20 years since the wall came down.

[weltweit]

One of the big problems after the collapse of E Germany was what to do with the million Russian soldiers that were stationed there. There was nowhere allocated for them to live in Russia and many of them had reputedly not been paid, but the united Germany did not want them to stay, obviously.

 

[newbie]

Well, from what I gather from friends who grew up in the Eastern Bloc it wasnt some kind of stalinist nightmare, the main complaints concern shortages and the shoddines of consumer goods

You ever read Stasiland?

 

[Belushi]

You ever read Stasiland?

No I havent, is it any good.

A friend of mine grew up in East Germany, she tells me that the Stasi gathered so much information they were unable to use it, paralysed by information overload.

 

[likesfish]

any regimne that has to kill people who are trying to leave is made of FAIL.
not a single communist regime left in europe thats how great and popular they were.
ICBMS they might have made rockets by there concrete sucked met heard somebody who did arms limitation talks several silo's he visted were damp inside now icbms and damp not a great idea

 

[goldenecitrone]

You ever read Stasiland?

Yes, I have. And I think the Stasi were for the most part pretty fucking awful. But there were still many good things about East German society that can't all be negated by the awfulness of the Stasi. And many East Germans miss those good things and wish the society could have existed without the fucked up regime that controlled it.

 

[BLT]

... And many East Germans miss those good things and wish the society could have existed without the fucked up regime that controlled it.

Hmm. Not sure that would work. If there were no communists involved it wouldn't have been a communist regime?

 

[DownwardDog]

Well, from what I gather from friends who grew up in the Eastern Bloc it wasnt some kind of stalinist nightmare, the main complaints concern shortages and the shoddines of consumer goods

I've got a very good friend who grew up in East Germany and that was his principle complaint; the sheer mindbending frustration of trying to get anything. He was a very keen sportsman but it was impossible to buy running shoes and badminton rackets in East Germany so him and his mate had ride from Leipzig to Prague on an ancient tandem to buy all their sports gear once a year.

 

[DownwardDog]

Would it really have been so bad?

Ken Mcloed envisioned a socialist scotland client state, and a southern enclave of England who were still US capitalist loyal. Scotland was left to it's sovereignty as an example of how non-empiricist the soviets were.

It could have worked man. Those sodding yanks

Move to Belarus. Totalitarianism and bad weather - it'd be right up your ylitsa.

 

[mwgdrwg]

 

[ViolentPanda]

Shoddyness was a problem, you only have to look at the Wartburg and Trabbant, both of which had waiting lists of years duration.

When the wall went up, there was a BMW motorcycle factory caught on the east side. It was renamed cossack and kept making motorcycles which were in demand across the whole eastern bloc. However, when the wall came down it transpired that the factory was still making the same model of motorcycle that it had been making when the wall went up!

Which is a testament to the design, I'd say.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It was a long time ago, before Chancellor Kohl was mired in scandal.. at the time he was seen as the father of Germany.

It wasn't quite that cut and dried, although mythology has tried to make it so, since reunification. Kohl wasn't doing at all well in mid 1989, so the fall of the wall was an opportunity that such an old opportunist was only too happy to grab hold of.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You ever read Stasiland?

A good book.

 

[likesfish]

Which is a testament to the design, I'd say.

no not really compare and ural to a 19080s bmw motorbike no comparsion in quality or performance or even reliablity

 

[DownwardDog]

Which is a testament to the design, I'd say.

They test the the Ural 75 in this month's Cycle World. The tester opined that at least 1 million of the 6 million (or whatever) Soviet Union casualties in the GPW were people who killed themselves so they wouldn't have to ride it.

 

[weltweit]

It is all very well VP to hark about a lasting design, but the point is there was no effort to improve it, none at all.

One of my abiding memories of Berlin when the wall came down was a postcard which was a photograph of a tiny Trabbant "trabbie" parked right next to a Mercedes S class. The trabbie was tiny and dishevelled on tiny tyres and the S Classe was enormous, black and shiny with big wide tyres. - It was a statement, east versus west!

 

[ViolentPanda]

no not really compare and ural to a 19080s bmw motorbike no comparsion in quality or performance or even reliablity

You're missing the point. It was utilitarian, not a production model to be sold to wealthy capitalists in the West.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They test the the Ural 75 in this month's Cycle World. The tester opined that at least 1 million of the 6 million (or whatever) Soviet Union casualties in the GPW were people who killed themselves so they wouldn't have to ride it.

