Radio GDR – East Germany Podcast

Hello Radio GDR listeners! I am so pleased to bring you the first episode of two with my new friend Herta Peter. My favorite thing about doing this podcast is hearing stories from those of you who lived in the GDR. Your stories are always extremely compelling, and we welcome them with open arms. History deserves to be preserved, and Radio GDR has been here to do it.

 

Herta was born in Halle in 1981. While she was only 8 when the wall fell, her memories of her childhood in the GDR to two parents who lived during the country's entire existence are simply amazing. Having family in West Germany, Herta received care packages she had to keep a secret when at school. Upon reaching pension age, her grandmother was able to visit the west but could never shake the habit of whispering, a survival tactic learned in the repressive East where, like the Three Monkeys one saw no evil, heard no evil and said no evil. Just listen for her story of the Soviet tank driver who made a mess no one ever talked about.

 

From her memories of what she says were the "various shades of grey" she saw in the GDR, she has written and is working to publish a children's book about her memories - How the Grey Disappeared from Greyland. It's a compelling short story about the arrival of a colorful package in the land of grey, a representation of the care packages she got from the West.

 

In our first episode, we'll hear about Herta's life in the GDR, and in the second, we'll learn how it inspired her book and the lessons she believes life in the GDR can teach us today. Let's dive in with Herta Peter as she brings the first part of her story to life here on Radio GDR.

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.radiogdrpodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.radiogdrpodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Hello everyone! Season 4 is coming! We also have a new domain this season - radiogdrpodcast.com. Please do visit us soon to tell us your GDR story! I'll be updating show notes across old episodes so you can the same great content at our new website.

Season 4 is coming! Look forward to announcing more details soon.

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.radiogdrpodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.radiogdrpodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

In this episode John Paul Kleiner (GDR Objectified blog) speaks with Attila the Stockbroker, an English poet, musician and songwriter with roots in the punk movement and socialist politics. During his forty year career as independent artist, Attila has produced numerous albums and books and performed more than 3,800 shows including many in the GDR and, after unification, eastern Germany.

In this conversation, Attila vividly recalls his visits to the East, the people whom he met there and aspects of the Workers and Peasants State which were an inspiration and other which left him disgusted.

Find Attila’s active Facebook page by clicking here.

Learn more about his books and albums on Bandcamp

There’s a great mini-doc of Attila done a few years back by filmmaker Farouq Suleiman that gives a great sense of his energy and art on YouTube here.

You can hear poem and song “This is Free Europe” inspired by Attila’s experiences at a 1992 gig in Hoyerswerda here.

Glossary of terms Laibach: a Slovenian based music group / avant-garde art project which incorporates totalitarian aesthetics into a variety of musical styles to unsettling effect.

A-Levels: university qualifying exams for British secondary school students

John Peel was a DJ for the BBC between 1967 and 2004 during which time he helped popularize a number of musical genres including psychedelic and progressive rock as well as punk.

New Town Neurotics are an English melodic punk band formed in 1979 and whose work took a decidedly political turn with the advent of Thatcherism in the U.K. It was through his connections to this group that Attila first made his way to the GDR.

In the 1980s, the multiethnic London neighbourhood of Brixton was best known as a site of great social unrest due to widespread poverty and strained relations between residents and police. In more recent years, the area has undergone considerable gentrification, but echoes of

Buna and Leuna: in the GDR-era, these two large-scale chemical combines were essential economic drivers and creators of truly appalling environmental degradation. Read more on the impact these facilities had on the East German environment in this post from the GDR Objectified blog.

Bündnis 90 / Alternative Linke: Alliance ’90 and Alternative Left were left-oriented political movements which emerged from the foment of anti-SED protests in the mid- to late-1980s in the GDR.

Die Skeptiker (The Sceptics) are a German punk band originally formed in East Berlin in 1986. While critical of the realities of ‘real-existing socialism’, the band were keen to carve out a place for themselves in the GDR music scene and used opportunities open to them within the system (incl. officially sanctioned live shows and appearances on GDR radio and new music compilation albums) to present their music to as wide an audience as possible.

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

In 1952, a 24-year old American soldier defected to the Eastern Bloc in order to avoid a US Army disciplinary hearing and what he feared would be draconian punishment for his involvement in socialist and communist politics in the United States. This decision put his life on an entirely new trajectory, one that left him with a new name, Victor Grossman, and left him in the then young German Democratic Republic, a country that became his home for the remaining 37+ years of his existence. A committed socialist, Grossman identified closely with the aims of the East German state, but always maintained a critical perspectives on his new home.

