, by being professional in the new Bundeliga or experience a massive life change. A draw in the playoff opener followed by a defeat to insignificant Stahl Brandenburg left him and his club at deep water with only four games left. FC Magdeburg’s three national championships, seven cup wins and one European Cup Winner’s Cup underlined the club’s perception of themselves as a giant in East German football. They were close to winning the championship the previous year and the team being the same great ambitions seemed justified. In addition, FC Magdeburg was the first club from the East that got a sponsor agreement. 1.2 million. D-mark, not Ostmark, was sent to Magdeburg from Jägermeister. The alcohol producer made Magdeburg the richest club in the East. On the pitch the success is absent. In reality, the season was a road to disaster and Dirk Stahmann remembers a club in internal chaos. “The board didn’t know how to deal with it. It was brand new territory for them. It was difficult times”. Several Magdeburg players had already signed up with new clubs and were soon gone anyway. “Many had their mind elsewhere. It was like, fuck this situation, I have a contract for next year, so I’m good. That’s how it was.” Stahmann himself knew he was not particularly interesting for the West German Bundesliga clubs with his 33 years of age. He had to secure his career and his family from where he already were. Making sure FC Magdeburg stayed professional  “I loved traveling with the national team, but I get sick if I can not see the cathedral. Magdeburg is my home.”

In this crucial season the man trusted with this task, had won eight of FC Magdeburg’s 11 trophies as a player. And coach Siegmund Mewes, knew exactly, what was at stake. With two games left in the playoffs FC Magdeburg had to win them both to qualify. Their opponent, Stahl Brandenburg, didn’t have as much as a tin cup to show for themselves and often fought against relegation. Magdeburg leads 1-0 at halftime. The celebration of the goal is very modest. A nice volley from Wolfgang Janotta makes it 1-1. Stahmann is the last man on the goal line, but he’s without a chance as the shot is destined for goal. Magdeburg takes the lead once again, but are equalised by a Stahl Brandenburg team playing their heart out. When the disaster were a reality a huge banner in Magdeburg said; “We are ashamed of you”. Despite being a legend, Mewes came under heavy criticism and learned who his friends were on the streets of Magdeburg. Siegmund Mewes felt the heavy burden of being responsible of many lost their jobs. From cantine ladies and secretaries to coaches in the youth setup. Stahmann was being realistic and had sent an application for a job before the season was over. He got the job and began selling shiny Mercedes-Benz and BMW’s in a new established car dealership in Magdeburg. It was irony of the fate, that Dirk Stahmann ended up selling examples of why his career as a professional footballer in East Germany had ended. He still lives in Magdeburg and supports his old club.

Epilogue – Bright Light Fright

For the speedy and elegant Hans-Uwe Pilz a future in the West seemed bright. Being picked by Fortuna Cologne, he was part of the first wave of East German star players that hit the West. Others were Andreas Thom, Matthias Sammer, Thomas Doll and Ulf Kirsten. Pilz got a huge contract and was free at last. With money rolling in he got himself a luxurious house and the BMW he had been dreaming of. 13 matches later, nearly three months time, he signed with Dynamo Dresden and went back East. 32 years old, Pilz felt like fish out of water. Surrounding by flashing neon lights Hans-Uwe Pilz felt freezed out as an ‘Ossie’ in the capitalist West. Sometimes lights at the end of a tunnel might be a train coming straight at you.

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Diplomats In Tracksuits

It was foreign policy at the highest level. A young nation seeking worldwide recognition. For decades East Germany ran a state doping program second to none in both medals and ruthlessness.

It’s winter in the town of Zinnowith on the Baltic Coast. Yet another nightmarish training camp, one out of many scattered throughout the year, are underway. A large window are left wide open and freezing winds rages the small room. 15-year old, Susan Scheller, and her roomie are naked with soaking wet hair. They are hoping to catch a cold. They are fiercely determined to crush their fingers so they won’t be able to practice. Susan has a bottle in her hand and relentlessly hammers it on the fingers of her roommate. In the 1970s East Germany had found a way of turning water into wine. The East German regime had realized how international medals attracted positive attention which effectively could be used on a political scale. Outdone by West Germany in economy, development, living standards and international status, East Germany (GDR) was able to come out on top of it’s bitter class enemy through sports. GDR athletes represented a model Socialist state, they served the great Socialist cause and represented the very embodiment of what East German society could achieve in excellence and superiority. GDR claimed most medals at four European Athletics Championships in a row – 1966, ’69, ’71 and ’74. At the 1972 Summer Olympics on West German soil in Münich the GDR won staggering twenty gold medals. Only United States and the Soviet Union won more. Gold. Silver. Bronze and stunning records eccoed the world and GDR had simply become impossible to ignore. The paramount goal for the regime in East Berlin was recognition. Firmly establish a separate (East) German indentity. United Nations membership in 1973 and signing the Helsinki Accords in 1975 cannot entirely be credited winning Olympic medals or setting world records. Evidently vast East German succes at international events didn’t damage the cause and was a contributing factor in GDR’s international rise in esteem during the 1970s.

Between 1966 and 1990, at six European Athletics Championships, three World Athletics Championships, one Winter Olympics, no nation won more medals than East Germany. At five Summer Olympics this small nation amassed impressive 409 medals.

The scouting system in the GDR was massive and widespread. Already in Primary-school kids were scouted and measured by teachers. If a talent was singled out, then arrangements were made with the parents so the talented child left home at age eight or nine to join a Sport-Club somewhere in the country. Selection was exclusive and high status. Families took great pride in this and handed over their children to the state without hesitation. Questions wasn’t asked. Mothers and fathers all over GDR kissed their young one’s goodbye with gratitude and high hopes for their future. These chosen talents would live, go to school and train intensively at the club’s training complex. If talent and potential were incontrovertible the athlete would be picked for the national team. That meant a move to major cities like Berlin, Dresden or Leipzig where training facilities was of the highest standard. A career process like Susan Scheller’s were i no way uncommon in the GDR. Scheller left her childhood home in Potsdam at age nine and joined a Sport-Club in Halle. When she turned fifteen she was selected for the national team and moved to Leipzig. From there she came under heavy training surveillance and her every move closely monitored in all aspects of life. She would travel the world and represent GDR until her retirement.

