The reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 marked the end of the division between the democratic West (FRG) and the communist East (GDR), which had persisted since 1949. However, while West Germans continued their lives as usual, the reunification brought about significant changes for East Germans. Rating this book was a bit of a headache, for reasons I will get into shortly. Ultimately, I decided on a 3/5 since any more would be tacit approval of the current state of historiographical discourse regarding East Germany.

Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany by Katja Hoyer Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany by Katja Hoyer

Some might argue that the cost of these state enforced developments were in retrospect prohibitive, and that the social effects of state rather than familial nannying prevent the realisation of the benefits of allowing individuals the freedom to determine their preferred way of raising their children. Having the state set the role of women ought not to be a better alternative to self determination. It seems more like the dystopian 1984, than a symbol of social progress.In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country, revealing the rich political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship. Drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews and documents, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, beyond the Wall. This “ideological sediment” of diehard loyalists determinedly recreated the Soviet system they revered. They faced a population traumatised by defeat (and the accompanying mass rapes by Soviet soldiers), along with an economy crippled by their occupiers’ relentless demands for reparations. Harsh economic conditions prompted the workers’ uprising of 1953. It was bloodily crushed by the Soviets, dispelling any pretence that the place was run on behalf of the toiling masses. The country my mother left behind was a country she believed in; a country we kept alive till her last breath; a country that never existed in that form,’ goes the narrative of the protagonist Alex Kerner at the end of the 2003 film Good Bye Lenin! which describes the German reunification process. Notwithstanding the exaggerated fictional premise of the film, the longing for a country that suddenly disappeared overnight and the need to reassess the German reunification process and discuss it again is emphasised throughout this book, a process that Katja Hoyer describes would entail involving ‘accepting that East and West Germans lived very different realities in the formative postwar decades, and that these are all part of the national story’. Hansel, Jana (8 May 2023). " "Das Interesse an deutscher Geschichte ist groß" "["There is a great deal of interest in German history"]. www.zeit.de (in German) . Retrieved 2023-07-01.

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Waterstones Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Waterstones

a b Jeffries, Stuart (29 March 2023). "Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – overturning cliches of East Germany". The Guardian . Retrieved 25 July 2023. While Katja Hoyer relates the troubled gestation of the GDR, the subtlety of “Beyond the Wall” is that it shows that the East German state had some laudable achievements to its name. East German state socialism was able to realise relative female equality and career progression for their citizens - for much of its existence attaining the highest rate of female participation in the workplace in the world - and maintaining a high level of access to university education and lifelong learning. And this book isn’t just dry historical analysis; “Beyond the Wall” is replete with quirky socio-cultural stories such as the tale of Dean Reed (the ultimately doomed ‘Red Elvis’) and the surreal spectacle of the East German state buying up 1 million pairs of Levi’s jeans in a vain attempt to keep a lid on youthful rebellion. A historian discards the Cold War caricature of East Germany to deliver a compelling historical study. No says Katja Hoyer, the high beer consumption can be attributed to the fact that East Germans simply had fewer worries. In her book "Beyond The Wall," East German-born historian Katja Hoyer challenges the prevailing narrative that portrays life in the GDR as overwhelmingly negative and oppressive. Instead, she argues that many East Germans enjoyed a relatively stable and comfortable life with fewer concerns compared to Westerners. Her book offers a new perspective by delving into the lives of ordinary people, aiming to depoliticize the past and provide a more balanced view of history. Katja Hoyer (born 1985) [1] is a German historian, journalist and writer. [2] [3] Life and career [ edit ]In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany simply ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the GDR presented a radically different German identity to anything that had come before, and anything that exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. Die Zeit, "'Das Interesse an deutscher Geschichte ist groß'" (in German), 8 May 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2023. Based on first-hand accounts and extensive new research, Hoyer presents the history of the GDR as never before -- as a kaleidoscope of perspectives, experiences and stories. From the ashes of the Second World War to the fall of the USSR, this is the definitive story of the other Germany, the one beyond the Wall. In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer offers a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country. Beginning with the bitter experience of German Marxists exiled by Hitler, she traces the arc of the state they would go on to create, first under the watchful eye of Stalin, and then in an increasingly distinctive German fashion. From the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, to the relative prosperity of the 1970s, and on to the creaking foundations of socialism in the mid-1980s, Hoyer argues that amid oppression and frequent hardship, East Germany was yet home to a rich political, social and cultural landscape, a place far more dynamic than the Cold War caricature often painted in the West. a b Mikanowski, Jacob (2023-04-02). "Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712 . Retrieved 2023-06-29.

Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany: Hoyer, Katja

Unsurprisingly, the insidious reach of the Stasi was a serious deterrent to any potential dissenters. It was common for families and friends to inform on each other, and criticising the regime to almost anyone was incredibly risky and could also be a potentially extremely dangerous thing to do. Fear of losing opportunities, being subjected to a sustained harassment campaign or even torture and imprisonment ensured mass compliance with the regime, despite the hardships it often created. Leider muss ich sagen, dass ich den Kritikern recht geben muss: das ist ein sehr einseitig geratenes, die DDR verklärendes Buch. Was ich auch interessant fand, war wie die DDR in ihrer Anfangsphase (und später auch) um ihre Eigenständigkeit auch gegenüber der UdSSR pochte. Lange hält sich Hoyer mit der Frage auf, ob Stalin wirklich einen "eigenen" deutschen Staat wollte, oder ob er ihn eher widerwillig in Kauf nahm, nachdem sein Plan, die Westbindung von Westdeutschland zu verhindern, gescheitert war. Two other factors regarding alcohol might merit discussion. First, self-medication of trauma. Hoyer rightfully highlights the uniquely traumatic lives of East Germans. Two world wars, multiple financial collapses, the high proportion of refugees from east Prussia and the Baltic, and the ravages of the Red Army assembled a uniquely scarred population that may have sought solace in the bottle. The other, is state control. Both the USSR and the Russian Empire before it owed a lot of their power (and money) to the state monopoly on alcohol, and finally collapsed in part due to changes in alcohol policy.This book has enlightened me to a lot of what happened in the country and why. I did feel, however, that the really dark stuff was rather glossed over. Yes, the word "dictator" was used a time or two. The number of people Stalin made disappear in horrific circumstances was stated. It is accepted that the Stasi was feared. Mielke was mentioned many times, but not in any real depth. Also, no light was shone on the ordinary citizens who spied on their families, friends, neighbors, colleagues. Hoyer argues Germany’s formal division into two separate states in 1949 hadn’t always been inevitable. Initially, Stalin aimed to keep Germany unified and neutral. However, Moscow eventually deemed it necessary to establish a socialist state in East Germany as a buffer between the capitalist West and the socialist East. Indeed w hile the West was rebuilding and forming a partnership with the UK and Americans after World War Two, the Soviet Zone’s gradual nationalisation of the economy made establishing a separate socialist state increasingly desirable to the Russians. It is here where one occasionally wishes that Hoyer broadened her vision from East Germany to the eastern bloc as a whole. A comparative viewpoint might have made clearer the peculiarity of East Germany’s achievement and its tragedy. Both were rooted in the same geographic fact. As part of a larger, pre-war Germany, East Germany was faced with the constant counter-example of the neighbouring Federal Republic. Its proximity just over the Wall encouraged its leadership to make their version of socialism as effective as humanly possible. It also pushed them to create one of the most extensive systems of control the world has ever seen. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. While the end for East Germany came fast as its economy collapsed and its population actively protested on the streets, Hoyer seems keen to record some elements of its culture as positive. She notes the very high participation rate of women in the labour market, and the concomitant widely deployed state sponsored childcare facilities, both of which far exceeded comparable developments in the West.