Which is a fine example of comparing modern levels of expectation to those of 60 years ago. I've ridden 1950s BMWs and various British bikes of the time, and I certainly never expected them to have as smooth a ride as my 1970s BMW R60 or my 1980s Honda CB400N. It'd be like willfully comparing chalk and cheese.

 

[weltweit]

Which is a fine example of comparing modern levels of expectation to those of 60 years ago. ...

But VP, I think the point, which you are elegantly avoiding, is that they were still selling this motorcycle 20 years ago still unchanged!

 

[ViolentPanda]

It is all very well VP to hark about a lasting design, but the point is there was no effort to improve it, none at all.

Only by the Ossis, as the Russians certainly did some work to improve the design over the years.

One of my abiding memories of Berlin when the wall came down was a postcard which was a photograph of a tiny Trabbant "trabbie" parked right next to a Mercedes S class. The trabbie was tiny and dishevelled on tiny tyres and the S Classe was enormous, black and shiny with big wide tyres. - It was a statement, east versus west!

You could also say:
"It was a statement - utility versus opulence"
"It was a statement - making do with available resources versus importing raw materials"
"It was a statement - low income versus high income".

Now, I happen to think that the Trabant was a mechanical and environmental abortion, but I don't judge the Ossis purely on their road vehicles. People tend to forget, for example, that east Germany was producing world-beating optics throughout it's existence.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But VP, I think the point, which you are elegantly avoiding, is that they were selling this motorcycle 20 years ago still unchanged!

20 years ago I could also buy a Royal Enfield motorcycle from a number of British retailers that was unchanged (except for signalling equipment) from it's original design in the 1940s.

 

[Belushi]

Back when Eastern Europeans were driving around in Trabants my family owned an Austin Maxi so I dont feel too superior

 

[Belushi]

20 years ago I could also buy a Royal Enfield motorcycle from a number of British retailers that was unchanged (except for signalling equipment) from it's original design in the 1940s.

Still serve the Indian Police well.

 

[weltweit]

You could also say:
"It was a statement - utility versus opulence"
"It was a statement - making do with available resources versus importing raw materials"
"It was a statement - low income versus high income".

Well it was of course not an exact comparison as the trabbie was an eastern car for the masses and the S Classe a western luxury car for the elite.

But the image made me think of development, of the benefits brought by competition which was absent in vehicles of the DDR.

Average western cars were significantly safer in accidents than the trabbie, which just folded up in an accident. Well I could go on - and on etc ..

But there were benefits of competition .. clear to see.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Has anyone thanked Hasslehof yet?

 

[likesfish]

ah you miss the point the west could afford big nuclear weapons tanks jet fighters and food, sony walkmen,skateboards, pot noodles a vast away of cars.
the east could'nt and even when it tried most of its consumer goods were 2nd rate.:

 

[DotCommunist]

Mounted a weapons platform that would make an Abrams blush onto a hovercraft though.

 

[DownwardDog]

20 years ago I could also buy a Royal Enfield motorcycle from a number of British retailers that was unchanged (except for signalling equipment) from it's original design in the 1940s.

The Indian built Enfields were based on the 1960 Bullet not the WW2 vintage model with some engine related shenanigans to allow the use of metric fasteners.

But the point is, that in 1989, the Enfield Bullet wasn't typical of the quality of motorcycles available. If, for some reason, you didn't want an underdeveloped pile of crap loosely spannered together by Indian children with eye diseases you could have bought a GPz900R or GSX-R750. No such option was realistically available to the commie biker.

 

[Stoat Boy]

Poor socialists

I guess it would be easy to mock the collapse of thier collective farms and gulags and stuff but underneath all those piss poor banners and statements I am sure their hearts were in the right places at least at the very beginning.

Always been a capitalist ever since my earliest business of nicking empty pop bottles to go and recollect the deposit on but being so cynical and cut throat can be a tad wearying after a while. Financiall rewarding but ultimately not very fufilling.

Part of me would happily go and work on a collective farm and enjoy a good old sing-song in the evening singing jolly folk songs about Tractor factorys and the like, at least for a couple of weeks.

 

[BlackArab]

Seems like the anti-American sentiment is choking the sense out of people, how many of you would have swapped places with those behind the Iron Curtain. Easy to carp from a position of comfort.

 

[LLETSA]

ah you miss the point the west could afford big nuclear weapons tanks jet fighters and food, sony walkmen,skateboards, pot noodles a vast away of cars.
the east could'nt and even when it tried most of its consumer goods were 2nd rate.:

I'm still not convinced that you're not about ten.