1972 Olympics in Münich. Women’s 4x400m Relay. Won gold, sat World Record and beat second-placed USA with 20 seconds in the final.

Bluish Little Pill

GDR began intensive research in performance-enhancing drugs in the early 1960s. In all fairness they were in no way the only nation dabbling in doping. West Germany and the United States had well known bouts with doping in those years as well. The GDR just took it to the extend of being state policy and impossible to be an athlete without using doping. By 1967 anabolic steroids was floating the countless Dynamo Sports-Club’s in the GDR in form of a small, rounded pill with a distinguished blue color. Coaches lied as fast as their athletes ran and labelled the pills as ‘vitamins’. For the next twenty years East German athletes saw blue pills on their dinner plates, stood in line while coaches meticulously handed them out and made sure they were swallowed before moving down the line. Oral-Turinabol was an anabolic steroid derived from testosterone. It had far more effect on female athletes than male. Females rapidly developed remarkable muscle and stamina and improve their results dramatically. The GDR did not favour any particularly sport. They simply focussed on sports with most individuality. Gymnastics, athletics, swimming which all has several disciplines and races and likewise more medals to win. In July 1968 shot putter, Margitta Gummel, received her first dosis. She participated at the 1964 Summer Olympics without success. With hard training and 10 mg of Oral-Turinabol each day for three months, she went from 17 meters, her personal best, to become the first woman throwing for 19 meters. Those extra meters was all East German authorities needed to be convinced. Same two meters was all Margitta Gummel needed to win Olympic gold in 1968.

Margitta Gummel

Oral-Turinabol. Produced by the state-run drugmaker VEB Jenapharm. A secret institute in Leipzig constantly researched the drug.

1974: The Game Is On

June 14th 1974. The Central Committee of ruling SED Party approves ‘Staat-plan 25.14’. Highly secret and based on the work of pharmacologists and chemists at a lab in Leipzig. This protocol made doping mandatory in the GDR with no need of consent by the athletes. Doping became just as normal in training as water. Coaches fed athletes while doctors supervised it and motivation for pushing athletes to the limit – and way over – was ever present as the regime rewarded both coaches and doctors with cold cash and benefits, depending on how well their athletes did in national and internatonal competitions. How many medals they won. As in so many other aspects of East German state-affairs, the bus stopped at Head of the Stasi, Erich Mielke. Stasi monitored the whole system, athletes, coaches, doctors, performances and results. Athletes even spied on teammates and reported to the Stasi. Mastermind behind implementing this massive doping-program was Manfred Ewald. This strict and tight-bottoned, insensitive character started his career as sports-politician in 1952 becoming member of SED’s Central Committee in 1963. Ewald furthermore served as President of the East German Sports Association (DTSB) and headed GDR’s Olympic Committee from 1973 to 1988. His right hand Dr. Manfred Höppner were a specialist in medicine and the two men forced a formidable cynical duo from 1964 and onwards. They were absolutely central in GDR’s doping program from beginning to the end.

Erich Honecker and Manfred Ewald, 1977

Manfred Ewald served as President of the East German Sports Association (DTSB). He headed of the East German Olympic Committee from 1973 to 1988. His autobiography titled I was the Sport was published in 1990. In the book Ewald denied doping ever existed in the GDR.

In medals the doping program delivered. The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal was hit by an East German medal blitz. In the swimming contest GDR claimed gold in 11 out of 13 races. Swimmer Kornelia Ender won four gold medals, three individual and one freestyle relay, and all were new world records. Ulrike Richter won two individual races and both in new Olympic record. Petra Thümer won gold twice beating American Shirley Babashoff both times. Babashoff would soon gain reputation of being a poor loser based on her straightforward comments on the East german swimmers..

… “To be frank, I don’t think we should be looking like men. “I wouldn’t want to walk around the neighborhood looking like a guy. That’s not the way God created us… looking like that (looking like East German swimmers)” …

Babashoff more than implied that something else went on in the GDR besides hard training. She addressed the severe physical changes and mannish appearance of her East German opponents. She mentioned their low deep voices. There were rumours and although many was suspicious no one actively and directly accused GDR of foul play in the way Shirley Babashoff did in 1976. An East German official was presented with Babashoff’s comments on the voices of GDR swimmers and chilly remarked; “We came here to swim, not to sing!”.

Years later several GDR swimmers at the 1976 Olympics either admitted or was revealed by the opening of the Stasi archives. No one from that team ever denied it. By 1977 Kornelia Ender got suspicious and refused any more pills or injections. Her coaches tried to persuade her but Ender wouldn’t hear of it. Very likely some athletes knew they were being doped and went along with it. But many athletes didn’t and only realized it after the German reunification. Athletes only choice was to blindly trust coaches and doctors who assured them it was for their own good. East Germany was a duty society and communication were extremely top-down. While dreaming of being a classless nation the power structures -and balances within East German society was deeply perverted and wry. The Communist regime’s very foundation was never to allow the art of wondering, therefore it simply wasn’t a part of East German dna to be asking questions or raise doubt. To do so in the GDR was not an option. Fear kept the state run doping program in function. Despite Kornelia Ender being the most successfull swimmer at the time, she was banned from the national team by Manfred Ewald . She either took the ‘vitamins’ or was banned from the sport. Kornelia Ender’s career ended that very day.

Guinea Pigs of Sports

East German athletes paid a grim physical price. Gerd Bonk was a successfull male weightlifter. He was diagnosed with severe diabetes before he turned 30 and put on invadility pension when he was 37. In 1979 alone Bonk was stuffed with 12,775 grams of anabolic steroids. He suffered from kidney failure and several other organ damages, and ended up in a wheelchair before dying in pain at 63. Werner Franke, instrumental in revealing the East German doping-program after 1989, said of Gerd Bonk’s case that he East Germany slowly drugged him to death. Consequences of doping use at such a scale was excess growth of facial hair, leg hair, pubic hair, enlarged clitorises and absent menstruration. Injuries and visible wounds which the body don’t register any longer because of the heavy intake of anabolic steroids. Hepatitis, heart diseases, organ failure, miscarriages, degenarative bone disease, infertility, severe depression, constant pain in knees, arms, hips, legs – the lists goes on. Being an athlete in the GDR came with a terrible price. An inhuman price which East German authorities knew all about. The many side effects and how every single pill or injection put athletes in danger.

