Posted on 10/17/2009 4:56:37 PM PDT by terpsichorean
[excepts]
Did East Germans originate from apes? Impossible. Apes could never have survived on just two bananas a year.
" The ubiquitous Trabant or Trabi, East Germany's legendary plastic car with its clattering two-stroke engine, was a favorite butt of jokes as well. Like this one: "A new Trabi has been launched with two exhaust pipes -- so you can use it as a wheelbarrow."
The jokes gave insights into what ordinary East Germans were thinking about their regime and about current events. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 spawned a new proverb, for example: If the farmer falls off his tractor, he must be close to a reactor.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
I’ll never forget where I was when the most important world event of my lifetime occurred.
I was stationed in West Germany at the time of the fall of the Wall.
There was a section of the Wall in Ansbach, back then the HQ of the 1st Armor Division, for a bit.
Yeah, it was pretty neat to be there during that time.
We have a friend from Dresden who owns one of these. When the wall came down, it was like she was released from prison. She drove her Trabant all over West Germany. It was probably a safety hazard on the Autobahn.
"Telling jokes was playing with fire," says Kleemann. The Stasi had 91,000 employees and a network of around 189,000 civilian informants to spy on the East German population of 17 million. It regarded every political joke as a potential threat. Anyone who poked fun at the representatives of the organs of state and society was subject to prosecution. "There were cases of people who were jailed, it was particularly bad in the 1950s and 1960s," says Kleemann. Here's one example about how that risk was lampooned: "There are people who tell jokes. There are people who collect jokes and tell jokes. And there are people who collect people who tell jokes."
The Dresden lady said that the best thing associated with the end of socialism was the end to the "einshauen" (the government spying on individuals).
I was 13 years old, and the fall of the wall occurred on my father’s 43rd Birthday (November 9, 1989). Amazing how time flies...
Say Hi to everyone when you see them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.