by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
German government study finds what citizens of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) knew 40 years ago, namely that all of West Germany's government are nothing but old Nazis, at least in the first 20-30 years of the Federal Republic.
A study conducted in Germany proves that the entire police and security service, as well as the government in general, were all full of Nazis in the West; something the citizens of communist East Germany knew well before the “reunification”. One can only wonder how much money was spent on such kind of study. At least, however, it proves, finally, what the GDR citizens already knew and what also the likes of this author were well aware of but no one wanted to believe it. Why else would it have been that the West German police authorities continued and still continue to use records of the old “Office for the Combating of the Gypsy Menace” of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (to which also the Gestapo belonged) but which were held in the Bavarian police HQ?
Everything that was established after WWII by the allied powers was done with “former” Nazis. Did they really believe that by “Entnazifizierung” (Denazification) they could make a normal person out of a convinced Nazi? What a delusion. That's like trying to make a sheep out of a wolf. They knew full well that they would never change the people, they also in fact never intended to change them.
That is the very reason that we still have all the attitudes in the German government. What, however, does account for the fact that the young people from the former GDR today are those in the forefront of those that deny the existence of the Holocaust and who are the most vociferous Skinheads about? The answer to that, in my opinion, is the one that there is something inherently wrong in the German psyche and that they are Nazis by genes.
The other thing that East Germans, citizens of the German Democratic Republic knew and hanker back to, is that capitalism is cold and impersonal. Many of those that have grown up in the DDR and lived there and still do on its territory wish that the things, or at least some of the things, could return.
To a great degree there was community in existence in the cities, towns and villages in the former “socialist” East Germany, with city areas being a little like villages in itself. Berlin's Kietze have always been like that but things today have changed drastically, and that especially since the Federal Republic took over the former DDR lock, stock and barrel and then sacked out those that were once officials in East Germany from their jobs.
The other thing that points to a continuing Nazi threat in Germany is the very fact that the Reichstag was chosen as the building for the German Parliament while a modern building was in existence, the Place of the Republic, the former DDR parliament.
The excuse that the latter could not be used was that the Palace of the Republic had the connotations from the communist era. The Reichtag then, obviously, has no bad baggage attached? The Nazi era eagle is still silhouetted, so I understand, against the facade of the building and cannot be gotten rid of.
There are many things that do not add up as far as today's Germany, the so-called Federal Republic of Germany, goes on a political level and has not from day one.
On the human level those from the former GDR (DDR) are finding that, aside from the fact that they are de facto second class citizens and that their regions are seen as stepchildren, despite the fact that money has been put in, the capitalist economy and society is not everything that it was made out to be. Disillusion has set in and Ostalgia (the longing for the GDR) is on the rise among many.
Whether or not it was a mistake for the two German states, and as far as I am concerned it was, is not really an issue. The issue is that, instead of taking over the good things from the East and merging them with the good things from the West the things from the East were destroyed.
This is true in the old manufacturing plants and companies, Zeiss Jena being one of them, as well as and especially as to communities and the way things were done.
Lessons must be learned from this and things that were done badly must be reversed, where it is still possible, and the good things that there were, and there were enough of them, in the GDR, should be brought back and maybe, just maybe, all of Germany could benefit from them.
We are all into recycling now but over there they were into secondary raw materials (Sekundärrohstoffe) and the collection of same due, that is true, to the fact that they could not get or afford primary raw materials.
However, this was the way it was done and it worked to a great degree and while there were shortages and problems, caused to a great degree by the planned economy that was often planned wrong, there were lots of things that seem to have been, according to the people, good and beneficial.
Products all were the same price regardless of which (official) store you went to and they all were unity products and unity prices. This, in a way, did away with the competition with the neighbor for a new car, etc. and firstly cars were rare and secondly things were looked after, whether radios, bicycles, or whatever else.
There are lessons to be learned for sure and maybe, just maybe, we should sit down and talk with some of the old Ossies, even former members of the Party and, dare I say it, even the Stasi, to get an insight as to how things were and what could be adopted in the 'new' Germany, and, dare I suggest this, maybe not just in Germany but also elsewhere.
Just some thoughts and some food for thought.
© 2011