“Last week, the track-and-field athlete xxxx from SC xxx Leipzig, was checked into the Erlabrunn Hospital on suspicions of hepatitis. The examining doctor determined that the liver failure observed was the result of the ingestion of anabolic steroids. According to G’s statement, she has been taking anabolic steroids since January and also specified the precise dose“. . – Meeting report from IMB ‘Technik’, April 25, 1977.

East Germany’s secret depressurised underground training facility in Kienbaum. Here doctors and physicians monitored training and effects of doping athletes. Today it is Olympic and Paralympic Training Center for Germany.

Heidi Krieger was enrolled in a doping program as a teenager and represented the GDR during the 1980s. When she retired the massive amount of anabolic steroids had changed body, that she ultimately became Andreas Krieger. “I still say today they killed Heidi and she’s not there anymore. I was thrown out of my gender”, Krieger stated in a 2013 interview. In another case East German physicians knew how damaged sprinter Kerstin Behrendt’s liver was. They committed a slow massacre on her liver as they continued feeding her anabolic steroids. The reason? She was considered irreplaceable on the highly sucessfull 400 meter relay team and medals mattered more than health.

The story of sprinter Ines Geipel was ruthless and merciless to a point of which it’s too incredible to believe, if it hadn’t been true. In the summer of 1984 Geipel was fast as the wind. Before GDR decided to ban the Summer Olympics in United States, as all Eastern Bloc countries eventually did, Geipel was sent to Mexico to prepare for the event. During her stay she met a Mexican athlete and fell in love. Together they intended to ‘jump off’ during the games in Los Angeles. The Stasi uncovered her plot and dragged her back to East Berlin. Talking didn’t change her mind. Finding a man with much or some resemblance to her Mexican lover and turning him loose around Geipel didn’t do the trick either. Stasi then wrote a document of their intention to ‘put Geipel on ice for a very long time’. Not long after a surgeon cut open her belly on state orders and sliced her abdomen muscles.

“I remember laying in some operating corridor. Next; I woke up and I had a massive scar across my stomach”. . Ines Geipel, ITV interview 2012.

Geipel’s hostile attitude towards the regime continued and seventually she was granted permission to leave the GDR. Only a few months before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Today Ines Geipel works for living doping victims and as an author. In 2005 she asked for her name be removed from the record books as doping was involved in her 1984 World Record in 100 meter relay. This year she released the critical acclaimed book; Umkämpfte Zone. (English: Combat Zone)

Ines Geipel (left), Cologne 1982. She has written more than 20 books about sport, consequences and life in the former GDR.

Over the last 20 years research has revealed that life expectancy of East German athletes is reduced by up to 12 years and risk of cancer is up to five-times higher. In 2018, Katja Hoffmann, former discus thrower at Dynamo Sport-Club Berlin, summoned up some of her health issues at age 44. Enlarged heart, heart arrhythmia, high blood pressure, liver damage, impaired coagulation, arthritis in spine, hips, shoulders, ankles and thumb joint. Eating disorder, depression, burn-out chronic fatigue, several benign tumors and cysts. Anciety and panic disorder. Underdeveloped ovaries and uterus, pain medication intolerance and insulin resistance.

Frank Hellmuth, former handball player at Dynamo Sport-Club Berlin, summoned up the following at age 57. Testicular cancer, prostate cancer, depression, anxiety disorder, tinnitus, fatigue, sleeping problems and declared 66 percent disabled.

From a postcard. Dynamo.Sporthalle in Berlin in it’s heyday in the late 1970s-early 1980s.

A Sickening Aftermath

Elke Stange-Schrempf, former gymnast coach in Leipzig, admitted her huge guilt and asked for forgiveness in an interview in 2018. She also revealed how she as a young child and gymnast was sent to weight-loss camps herself, living on soup for six weeks and suffered three stomach ulcers before she turned fifteen. Stange-Schrempf stated that East German sport was a vast lie. In a twisted system of threats, exploitation and kicking downwards perpetrators easily ended up being victimized by one more powerful or perhaps perpetrators was former victims themselves. Lines were blurred. No one was safe inside East German society. Stange-Schrempf’s apartment was bugged and her love letters opened as the athletes she let down and harmed.

“I remember with disgust an incident in Kienbaum. We were 15 at the time. There was a directive for our group: We were to go into the sauna with a high-ranking sports functionary”. . – Elke Stange-Schrempf 

In the same interview Susan Scheller told how she slowly had started to uncover her past. How she remembered blue pills in her hand. That she sometimes got away with throwing them out. Though she couldn’t remember who gave her the pills. She explained it maybe would come to her later on as many memories had begun to. While speaking to athletes who trained with her in Zinnowitz, she heard them speak of blue pills, injections, relentless training and extreme pressure… and sexual abuse.

“In the evenings, he (high ranked functionary) would order us to come to him, one at a time. I didn’t know why at the time; after all, I didn’t have any medical complaints. I can still remember the exact path through the dark gymnasium to get to his room. Then I was alone with him. I had to take everything off, except my underwear. I don’t remember what happened after that – it’s covered by a veil. I don’t know whether you would call it sexual abuse, but I don’t really care. All I know is that it still troubles me very much to this day” . . – Susan Scheller

Susan Scheller isn’t sure. With time what happened back then maybe will come to her. Like having a hand grenade rattling in her pocket all she can do is wait.

