So help us, we loved Berlin’s DDR Museum.
Okay, we traveled with a Cold War warrior, so our interest obviously was personal, but still, what a surprise!
Rick Steves warned the DDR museum is “overpriced, crammed with school groups, and frustrating to local historians.”
Rick Steves Germany only gave the museum two stars, but we laughed more there than in any other of Berlin’s many terrific museums.
Except when I paused and considered the enormity of it all.
Then it wasn’t quite so much fun.
What’s to see in a DDR Museum?
We traveled with our daughter, born after the Berlin Wall came down.
She didn’t know most of this history.
I’d forgotten quite a bit, but every turn brought back something I’d vaguely known about life in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
Who could forget a Trabant car, (“Trabi”), so poorly made people threw them away after 1989?
(The exhibit called them “cardboard on wheels.”)
I’d never seen one before, but we got to climb through and around one–inspecting it.
It made me sad to imagine people wanting any sort of personal transportation that they waited for years for one of these.
The exhibits featured everyday life in Eastern Germany. highlighting both the good and the bad.
We walked through a mock-up of a home, saw the types of food people could purchase in a store, and even viewed television programs.
Historic and poignant
I love museums and learning about life in a different place–the DDR Museum served me well.
But I also saw sadness and poignancy in the exhibits.
All children started into kindergarten (child garden) at a young age. The exhibit looked charming and the museum presented a lovely room for children.
But then I looked more closely at one example of what they learned in school.
“Why do schoolchildren practise throwing balls?
In the GDR (German Democratic Republic), they did so in preparation for war. Under the heading, ‘I love and protect my homeland,’ schoolchildren were instructed in the use of deadly weapons.
Wooden hand grenades replaced a ball.”
Elsewhere I read “social activities were noted on a schoolchild’s school report and were important to advancement.”
The determining factor for their futures was membership in the correct political party. Once at a university, every student, no matter their planned careers, had to take courses in Marxist Leninism.
Home?
As the exhibit demonstrated, most families lived in a two-bedroom high-rise apartment with modest kitchens and bathrooms.
“Why is the washing machine in the bathroom?” my daughter asked.
“It’s either there or the kitchen,” I explained. “Those were the only sources of water in the simple apartments.”
The DDR Museum set up the exhibits so visitors had the freedom to open closets, look in drawers, and cupboards.
We did so, as did everyone else.
I thought about the need to purge my possessions when I went home!
What about Shopping?
Stores always carried a limited supply–I’d heard that forever.
Since countries behind the Iron Curtain often couldn’t trade with western stores, their supplies were limited to Communist nations.
Shoppers famously lined up for hours to purchase, often poor quality, food.
Here is one exhibit of the typical products available.
Stores tended to have few items for children compared to an American toy store.
We always heard about specialty shops available for the elite, often members of the local Communist Party.
Products available in those stores, which required payment in “hard currency,” usually from the west, tended to be of better quality.
Or, available only outside of Eastern Bloc countries.
As the museum caption explained:
The GDR provided too few goods and the people had too much money. Economists speak of a glut of money.
Under normal circumstances, prices would rise. However, price stability of basic goods was one of the holy cows of the GDR political settlement.
The solution was to create special shops which provided luxury goods at exorbiatant prices.
The people may have complained, but still went shopping where they could luxuries such as tinned sausages, coffee cream, and instant milk.”
Sobering Sights
In a section about the military–in which all young men took part–merriment faded.
The DDR museum showed us the type of training soldiers endured.
We also learned the western targets–which included where we lived.
I flinched realizing the east Germany army thought my country wanted to destroy theirs.
I’d seen Kalishnikovs before–in Italy during the Red Brigade attacks of the 1980s. Italian soldiers stood on guard everywhere holding them.
We read about the nuclear drills, the plans to bomb western nations.
One wall explained their plans.
I turned away.
Reflections
My historian father ensured we grew up with a knowledge of what was happening in other parts of the world, including behind the Iron Curtain.
I read many memoirs of life in Eastern Europe both before and after the Iron Curtain came down.
I followed the news in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell–and I cheered.
So many people lived a harsh existence for 40 years. I’m glad that limited time has ended.
The DDR, GDR, East Germany, may have called itself a democratic republic, but it wasn’t.
That’s the reason we travel and visit museums–to learn about life different from what we think is normal.
With COVID-19 restrictions ending–though not in Germany as I write this–visiting the DDR Museum and others like it, can be illuminating, interesting, and important.
You have to buy your tickets online these days–it can be busy–but this museum and the Pergamon, are the ones we still talk about three years later.
Tweetables
A funky Berlin Museum spotlights a sobering period in history. Click to Tweet
Where else can you sit in a Trabant and learn about a very different life? Click to Tweet
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