Over two discussions with Radio GDR host John Paul Kleiner, Grossman takes stock of “the workers and peasants state,” talking about its successes and why it failed.

John Paul would like to give special thanks to his friend Marcus Funck in Berlin for assistance with this interview. Without this help, it wouldn’t have happened, so thank you, Marcus!

For more resources on Victor Grossman, including information on his book, please visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e20

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

I am truly honored to be joined today by author and illustrator Vesper Stamper who in 2022 published Berliners, a historical fiction about two twin brothers, Rudi and Peter, who end up divided by their views of the GDR and then, quite literally, by the Berlin Wall. This is a must read, guys. Listen as we talk to Vesper about how the theme of "history rhymes" inspired this book, how the characters reckon with Judaism, race and their Nazi pasts and how each twin develops opposing views of the GDR that have lasting consequences. Keep your eye out for the Stasi in this one too, guys, and look out for Vesper's beautiful illustrations which make you pause to meditatively reflect on the story. The book is Berliners by Vesper Stamper, and also check out her other novels What the Night Sings and a Cloud of Outrageous Blue. You will not be disappointed when you pick these up.

 

For more about Vesper and Berliners, check out these links

 

www.vesperillustration.com

 

Berliners

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another incredible episode of Radio GDR. We are on episode 3 of 3 of our listener interviews to round out season 3. I hope you have enjoyed hearing about fellow listeners' interest in the GDR as much as I have. In our final listener interview, I have the honor of speaking to Kris Hinz of Australia, who was adopted from Sri Lanka to a German dad who visited the GDR often to see family. Kris' memories of his father's trips and how they influenced his father's perceptions of the GDR color his own opinions of what the country's legacy is today. Here how Kris reflects on his father's experiences, his view of Ostalgie and how he weighs both the positive and negative aspects of the GDR. We appreciate you being a loyal listener, Kris, and are grateful for your interview as well. Thank you!

 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

We are interviewing some of our most special listeners this season in gratitude for your amazing contributions to make season 3 of this podcast so special. We are especially grateful to the listeners who financially contributed to this season via our Patreon. One of our contributors, Fred Esposito, has gone above and beyond this season as our lone Interflug member at $35 a month. Thank you so much for your generosity, Fred, as you really made the behind the scenes work for the podcast that much easier. For Fred's kindness, we sat down and talked about what fascinates him about the GDR. Fred and I share the same love for Frederick Kempe's book Berlin 1961. Like me, Fred believes we should do everything in our power to preserve history, which explains his generosity, and through Radio GDR, Fred has gained much knowledge as well as some new friends. Please enjoy my conversation with Fred, who was fundamental to making this podcast happen this year.

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

I have said this often, but I am so grateful to you all for your continued loyalty to the podcast this season. Most of you all don't know this, but I got this amazing gig when Shane Whaley interviewed me as a listener of the show back in 2020. I love the concept of interviewing our listeners so much that, to color the back half of season 3, I have interviewed 3 of you, the listeners, on why more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the GDR still fascinates you.

 

Many of you have personal connections to the GDR, some of which have been formed in this modern era. My new friend Mark Neese's son studied German and is dating the daughter of a family who once lived in the GDR. Mark is a loyal listener who is excited to share his story about his 2021 and 2022 trips to Radebeul, Dresden and Leipzig where he fell in love with GDR architecture, especially the residence hall in which his son lives as a student at the University of Leipzig. Listen as Mark describes his interest in GDR music and the GDR books he recommends to fellow listeners. Thank you so much for your time, Mark!

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our third installment of our interview with Ralph Hanel, Kung Fu Master, former Stasi prisoner and amazing storyteller. I am so glad you have enjoyed the first two installments, and Ralph and I sat down for a third interview to talk about the objects he has collected in recent years that remind him of his survival story. Today, Ralph tells us about his Stasi handcuffs, his GDR kung fu certificate, how special PanAm is in his life and about other objects that we really started called his "Corner GDR Museum." This was a really special experience for me, and Ralph has started posting pictures of these objects in the Facebook group. You will really enjoy this episode.

 

Ralph, we're so grateful to you for telling your stories.

You MUST listen to Ian Sanders' three part interview of Ralph before listening to these. They will absolutely set the context for these episodes, and are MUST LISTENS. 