One who didn’t to remember was Manfred Ewald. Not even his right hand, Dr. Manfred Hoeppner’s, remorse in court where begged those athletes who suffered ill health and was treated terrible to accept his apologies, helped on Ewald’s memory. At a highly anticipated trial in July 2000 in which both Ewald and Hoeppner faced punishment for intentional bodily harm of 142 athletes, including minors, Ewald remained unrependant. “Communists do not murder people”, he indignant stated when subpoenaed for trial. When Hoeppner testified that approval for doping athletes came from the highest level of government, Ewald brusque replied; “We had no involvement in this matter whatsoever”. Manfred Hoeppner was declared guilty and sentenced 18 months probation. Swimmer Rica Reinisch testified against Ewald. She won triple gold at the 1980 Summer Olympics, but later in life suffered ill health and two miscarriages due to unwitting use of anabolic steroids. Another witness presented was Andreas Krieger. “I do not know you”, piped Manfred Ewald. In the end he was sentenced one year probation, but never admitted his guilt. In 2006 167 doping victims was compensated each with 9,250 euros by the German government ending years of court battle. More than 10.000 athletes; young boys, girls, men and women – were affected by this brutal one of a kind doping program. Memories of it and suffering by it, will remain many, many years after the socialist experiment called East Germany was laid in the grave.

Waldsiedlung: A Golden Cage For Politbüro Members

It was a top secured settlement in the woods. By East German standards 23 luxury houses reserved for the power elite and their families. In safe distance from the people they controlled, but always feared.

The 1953 uprising stunned the East German leaders and left them in a state of paranoia. Afraid of a new uprise, the regime builts a secured housing zone just north of East Berlin where high ranking members of the SED Party could live isolated and safely. Forever fearsome. The Waldsiedlung is finished in 1960 and the first Politbüro moves in. Among the first team of mandatory residents were Walter Ulbricht, Erich Honecker, Erich Mielke and Willi Stoph.

House 11. Home of Erich Honecker and his family from 1958 to 1989.

Layout

From the 1970s, a four-lane Autobahn connected Waldsiedlung directly to East Berlin. A small road inside the complex were packed every morning with long, luxurious Volvo’s and a rattling hum of tick-over. Due to the many Volvo’s going to and from Minister offices, the Waldsiedlung earned the nickname ‘Volvograd’ by East Germans after the Soviet city Volgograd.

The site had everything a common East German citizen never would get near of. Private swimmingpools, cinema, restaurant, clubhouse, shooting range, a sports field, tennis courts, healthcenter, kindergarten – it was all there. Even a nuclear bunker with space for 400 people were established. A store well-equipped with Western goods made sure the GDR elite could enjoy Beaujolais redwine, fine chocolate and coffee imported from West Berlin. Even the elite knew East German coffee tasted awful. Waldsiedlung covered an area of two square kilometres. An outer-ring of a five kilometres long wire-mesh fence was followed by an two metres high concrete wall, that made out an inner-ring around the site. The wall was painted in green as the surrounding woods. The outer-fence was covered with signs indicating the area was a wildlife research area. 31 watchtowers were in place within the 5 kilometres perimeter and guarded 24/7.

Plan over Waldsiedlung

Where The Streets Had No Name

Street inside Waldsiedlung.

The 23 family houses were scattered around three streets. Build identically and all looking the same. None of them had a name instead the houses were adressed by a simple number. Walter Ulbricht lived in ‘House 7’, Erich Honecker spend all his years in ‘House 11’ and Stasi chief Erich Mielke took his daily morning swim in ‘House 14’. When a Politbüro member died or where dismissed someone got a new neighbour. The houses were lavish after East German standards, but in no way as Ceaucescu’s palace in Bukarest or a sheik in the Middle East. In a Western term the luxury were quite modest. No golden faucets, not everything made in marble but indeed spacious and comfortable with easy access to Western goods. Furniture and decoration were paid by the state. When Walter Ulbricht wanted a larger library, he got it. Instead of using the swimming pool at the clubhouse, Erich Mielke wanted a private one and got it. It all went on the bill of The German Democratic Republic.

House 14. Home of Stasi chief Erich Mielke.

Back side of Erich Honeckers house, house 11.

Even though these 23 Politbüro members lived door to door social interaction wasn’t common. Maybe you would meet someone if you went to the restaurant or went for a drink at the clubhouse, but beside that no one socialized much.

“Waldsiedlung were no place for friendship”. Herbert Häber, interview 1998, MDR Deutschland. Häber lived in house 17 from 1984 to 1986.

Political ambitions ruled neighbourship and personal conflicts and mistrust were common between Politbüro members. The social climate in Waldsiedlung was everything but heartly and welcoming.

1989

After the fall of the Berlin wall, walls around Waldsiedlung came down as well. East German television went to Waldsiedlung, while former leaders still lived there and exposed the luxury and conditions the leadership secured for themselves. East German television famously stopped Kurt Hager, Politbüro member and Head of Culture in the GDR, while he went for a walk with his wife. Hager seemed rather bewildered and stated that Waldsiedlung was a camp and he was held there as prisoner against his own will. The East German reporter looked at Hager in silence.

The last politician left Waldsiedlung in January 1990. A West German company bought the site and several health facilities moved in. Many of them still operating today along with several homes for elderly. Most of the 23 houses are now private owned, but it is possible to visit and have a look from the outside and imagine how Erich Honecker, Erich Mielke, Willi Stoph, Horst Sindermann, Günther Mittag and others who shaped East Germany for more than 40 years, lived in private.

The Voice That Died Out

He often pinched his lips with his fingers to remind neighbours and curious children of the vow of eternal silence that kept him alive. Sejfulla Maleshova’s punishment was unimaginable isolation

On a beautiful hilly graveyard outside the Albanian town of Fier, there lies a grave very different from thousands others. The old pair running the worn-out flowershop nearby mumbles Albanian, looks distrustful at me; unwilling to help. Upon driving away the old man waves at me. The amount of time we cross through the graveyard convince me of how impossible it would have been to locate Maleshova on my own. A small man with a rough fist full of callous skin greets me and just the word of Maleshova is enough. The gravedigger willingly leads me to it. Surrounded by decorated gravestones in a sea of fresh flowers, the restingplace of Sejfulla Maleshova is a small untouched island of overgrown weeds and high tousled grass. A simple grey stone battered by years gone by stands out. In a lonely way. Lonely like the last eleven years of the Albanian poet, auhtor and politician’s life.

