Rock bands were expected to sing in German only. This seemed a logical constraint to party leaders but was somewhat unpopular amongst young people, a problem for the authorities was having to check song texts very carefully for anti-state tendencies. The band Renft, for example, fell foul of the authorities, which eventually led to its being banned and disbanded. Furthermore there was the possibility of a limited musical exchange between East and West Germany, nevertheless the bands and musicians had to fear censorship and the state influence. Many young people joined youth groups were they would come together to learn socialistic views and organise events for younger children. Others enjoyed going out to theatres and watching movies. Instead of being taught English as it is a world language that is usually taught in schools across the world, students were taught Russian. Many classes included socialism views which taught children basic etiquette and how to work together. Etc, pioneer classes where each child would bring in something like show and tell which gave them the opportunity to talk to each other about their lives. Political propaganda shaped GDR - monuments of Communist leaders including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, banners with political slogans. Furthermore, due to censorship, many creative artists left the GDR from 1975 onwards. A parallel development was that some artists moved out to small city theatres, to create theatre beyond Berlin. In East Germany the movie industry was very active. Besides folk movies, the East German movie industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially for its children's movies, movies about the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich and the resistance against fascism became internationally famous. Movies about problems of daily life were also very popular.
Many East Germans were put under surveillance if the stasi thought that they were being rebellious by associating themselves with Western culture. East Germany regarded the west as being run by old fascists and corrupted by big, international companies- they suspected the west to prepare for WW3. The west stated that the east deprived citizens of their human rights such as freedom of religion, speech and ability to leave the country. The East was heavily run by the government which meant that people had a lack of freedom in how they lived their life, everything was controlled, their social life, their work, what they said and what they did, people wanted to escape the East in order to have more freedom and the ability to express their views without being scared of being imprisoned or punished. There was no unemployment as they didn't believe in the concept therefore there was no benefits and workers were afforded the safety of their jobs as they couldn't be fires unless they committed a serious offence. They helped women in the workplace as they thought the patriarchy was viewed as a symptom of capitalism. They implemented a strong foundation of laws to protect mothers and distribute childcare services. There was more equality as there was a smaller gender pay gap than in the West. They offered free health care, free places to kindergarten and school and had affordable housing. The stasi, which was the largest network of secret police in history were able to infiltrate every facet of society and it is estimated that one in five adults in the country were directly connected to them. Some citizens were happy in their living standards as there was benefits such as more quality, more work, free health care etc however a majority started to get rebellious as more people were being put under surveillance and being punished for the smallest things as the country was over-dictating. Therefore, this led to citizens tearing down the Berlin Wall by hand in order to get their freedom.
No comments:
Post a Comment