Episode 1 - Ralph – DJing and Kung Fu in East Germany

Episode 2 - Ralph – Arrested and interrogated by the Stasi

Episode 3 - Ralph – A prisoner in an East German jail

Read Ralph's short stories using this link

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Welcome to another incredible episode of Radio GDR. Judging by your extremely positive reaction, you thoroughly enjoyed part 1 of our three part interview with Ralph Hanel, Kung Fu Master, former stasi prisoner and an incredible survivor. Now it's time for part 2 - listen how Ralph confronts his past when he discovers how his ex-girlfriend oddly "borrowed" a baby in his name after they broke up, what stasi handcuffs did to his wrists when he was in prison, and how he became an actor and even played a role as an East German general. We even hear about the book of poison - you'll have to listen to the episode to find out about that interesting nugget. Ralph's story of survival inspires me, and I hope it does the same with you.

You MUST listen to Ian Sanders' three part interview of Ralph before listening to these. They will absolutely set the context for these episodes, and are MUST LISTENS. 

Episode 1 - Ralph – DJing and Kung Fu in East Germany

Episode 2 - Ralph – Arrested and interrogated by the Stasi

Episode 3 - Ralph – A prisoner in an East German jail

Read Ralph's short stories using this link

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Radio GDR. This is your host Steve Minegar, and the next three episodes will truly be a humbling and eye opening experience for all of us. On the Cold War Conversations podcast, our good friend Ian Sanders interviewed Ralph Hänel, Kung Fu Master, actor and just plain wonderful guy, about the lengths he went to learn martial arts behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. In an attempt to leave for the west, Ralph was arrested and spent several years in a Stasi prison in Cottbus known as the “red misery.” Ralph relays this incredible story over three episodes on Cold War Conversations, which I highly recommend you listen to before consuming this series of episodes - see the links below. Ralph is an amazing storyteller and approached me to relay even more of his tragic but triumphant tale. Inspired by objects he has collected that have reminded him of moments in his life, Ralph tells us in this first episode about his father’s possible involvement in the Stasi, the lawyer he may have arranged for his son to get out of prison, and the psychological torture the Stasi inflicted on him and his mother. Just wait until you hear about how Ralph got his Kung Fu certificate into East Germany, the messages he snuck into a hole in his tooth and his Stasi handcuffs (I won’t give too many spoilers away). Ralph, we appreciate these stories very much.

You MUST listen to Ian Sanders' three part interview of Ralph before listening to these. They will absolutely set the context for these episodes, and are MUST LISTENS. 

Episode 1 - Ralph – DJing and Kung Fu in East Germany

Episode 2 - Ralph – Arrested and interrogated by the Stasi

Episode 3 - Ralph – A prisoner in an East German jail

Read Ralph's short stories using this link

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Did you know East German artists used their Stasi files as artwork after the fall of the Berlin wall? Ever heard of the Erfurt Women's Artists Group who stormed the Stasi Headquarters in their city? These were jaw-dropping facts I learned when I read Parallel Public - Experimential Art in Late East Germany by our guest today, Dr. Sara Blaylock, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Sara's book is a masterpiece and reveals that experimential artists in the final years of the GDR did not practice their art in the shadows, on the margins, hiding away from the Stasi's prying eyes. Instead, these artists used media like photography, film, and performances to cultivate a critical influence over the very bureaucracies meant to keep them in line, undermining state authority through forthright rather than covert projects. Some East German artists made their country's experimental art scene a form of counter public life, creating an alternative to the crumbling collective underpinnings of the state. Let's hear from Sara about the incredible insights she gained through the interviews and work she conducted to put this amazing book together.

 

Be sure to purchase Sara's book using this link!

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

I often speak about what a privilege it is to preserve the stories of the past, many of which are disappearing quickly, through this podcast. You our contributors and listeners are truly helping us to advance that mission. In today's episode of Radio GDR, I'm honored to be joined by teacher and author Daniel Burghard all the way from Berlin who with his book The Things They've Seen - Reflections on WWII and the Cold War by German Eyewitnesses fulfills our common mission as he captures the stories of people who experienced the great political whiplash of living through the tail end of WWII and Nazi Germany and the Communist regime of the GDR. The interviews he conducted are moving - his subjects tell stories of how they ran from Allied bombs, spent time in a Stasi prison, worked to fulfill dreams of living in the GDR even in the midst its great brain drain and dealt with the effects of the Berlin Wall's construction on their family. How these people confront the scars of their past moved Daniel, and I could feel his sense of empathy as he described what he learned from them. We have the privilege of having three interviews in one today - let's hear from Daniel about three of the people with whom he spoke and what he learned about how they survived one of the most tumultuous times in modern history.