Maleshova’s fall from grace came sudden. Once ousted he was forced into exile in a dreary industrial town on the flat plains of central Albania. Twice a day every morning and evening he had to report himself at the headquarters of Domestic affairs in Fier. To prove he was still in town. The famous writer and former statesman passed the front desk and stopped at the leading officer. Then raised his right hand signalling; ‘here I am’ Then turned around and walked out. This bizarre ritual went on until his death.

Rise and Fall

Maleshovas political speeches and talented writing secured him praise and privileges from the Communist leader Enver Hoxha. The two men had fought against occupying forces during World War II from their base in the Albanian mountains. Hoxha served as strategic leader while Maleshova was Head of Propaganda. He saw himself as a ‘partisan writer’ under the name of Lame Kodra. When Albania’s Communist Party seized power in 1945 Maleshova was appointed Minister of Culture and Propaganda. Later he became Minister of Education and President of The League of Albanian Writers and Artists. Maleshova was a moderate Communist but still part of the Hoxha’s inner circle within the Communist Party. Born in deep poverty in 1900 near the town of Gjirokaster, where Hoxha himself was born, Maleshova had reached the political top in Albanian society by the age 45. He had studied medicine in Italy. Been in exile in Paris during 1920s and was political schooled in Moscow before becomming involved with Hoxha’s partisan movement. When World War II ended Maleshova was an influential Communist and respected cosmopolitan.

A letter to President Harry Truman and British PM Clement Atlee changed everything. Maleshova had crossed the line. Along with colleagues from The League of Albanian Writers and Artist he wrote and signed an open letter, that called for Western recognition of Albania. Maleshova had crossed the line. Enver Hoxha was outraged and stated in fury, that the only viable recognition viable was Moscow’s. Maleshova was accused of ‘rightist deviation’ and expelled from the Communist Party in 1948. Maleshova was sentenced to low paid work at the Institute of Science in Tirana, where he worked on a Russian-Albanian dictionary. Sometimes he would get picked to translate Russian litterature something he appreciated dearly. He even got some of his early poems publish in the Soviet Union under his the name Lame Kodra. Life was quite good. Until 1956 when Hoxha once again attacked Albania’s intellectual class.

Hoxha’s ‘Gesture’.

Maleshova was forced out of Tirana with permission to bring his beloved collection of books with him. Maleshova and his cousin grapped as many they could carry and left for the town of Ballsh in southern Albania. In 1960 Maleshova got transferred to Fier. His last exile. As in other Communist countries purges raged through society and the Hoxha regime hit political opponents and intellectuals hard with terror and death. As a gesture Hoxha offered Maleshova a licence to live if he agreed on a vow of eternal silence. Maleshova wasn’t allowed to write or speak. Not to his family, not to anyone ever again. Maleshova choosed life. Word has it, that one day a peasant came by and saw Maleshovas many books and exclaimed; “How could you have done wrong after reading so many books?”. Maleshova smelled the trap realizing the peasant was sent by Hoxha and therefore he smiled friendly and pointed towards the door.

• 

                 Sejfulla Maleshova and Enver Hoxha.

In Fier, the former statesman was installed in an old warehouse, where the former statesman carried out simple, monotous work. Far away from Tirana’s elevated circles. Completely shunned by his fellow citizens his social life was reduced to watching children play football. If anyone dared speak to him he simply pinched his lips with two fingers. Maleshova became increasingly ill and sought treatment at the local hospital. He received a minimum of treatment and often tumbled his way home using trees and housewalls to keep his balance. Helping the dying man to his feet wpould be punished with prison. Maleshova died as an outcast in 1971. His funeral was attended by his sister, the local gravedigger and two agents from the Sigurimi, Albania’s secret police, in pouring rain. According to Enver Hoxha’s orders, the funeral was carried out… in utter silence. In 1993 a group of writers found his grave and gave him a lively funeral with hymns and voices.

If You Ever Get There

Try locating the office of the gravedigger. Once you have found that, you are actually very close. It’s a primitive low brick building which where white in the times of Hoxha’s regime, but nowadays paint had fallen down everywhere leaving grey, battered bricks visible. Take the hand of the gravedigger and shake it. He will be smiling all the way. Say “Maleshova” and then walk with him for less than a minute. Once the gravedigger stops, you are there. You have found the grave of a man which use of words, written and spoken, silenced him and gave him a very lonely death.

• 

      The Grave of Sejfulla Maleshova. Fier (Photo: Jannik Bay Hansen)

Sources: Drita Magazine, www.gazetadita.al, www.radiokosovaelire.com, www.prabook.com, www.albertvataj.com, www.kohajone.com, www.shqiperia.com, Albania as dictatorship and democracy (book).

Last Remains of East Germany

The German Democratic Republic was officially abolished with the German reunification in 1990. A tiny piece of the GDR was never reunited.

• 

In 1972 Fidel Castro paid a state visit to East Berlin. He knew his Cuban revolution needed investments. He rolled out a map and pointed out a thin, quite long and uninhabitated island just south of Cuba – known as Cayo Blanco del Sur. Castro had renamed Ernst Thälmann Island in honour of the pioneer Communist Hitler had shot in 1944, and prsented his gift to Erich Honecker and a hand full of East German ministers. A long stretch of beach on the island was named ‘Beach of the GDR’.

Fidel Castro in East Berlin, 1972.

This gesture impressed the smiling East German hosts and smoothed further negotiations. The GDR regime saw tourism and sugar opportunities in Cuba, while Castro on the other hand needed all the food products and loan he could get his hands on. At the time GDR had economic muscles and were willing to invest in a Socialist brother country. Castro’s visit took place a year before the global oil crisis hit hard on East German economy and made investments in Cuba impossible.

GDR In The Sun

• 

• 

• 

The treaty that unified both Germany’s didn’t mention Ernst Thälmann Island. In the period after Castro’s visit, it was rather unclear if the island now in fact where East German territory or just a symbolic act. The GDR did use the island for propaganda purposes and state television’s flagship program, Aktuelle Kamera, covered an event from the island in August 1972, when a bust of Ernst Thälmann was unveiled. Officially East German authorities only sat foot on the island that one time in 1972. Post 1990 – Germany never made claims for the island. Later on both Havana and Berlin stated that Castro’s gift in 1972 was purely symbolic. Much more just a renaming than an actual give-away of Cuban soil.

