Research: Germany in the early 80s

Berlin wall background:After the 2nd World War, 

Germany was divided into Eastern and Western Germany.
- As a result of this the Capital, Berlin was also divided into east and West.
- The West was very capitalist, modern, free owned by the Uk and Us whereas the East was communist under the ruling of the soviet union. The East was government controlled using the secret police, The Stasi.
- For the first 7 years after the split, people were allowed to travel between the borders which let many people in the east move to the west.
-In August 1961, the border closed splitting Berlin, splitting up families and an 87 mile concrete wall was build to divided the two sides, there were 176 watch towers making sure people didn't cross.
- There was a space between the wall called the death strip were people would be shot dead if entered.
- There were several checkpoints that people could cross between, mostly Uk and Us people. One was called Checkpoint Charlie used primarily by Americans.
- It stood for 26 years but in the 1980s many started to criticize the wall. In a speech from Ronald Reagan, the American President, he stated 'Tear down this wall!'
- This cause many Eastern Germans to protest resulting in them approaching the wall and destroying it by hand.

In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. The wall symbolized the lack of freedom under communism. It symbolized the Cold War and divide between the communist Soviet bloc and the western democratic, capitalist bloc. 

Politics:

• It was the time of the cold war, with peace demonstrations in Bonn (then the capital of Germany) and elsewhere, and also the founding time of the Green party:

• Left-winged terrorism by the Red Army Fraction (RAF) killed several people, mostly prominent economic leaders (Herrnhausen of Deutsche Bank, Beckurts of Siemens, Zimmermann of MTU…), but also the US were target of attacks, like at the airport of Ramstein (1981)

Economy:

In economy, the decrease of heavy industry (coal mining, steel production) was at it’s peak; coal mines had already been closed in the 60s to 70s with few exceptions, now steel production was breaking apart. The following restructuring of the German economy led to the expression, that “Germany is the weak man of Europe”

In East Germany:

There were no bananas. You could only get them once or twice a year, and you’d only be notified of their availability by word of mouth. So you’d have to rush to the veggie store and stand in line to get your one banana per person in your household. They didn’t have much choice of where they could go on vacation. Holiday homes were usually linked and subsidized through work and you could obtain use of them once in a while.

You could only watch one of a few state channels, but radio waves know no walls, so those close to the border were able to pick up signals from the West.

Described as very grey. Whenever someone left they felt as though they were being watched even if they weren't. "As a child, I didn't know you could paint houses"

Public transport, travel, rent were all relatively cheap as well as basic food. "If you were young and didn't expect too much, then it was pretty easy to live a good life". People claimed they felt safe because of the high security. "You knew that whatever happened they had an eye on you, for better or for worse"

Equal pay for equal work, 90% of women worked.

Why was there so much tension and suspicion?

- 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