Visiting the former DDR

What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once East
Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west?

I have been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read about
the heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?

"Aramis" wrote in message able.rogers.com...
What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once East
Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west?

I have been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read about
the heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?

Culturally there are some important differences. The former West
Germany has a much more hierarchial 'Sie' society than the former
East, The former West has strong Catholic influences that is not the
case in the east and womens rights generally stood much stronger in
the east than the west.

Øystein

On 15 Sep 2003 02:02:42 -0700, Øystein wrote:

and womens rights generally stood much stronger in
the east than the west.

....insofar as anyone had rights in the "good ole days". ;-)

--
Tim.

If the human brain were simple enough that we could understand it, we would
be so simple that we couldn't.

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:15:12 GMT, Tim Challenger
"timothy(dot)challenger(at)apk(dot)at" wrote:

On 15 Sep 2003 02:02:42 -0700, Øystein wrote:

and womens rights generally stood much stronger in
the east than the west.

...insofar as anyone had rights in the "good ole days". ;-)

The East-West argument over "human rights" was a
never-the-twain-shall-meet sort of thing.

The East argued that they provided housing, education, medical care
and employment as human rights - being able to criticize the
government/party, rights of free assembly, rights to own property etc
were "individual freedoms" rather then human rights per se.

The West argued the opposite case.

Seems that things are on a continuum - the more freedom you have, the
less security, the more security the less freedom.

I'd be happy somewhere in the middle!

Tim Challenger "timothy(dot)challenger(at)apk(dot)at" wrote in message ws.com...
On 15 Sep 2003 02:02:42 -0700, Øystein wrote:

and womens rights generally stood much stronger in
the east than the west.

...insofar as anyone had rights in the "good ole days".

Women working outside the home, womens right to abortion, the attitude
toward women in general etc is important keywords when it comes to
disatisfaction among former DDR inhabitants in the German society and
one of the explainations of the 'ostalgie'.

I also have the impression that the cultural differences has deeper
roots than the DDR Regime. East of Elben (perhaps the river has
another name in English?) was in acient times the home of the Slaves.
It is hardly thinkable that the liberal Berlin, could be situated on
the spot of for instance Munich or Frankfurt am Mein ;-).

Øystein

"Aramis" wrote
| What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once
East
| Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west?
| I have been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read
about
| the heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
| boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?

In Saturday's Times, Tom Chesshyre wrote: "Berlin is in the midst of looking
back — but not in anger. The word Ostalgie is being used to describe a bout
of nostalgia for the better side of East German life during the old GDR
days: state paternalism, low unemployment, no euro-led inflation, less
me-first “rat race” — a feeling captured in the recent Ostalgie film Goodbye
Lenin!, now showing at UK cinemas. ...
Old buildings are being restored — including the old Kommandantur on Unter
den Linden — and new ones seemingly miraculously appearing in former No Man’
s Land. And new cafés and bars are opening in bohemian neighbourhoods in
parts of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain. Berlin still has its
post-Wall “buzz” — and prices are reasonable — partly because the German
economy is in such a slump."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...812746,00.html

Owain

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 15:45:25 +0100, Owain wrote:

"Aramis" wrote
| What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once
East
| Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west?
| I have been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read
about
| the heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
| boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?


We visited Weimar earlier this year.

First, on the practical side, not as many people speak English as in the
west. Odds are you'll occasionally find restaurant waiters who don't
speak English and you'll have to find a way to navigate a German menu (or
depend on people at neighboring tables).

In Weimar in particular, because of the Goethe connection, large
percentage of the tourists are German; not so many foreigners. The
Nietsche connection (really, his sister who flirted with the Nazis who
sort of adopted him as their saint patron after his death) makes the place
somewhat bittersweet. So does the proximity of Buchenwald.

Lots of Art Nouveau stuff. Vandevelde lived there then felt he better
leave. Early part of the Bauhaus. Also all of this somewhat bittersweet.
The Nietsche Archive was done in Art Nouveau style, but then later the
Nazis started chasing the Bauhaus folks off the place which is paradoxal.
But a good deal of the Art Nouveau buildings are in a bad state of
disrepair. Does not seem these folks have a sense of the potential value
yet. (Mind you even in Brussels, many have been demolished too.)

We also found interesting books, both from before the Nazis and reprints
from the DDR. Also drawings from the Weimar School. Most likely at prices
much more reasonable than in the west.

What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once
East Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west? I have
been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read about the
heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?

The former East Germany is easy enough to tour. It can still be
scruffy around many edges though. There are whole towns, like Ludwigslust,
where the population is in vast decline because there are no jobs, and it is
easier to commute or move to Hamburg or Berlin. The infrastructure is
getting better by leaps and bounds, but for an area that was once vastly
uninteresting to tourists (except for the excitement of the politics
underlying it all), it is now an area that is barely making itself
interesting for tourists (though conversely there is now NO excitement about
politics, or really even the changes that underly the differences between
the former East and the former West).
Last year we did a tour through Quedlinburg, Weimar, and other towns on
the way south toward Regensburg, and the former east is getting spiffed up
more and more, but the towns have, I'm afraid to say, a kind of ghostly
emptiness, despite all the refurbishing. You see prettied up facades
everywhere, though the houses in between might not have gotten any treatment
yet, and the town centers which in the west might be all alive and buzzing,
have a very tentative, distant buzziness to them. It feels strange--and
strangely empty.
Leipzig was interesting--our friends took us on a tour of areas where
some buildings were all gorgeously redecorated on the outside--standing next
to others that were completely derelict, because they were still in the
process of the ownership being rightly established, and the properties being
fully cared for. Everywhere there is growth, but there is, again
hesitantly said, a kind of eerie emptiness or incongruity about the vitality
and richness of the culture of cities and towns.
It really does have a basically different feel from the west--though you
might not notice it as much in the former East Berlin, where the center is
shifting and buzzing much more dynamically.

Douglas W. Hoyt wrote:

What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was
once
East Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west? I have
been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read about the
heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?

The former East Germany is easy enough to tour. It can still be
scruffy around many edges though. There are whole towns, like
Ludwigslust,
where the population is in vast decline because there are no jobs, and it
is
easier to commute or move to Hamburg or Berlin.


So many people have moved to western Germany that there are suppsedly a
*million* empty flats in the former DDR...quit a change from the DDR days
when building new housing was the top domestic priority of the government.

Although in Berlin some of those "socialist" flats have become rather "chic"
to live in, or so I've read.

--
Best
Greg

Aramis wrote:

What are the significant differences one faces in touring what was once
East
Germany, compared to what we are familiar with in the west?



Not too much anymore.


I have been reading about some marvelous places, but then I will read
about
the heavy industrialization in the same area, economic depression and even
boarded up buildings. Is there really that much difference?


There are still some shabby areas here and there, but remember the vast
amounts of money the German government poured into eastern German
infrastructure post - 1990. Telecoms, roads, etc. are equal to or even
better than many places in Western Europe....