Today the island is still uninhabitated and reportedly is home to several endangered species of fish and coral. The Thälmann bust got knocked down by hurricane Mitch, when it raged the Caribbean in 1998.

Notes: www.revolvy.com, www.youtube.com, www.bigthink.com,
Der Spiegel, www.thedailystar.com, www.mentalfloss.com  The Washington Post.

Dear Mr. Reed

Dean Reed became “Elvis of Communism” while starting out as a soft second-rate crooner from Denver, Colorado.

‘S’ and ‘U’ is visible on the windshield. Red towers, crowded squares, bridges, rivers and countless Moskvitch cars runs like a film in the background as the Voskhod motorcycle plows its way through the capital. On monumental concrete roads, surrounded by great Socialist concrete achievements in which the proletariat and their family’s can reside with Pravda of the day and a sense of grandiosity. The year is 1980 and Dean Reed’s latest single is out. The musical backbone is the steady, on beat sound of boot tramp as the track opens with; “I’m going to Kansas City.. Kansas City here I come”. The tallgrass prairie’s of Kansas seems absurd and incomprehensible far away from the red capital. To every Socialist regime this handsome American were a godsend propaganda tool. An American who expressed leftist political views while denouncing US foreign policy and Western imperialism while he defended the building of the Berlin Wall. Dean Reed remained a walking, talking contrast until the very end. After touring South America in the sixties where Socialism gained momentum, he got the chance of touring the Soviet Union in 1966 and took it. That tour propelled Dean Reed to and almost half a Communist-world as a scene, where music and ideology walked hand in hand unconditionally.

Dear Dean... Thank you for you beautiful songs and your heartfelt praises for love and peace. You sing it like no one else.From the bottom of my heart, thanks  for being you. 
Ulrika Neumann Chemnitz, DDR

Dean Reed performing at a SED event in 1979.

State Sponsored Superstar

In 1973 Dean Reed moved to East Germany where the SED regime left it’s state-run entertainment business wide open to him. DEFA film studios handled his heroic cowboy movies while Amiga took care of his music. Both corporates completely controlled and censored by SED. As head of Free German Youth (FDJ), Egon Krenz, became a close associate with Reed business wise as he provided a huge FDJ fan base, state music festivals and acted as contact with the SED leadership making sure music and politics fitted. How much creative freedom Reed had musically is doubted. All lyrics contains praise of the Socialist cause, peace and patriotism. Lyrics were pre-written under censorship by the SED and Reed clearly just went in the studio and sung the song of the day. Movies were much closer to Reed’s heart than recording. At DEFA he wrote, directed and played leading roles in films such as ‘Blood Brothers’ and ‘El Cantor’. He was able to do that as long as he kept the regime satisfied. The overall plot of both films (and any other) is praising Socialism, criticising America and Western imperialism. In the role of an American soldier that realizes his wrong doing while fighting indians in Blood Brothers, Dean Reed famously breaks a flagpole in two over his knee with Stars and Stripes on it. A clear reference to the unjust treatment of native indians in North America. In 1971 he writes a ‘open letter’ where he slams famous Russian poet Alexander Solzhenitsyn for turning his back on the Soviet Union and Communism. Reed’s influence and importance behind the Iron Curtain had reached a climax.

11. december 1977. Ost Berlin, DDR. 
Comrade! 
Great appreciation of your tireless work for the Socialist cause. The party is very satisfied with you. Continue your work, put in all your strength for Socialism. Always peace, always forward.         
Socialist regard 
Bruno Greif, SED

The calendar was always booked with East German youth festivals, heavy touring of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc countries. Travels to the Cuba, South America and the Middle East, where Reed would support the Palestine cause were common. Although a convinced Socialist and for a period working for Stasi, he never became a member of SED.

Dean Reed performing, 1977.

A Socialist Artist In Despair

While Reed’s career flourished during the seventies his private life remained chaotic. Reed already been divorced twice married actor Renate Blume in 1981. Behind the smiles there were huge tensions and allegations of Blume spying on her husband for Stasi. Not able to make his third marriage work was a blow to Reed. In his suicide letter he wrote that his wife despised him. As times were changing in East Germany it became harder and harder for the regime to convince youngsters to turn up for concerts. As Rolling Stones and David Bowie was clearly heard over the wall from venues in West Berlin, Dean Reed simply seemed way out of touch and sounded as a cliché. Towards the end of his life he felt homesick and expressed desire of returning to USA. His father was a staunch anti-Communist and the rift between father and son tortured Reed. CBS program 60 Minutes visited Reed in East Berlin in 1986. Anchored by Mike Wallace, the legendary hardline journalist, Reed destroyed whatever hope he had of returning to the States and reviving his career. By the time Reed had both defended the Berlin wall, describing it as ‘self defence’, compared Ronald Reagan to Josef Stalin and stated he would love to become senator of Colorado it was all over. Even Mike Wallace had heard  enough. After the interview Reed received hate letters from outraged American’s accusing him of being a traitor based on the interview. His American comeback dream was dead. Stone dead! Just six months later Dean Reed was found dead in Zeuthener See. Death by drowning, not far from his East Berlin home. He was 47.

Epilogue

Dear Mr. Reed 
I was a young girl in the 70s and grew up with your music and films. I  believe you were a romantic idealist. Settling in East Germany as an American was remarkable. Maybe you were naive or did not care?  

Dear Mr. Reed,                                                      In the GDR we did not have true freedom nor basic human rights. We had Stasi and the Berlin Wall. So many risked their life at that wall. To get out. Why did you want to come in?                                     

Dear Mr. Reed,
It's human to be driven by ambitions, I guess. Often people end up replacing idealism with pragmatism. Perhaps you fell into that pot? You lived a privileged life in a state where many didn't.                                                   Listen to your music or watch one of your films. Egon Krenz said of you; "We used him. We told him what to do". 

Dear Mr. Reed,
Maybe you felt betrayed. Ashamed and used perhaps? Politics had nothing do with your death, you wrote Erich Honecker personally.   But didn't politics have everything to do with your life? 

