Posted on 08/15/2011 2:36:06 PM PDT by Fitzy_888
(...)
The delegates, many of them former East German Communists but also younger people, will debate an extraordinary motion put forward by some members: They want their party to declare that the building of the wall was an inescapable necessity.
If that leaves any doubts about the Left party’s nostalgia for a wall that imprisoned 17 million people for nearly 30 years, a newspaper survey published this month by The Berliner Zeitung showed that 75 percent of that party’s supporters in Berlin thought the wall was justified or partly justified.
(...)
Respondents said the wall was necessary to stop the exodus of qualified people fleeing the German Democratic Republic — around 2.5 million from 1945 to 1961 — and to stabilize the political situation there and throughout all of Germany during the Cold War.
Arnold Schoenenburg, a Left party member who is one of the authors of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania motion, said socialism would have been impossible to build without the wall.
Such support for the wall makes a mockery of the hundreds who were killed trying to escape and the thousands who opposed the regime and the invidious, ubiquitous Stasi, or secret police, that underpinned the dictatorship.
(...)
“For these people, there is a pervasive sense of disappointment,” said Everhard Holtmann, political science professor at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg.
Women were in a particularly privileged position in Communist East Germany. There was an excellent child-care system, allowing mothers to return to flexible or full-time work. West German conservatives claim that such facilities gave the Communist regime a chance to indoctrinate the next generation. Yet these are opportunities Western German women are seeking today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mauer im Kopf.
Tell these people who so miss the old Soviet system to buy some land, start a commune & build a wall around it with them inside. I promise I won’t try to get in!
Wow. Just wow.
I like that idea. People nostalgic for communism should go start a commune.
That right there underscores one of the key freedoms of a parliamentary democracy,or a constitutional republic such as ours, combined with capitalism. People are free to be societal dropouts if they want, and go live off by themselves if they want to.
People didn’t have such freedoms to live their lives as they saw fit under the communist system they have such nostalgia for. Talk about an irony............
The Berlin Wall was needed to stop to exodus of people from the former East Germany, in order to stabilize and build their socialist society????
Can I ask a stupid question? If the benfits of socialism and communism are so clear and obvious to people, why the heck would millions have fled, rather than stick around to participate in that system????
They needed a wall to force people to stay within their worker’s paradise. Doesn’t that tell you something???
I expect Krugman to write a nostalgic article about it and how removing it has hurt Germany.
Build a wall around what used to be called East Germany. Let all the leftists move back. Let everyone who wants to leave, leave.
Then brick up the gate. Paint the words “New East Germany” on the wall. Forget about them and move on with your life.
Problem solved.
Well, OK. Paint “Neue Deutche Democratishe Republik” on the wall. You know what I meant.
Or would it be “Neuen” or “Neues?”
Whipped dogs love their cozy cages.
C10
“Can I ask a stupid question? If the benfits of socialism and communism are so clear and obvious to people, why the heck would millions have fled, rather than stick around to participate in that system????”
As the article explains, there were many who ‘profited’ from the benefits of socialism and communism. Of course, these ‘profits’ were only available by enslaving those that wanted to leave.
It's against the law in Germany to praise Hitler or Nazis but ok to praise the wall, the cause of many deaths as well--go figure.
“Arnold Schoenenburg, a Left party member who is one of the authors of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania motion, said socialism would have been impossible to build without the wall. “
Indeed it would make it imposable, Socialism is built upon the primis of enslaving an entire population to the State.
Precisely why States rights and tiny Constitutional Federal Government is a Conservative Capitalist’s(Economic freedom lover) best friend.
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