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

There is no shortage of recent articles regarding the too long overlooked subject of female directors. While many of these articles are specific to the women directing films today (Patty Jenkins, Kelly Reichardt, Kathryn Bigelow, etc.), there are many more that claim to be comprehensive overviews of the contributions made by women to the art of cinema. These articles are careful to remember female directors from the distant past (Lotte Reiniger, Alice Guy-Blaché) and the ones who boldly made films in Hollywood when women weren’t even considered for jobs as directors (Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, Barbara Loden). They are careful to include women of color (Gina Prince-Bythewood, Chloé Zhao), and they don’t forget the well-known foreign women directors (Lina Wertmüller, Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman). But there’s one group of female directors who haven’t been given due credit for their work: The female directors of East Germany.

You can go through as many articles on the topic of female directors as you’re willing to read, and you won’t find Iris Gusner, Evelyn Schmidt, or Hannelore Unterberg mentioned at all. Never mind that the films by these women are often better than any of the films made by some of the directors that did make those lists. Even the list of female directors Wikipedia includes no female East German directors.

Join us today as we speak with Jim Morton, author of the East German Cinema Blog, and Jeffrey Babcock, who curated a program on East German cinema for the Goethe Institute in Amsterdam, on the often overlooked topic of female directors in DEFA films. 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Gay spies and espionage….absolutely one of the most incredible topics you can study about the GDR. On today's episode of Radio GDR, we are going to dive into the topic of LGBT espionage, life and struggle for equality behind the Iron Curtain. We have the honor to be joined by Dr. Samuel Huneke, assistant professor of history at George Mason University and author of the riveting book States of Liberation - Gay Men Between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. In the book, Huneke traces the path of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of the Second World War to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, States of Liberation tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men - and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won new rights and created new opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cold War Europe. Relying on untapped archives in Germany and the United States as well as oral histories with witnesses and survivors, Huneke reveals that communist East Germany was in many ways far more progressive on queer issues than democratic West Germany.

 

Dr. Huneke's book is fantastic and is available here - States of Liberation. Check out Dr. Huneke's bio here.

 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

 

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

 

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

 

Vielen dank for being a listener!

Venceremos! We will overcome! This one word defined the socialist political movement of Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile and, after the military coup of 1973, rolled off the tongues of Chilean exiles and musical bands who found a new home in East Germany. As many of you know, I have long been interested in the GDR's international relations, particularly with Chile given that I studied abroad there in 2007. I was amazed to learn that Chilean refugees fled to the GDR after the 1973 military coup in Chile, that many Chilean bands appeared at political festivals in East Berlin and that Erich Honecker, the deposed general secretary of the SED, died in exile in Santiago, Chile in 1994. John Paul Kleiner introduced me to today's guest, Jesse Freedman, because of our shared interest in the connections between Chile and East Germany, specifically the Festival des Politischen Liedes, or Festival of Political Songs, a musical festival held for many decades during the GDR's existence that hosted bands from Chile and around the world in the name of socialist solidarity. Jesse is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on the reception and role of Chilean nueva canción, a revolutionary musical movement in the 60s and 70s, and the experience of Chilean exiles in the former German Democratic Republic during the years of the Pinochet military dictatorship. Let's join Jesse as he tells us about the history of this festival, the role Chilean bands like Inti-Illimani, Quilapayun and Illapu played to popularize revolutionary music in East Germany and how the festival shaped the GDR's foreign policy all the way until its end.

For more information on the Festival of Political Songs and Chilean bands in the GDR, check out https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e8

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

 

From an outside perspective, it would seem that human rights would be an idea that the East German regime would have had great difficulty reconciling itself with. However, in this episode of the pod, Dr. Ned Richardson-Little, author of The Human Rights Dictatorship: Socialism, Global Solidarity, and Revolution in East Germany, explains how the ruling SED Party fostered the development of a concept of human rights which was compatible with the socialist regime’s domestic and international aims and rejected a liberal individualist understandings of such rights.

Dr. Richardson-Little joins host John Paul Kleiner (GDR Objectified blog) to discuss how human rights evolved within SED from a subject the Party was uncomfortable with to one which, for an extended period of time, played a key role in helping secure support for the socialist project in the GDR. He also unpacks how human rights were understood within the population and the role human rights discourses played in bringing down ‘real existing socialism’ in 1989.