Dear Mr. Reed,                                                  Politics made you rock n' roll the Eastern Bloc. Society needs to adapt to changes, otherwise it loses it's purpose.                  What happened when you lost yours?       

"Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world                but in the processes loses his soul", Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 

Angela Sindermann 8. november 1992, Berlin.

SOURCES: DER SPIEGEL, WWWDEANREED.DE, JACOBIN MAGAZINE, THE GURADIAN, HTTP://WWW.DEAN-REED.RU, 3.TH NOVEMBER CLUB, BBC NEWS, CBS, COMRADE ROCKSTAR, ROTE ELVIS, YOUTUBE.COM, SØREN ANDERSEN.

No Country For Old Men

East Berlin, 1987 from left: Gustav Husák, Todor Zhivkov, Erich Honecker, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nicoläe Ceausescu, Wojciech Jaruzelski and Janos Kadár,

A group of aging leaders, lost in a time that was passing them by more quickly than any of them could grasp meets for the last time.

Schönefeld Airport, East Berlin. The Warsaw Pact summit held in May 1987 marked the end of an era. The leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries, all of them now old and weary after a long life in the party, were part of a generation of Communists raised in poverty, got some, or none, education at all and took on the militant Marxism of Stalin in the 1930’s seizing power in the years that followed World War II. With the exception of Gorbachev the other leadersa racked up staggering 140 years as Head of State combined. As Erich Honecker stood on the runway, he was hosting a summit who stood on the shoulders of Perestroika with strong winds of change blowing throughout the Eastern Bloc.

The Old Communist Garde – One By One

Erich Honecker. Rose to power in 1971. A declared and hardline Stalinist who supported tanks cracking down rebellions in East Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956 and Prague in 1968. Instrumental in planning the building of the Berlin Wall, comrade Honecker never wavered in his work for the Socialist cause. Loved hunting and playing the German card game skat. A disciplined man who didn’t smoke nor drink. Considered the most dogmatic and stubborn leader in the Eastern Bloc. The fall of the Berlin Wall caught him by complete surprise and until his death he believed GDR’s collapse as orchestrated by the West. Especially West Germany and USA. He died of cancer in Chile in 1994.

Todor Zhivkov. Both a sly and slick power seeker who took charge of Bulgaria already in 1956. “You won’t find Todor Zhivkov’s name where things were done.”, he always boasted. “Things” could be the assassination of dissident Georgi Markov who got poked with an umbrella loaded with poison on Waterloo bridge in London. He installed nuclear-power reactors with disaster potential throughout Bulgaria and placed an enormous steel factory in Sofia which polluted the entire capital. He turned Bulgaria into the leading “computer state” in the Eastern Bloc. Gave his hometown of Pravets a computer factory, made the it in a model town and even made sure it could be reached from Sofia by a four-lane highway. Huge admirer of the Soviet Union, endlessly loyal to Moscow and saw Bulgarians and Soviets as close as “teeth to lip”. He was the longest-serving Communist leader and was ousted in 1989. He died in 1998.

Nicolae Ceauséscu. Brutal and undisputed leader of Romania since 1965. he always whore a worn out coat and an old hat while visiting factories, so that he looked like “a man of the people”. Behind that was the most greedy and vulgar luxurious leader in the Communist East. Building grandiose palace’s, having costly and rare peacock’s in his private garden, while Romanian cities were dark at night, official buildings barely heated in the winter, food severely rationed and eating an apple were considered a luxury. Severely beatings while being imprisoned made him stutter the rest of life. He made it look like he allowed Romanian jews to emigrate to Israel but in reality he charged million of dollars in ransom fees. His regime was the most suppressive and the poorest by living standards in the entire Eastern Bloc. The only violent revolution in the East overthrew Ceausescu in 1989 and he was executed shortly after.

Warsaw Pact summit in Budapest, 1986.

Gustav Husák. Leader of Czechoslovakia since 1969. A master of pragmatism and a comeback kid. Ousted in purges and imprisoned in 1950s and later a close ally of Alexander Dubcék supporting his reforms which led to the Soviet invasion. Fine political skills saw that, while Dubcék was removed from power, Husák was sitting in an armoured Soviet vehicle taking him to the President’s office in the aftermath of the Prague Spring. First of pro reforms but went on to be one of the most loyal states towards the Soviet Union. Under his tenure Czechoslovakia were the third most prosperous in the Eastern Bloc. He was forced to resign in 1987 and died in 1991.

Janós Kadár. When the Soviets removed Imre Nagý during the Hungarian uprising in 1956, they pointed out Kadár as his successor. His policies were dubbed as “goulash Communism” by Nikita Khrushchev due the level of personal freedom (after Communist standards), the level of tolerance in economic policies which secured Hungary the highest living standard in the Eastern Bloc. Kadár loved playing chess, lived a very modest life and known to be informal. He was tough on corruption within the Hungarian Communist Party. In his latter years he became increasingly ill and his appearances started to get embarrassing. When he was forced to resign his successor was shocked by puritanic life he lived in his Budapest villa.

Wojciech Jaruzelski. The Polish general imposed martial law as he took power in 1981. Working in a prison camp in Kazakhstan during World War II damaged his back and his eyes. His appearance looked remarkable stiff and robotic and he was forced to protect his eyes with huge black tinted glasses. He started the “round table talks” with the opposition, lost power in 1989 but remained as President until 1990 where he resigned. He died in 2014.

Mikhail Gorbachev. Became First secretary of the Soviet Union in 1985.His reforms Glasnost and Perestroika changed the Eastern Bloc from the inside. Gorbachev intentions were not to end Communism, that he believed in, and in the Soviet Union, but with severe changes in economic and foreign policy. He refused to interfere in other nations internal affairs and thought what could not stand by itself had to fall. Survived a coup in 1991 but on the last day of that year the Soviet flag came down from the Kremlin for the first time since 1917. Gorbachev’s life as a politician was over and he resided to a quiet life living in Moscow.

Berlin: Ghost Station Capital

In 1961 the East German government closed 15 stations on train lines closest to the Berlin Wall. Trains from West still passed them slowly without stopping. These became known as ‘ghost stations’.

The building of the Wall cut off public transport lines that spanned throughout Berlin. As a result of this geographical quirk, the S-Bahn line 2 along with the U-Bahn lines U6 and U8 suddenly ran through GDR territory on their passage through West Berlin. These dimly lit underground stations like Potsdamer Platz, Stadtmitte, Alexanderplatz, Jannowitzbrücke and several more was dubbed ‘Ghost stations’ by the West Berliners who drove by them. They were heavily guarded by East German Transport Police, called ‘Trapos’, preventing the trains from being used for escape to the West. Obviously the situation was far from ideal but nevertheless all ‘ghost stations’ remained in operation from 1961 until 1989.

A Scary Underground

It was like travelling back in time. Station walls were bedecked with ads and posters from 1961, old newspapers blew around the dusty platforms and Unter Den Linden (now Brandenburger Tor) and Potsdamer Platz had signage on the walls unchanged since the Nazi regime. “It was frozen in time,” according to Axel Klausmeier, who remembered taking trains as a teenager in West Berlin during the late 1970s and early 1980s with a visitor pass. “The light was dimmed down. You could see the guards with machine guns patrolling, and the trains were traveling slow, just to make sure the guards had a chance to control it. You were sort of rumbling through East Berlin slowly, and then as soon as you were back in the West, the train sped up.” Former entrances was sealed by heavy iron gates, stairways were walled up and barbed wire made sure no one could access the track bed. If a train on a West Berlin line broke down in East Berlin, then passengers had to wait for Eastern border police to appear and escort them out. The GDR didn’t maintain tunnels nor tracks and ghost stations literally appeared as they did the day the wall was built.

Gunter Kube made a career of working underground as a signal man on various ghost stations. “The first weeks the stations still looked OK but later it got worse and worse.” Small police stations was built into the windowed platform service booths, which before 1961 served coffee and sold newspapers. Incoming trains and guards who always worked in pair at the platform area, could be monitored from there. “The tiles fell of the walls and pillars and the dust got thicker and thicker. Soon it wasn’t fun working there anymore.”, Kube recalled. At Friedrichsstraße Station West and East Berliners were closer to each other that they probably knew. Located in East Berlin the station served trains from both sides of the Wall and passengers could change trains without going through customs. East Berliners used one platform and West Berliners used another. Walls of metal along the platforms made sure they didn’t mingle. Bornholmer Straße was the only ghost station not situated in a tunnel. 

                Map of ghost stations located in East Berlin.

All Ghosts Exorcised

You may wonder why this bizarre situation lasted 28 years. Ultimately because it benefitted both sides more than it worried them. West Berlins public transport could function as before 1961 without new investments, while the East German had something to bargain with. They never did but from time to time the GDR regime put pressure on West Berlin by threatening to seal tunnels and stations completely off.  After the wall fell and the reunification the German government invested heavily in modernization of stations and tunnel systems. Between November 1989 and March 1992 stations started to reopen one by one with Potsdamer Platz as the last one. All former ghost station are in use today.

              East German 'Trapos' patrolling at Potsdamer Platz

 

 

Noticed sources: Atlas Obscura, Berliner Zeitung, Deutsche Welle, Youtube.com, Star-Telegram, Der Speigel.

 

 

Cold War World Cup’s – Poland

Poland took over the torch in 1970’s and 80’s when Hungary and Czechoslovakia had lost momentum. Poland made memorable results in three consecutive World Cup’s before burning out. This post is dedicated the Polish People’s Republic and it’s World Cup endeavours.

Poland reached all Cold War World Cup’s between 1974 and 1986 and made it from the group stage on all four occasions. In 1986 the team lacked the quality of the past and was chanceless against Brazil in the 1/8-finals. 1978 in Argentina Poland ended up in 5th place overall but introduced a young Zbigniew Boniek, who scored twice in the tournament. Poland the 1974 World Cup with a good team chemistry and great speed. They ended up in the ‘group of death’ with Italy and Argentina but Poland’s quality however was undisputed by a memorable 3-2 victory against Argentina. Grzegorz Lato and Andrzej Szarmach provided the goals. Those two laid the foundation to great performances together with Kazimierz Deyna taking Poland far. 7-0 over Haiti and stunned the world with a 2-1 win over Italy. In the second round Lato secured 1-0 over Sweden and again together with Deyna a 2-1 victory against Yugoslavia. In the game that could have sent Poland in World Cup final, they lost 1-0 to eventual winners West Germany. The poles wanted the game postponed because the pitch was flooded by rain. The wish was rejected by the game’s referee. Poland’s speed and fast play was of no use in the game and Gerd Müller crushed the Polish dreams in the 76. minute with the winning goal. However Poland manages to pull themselves up and beat Brazil 1-0 and won third place. Lato scored the goal and was crowned top scorer of the tournament with seven goals.

Zbigniew Boniek’s – Fortune and Fame

At the 1982 World Cup in Spain Poland was predicted to go far in the tournament. The undisputed star was Boniek. Together with Lato and Wlodzimierz Smolarek he carried the Polish team on their shoulders. Two goalless draws with Italy and Cameroon and a 5-1 victory over Peru, put Poland through to the second round. In Barcelona against Belgium, Boniek wrote himself into history, with a hattrick in Poland’s 3-0 hammering of Belgium. A draw with the Soviet Union got Poland in a semi-final against Italy. Unfortunately for the poles Paolo Rossi had found the form of his life by then. Rossi scored twice in Italy’s 2-0 win and Poland missed out on a final again. In the third place match Poland beat France 3-2. Szarmach rounded up his international career by scoring Poland’s last goal. He had scored at every World Cup for Poland since 1974. Boniek ended as Polish top scorer with four goals in 1982 and came in third on the Ballon d’Or same year. The midfielder played such a great tournament he soon joined Juventus. Players from the Eastern Bloc wasn’t allowed to move abroad but in a remarkable deal Fiat automobiles, owners of Juventus and the Polish Communist authorities, agreed to loads of Fiat cars was shipped to Poland and Boniek to Turin.