Dr. Ned Richardson-Little is a Freigeist Fellow at Universität Erfurt, Germany, where he leads a project on international crime and globalization. Some of you may have encountered him on Twitter @HistoryNed handle or his blog “Superfluous Answers to Necessary Questions”.

More information on subjects raised in this episode:

• The 1946 German Elections
• Wolf Biermann: The Cologne Concert and his explusion from GDR
• The Helsinki Accords (1975)
• The Initiative for Peace and Human Rights (1986-1990)

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!

This episode seeks to answer a burning question - what does an artist do with a piece of the Berlin Wall? In our last episode, we interviewed Dr. Jim Doti, Professor and President Emeritus of Chapman University in Orange, California (chapman.edu), about how Chapman secured a piece of the Berlin Wall for the university's lovely campus. Today I am honored to be joined by Chapman's own Professor Emeritus Richard Turner, the artist who designed Liberty Plaza where Chapman's Berlin Wall is displayed. Liberty Plaza is breathtaking - set amongst crepe myrtle trees, the Berlin Wall sits in an oval reflecting pool ringed by Abraham Lincoln's quote "A House Divided Cannot Stand." A stone chair inspired by the Lincoln Memorial sits on a mound facing the wall encouraging students and visitors to consider the importance of freedom. Richard tells us how his time in Asia in the 1960s inspired his beautiful public art projects, which range from metro stations, public parks and water treatment facilities to a justice center, veterans’ memorial and a university chapel. His public work is guided by a desire to make pieces that are accessible but not obvious, pieces that reveal themselves over time to a diverse audience. Thank you, Professors Turner, Doti and Chapman University, for this amazing story.

 

To learn more about Dr. Doti and Professor Turner's efforts to bring the Berlin Wall to Chapman University, visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e5 and https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e6. Learn more about Richard Turner and his art by visiting http://www.turnerprojects.com/about

 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

 

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

 

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

 

Vielen dank for being a listener!

There are many pieces of the Berlin Wall on display all around the world. How did universities, museums and other places secure these sections of what was once the most intimidating symbol of the Iron Curtain? In this episode of Radio GDR, I have the privilege of being joined by Dr. Jim Doti, Professor and President Emeritus of Chapman University in Orange, California (chapman.edu), to tell us how he secured for Chapman what is today the second largest piece of the Berlin Wall owned by an American university. In 1997 after seeing the Berlin Wall at the Reagan Library, Dr. Doti was inspired to procure a piece of the wall for Chapman. Over many months he and his colleagues worked through the Mayor of Berlin's office to secure one of the last sections available. Known colloquially as "the Candy Bomber," Dr. Doti describes the painstaking process of securing the wall to shipping it to California to building their own Berlin Wall memorial known as Liberty Plaza. Upon receipt of the wall, art professor Richard Turner, who we interview in our next episode, designed Liberty Plaza to contrast totalitarianism and freedom - the Berlin Wall sits in an oval reflecting pool surrounded by cement engraved with Abraham Lincoln's quote "A House Divided Cannot Stand." A stone chair sits on a mound facing the wall encouraging students and visitors to consider the importance of freedom. Thank you, Dr. Doti and Chapman University, for this amazing story.

 

For pictures and more information about Chapman's piece of the Berlin Wall, please visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e5

 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

 

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

 

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

 

Vielen dank for being a listener!

We Radio GDR hosts all agree on this simple truth - our favorite interviews are of you the listeners and members of the Facebook group. Jeff Myers joined the group in January of 2022 and has proceeded to post some of the most captivating photos of his trip to the GDR in 1987. From pictures of old East Berlin to Trabants to an eerie "teaching assistant" Stasi officer observing a class, Jeff's pictures tell a story of a trip he's never forgotten. Today an Associate professor at Wake Tech Community College and host of the Let's Talk Wake Tech Travel podcast, Jeff went to the GDR in 1987 as a study abroad participant at Salzburg College where he took a class on capitalism vs. communism. The trip to the GDR inspired his love of travel, and he's been to 54 countries including Cuba, Myanmar, China, Vietnam, and even North Korea in 2007. He has taken 23 trips with his students and teaches at his former study abroad college, Salzburg College, every summer. Join us as Jeff tells us about his trip behind the Berlin Wall.

 

For Jeff's photos, please visit us at www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e4

 

Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.

 

If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.

 

For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.

Vielen dank for being a listener!