For four decades, until 1990, there were two German states each vying for supremacy as archetypes of democracy and communism.
The exhibition at the Contemporary History Forum reveals the history of the GDR, the reunited Germany to the present day. The dark side of the communist regime is shown with film, photographs, documents revealing its deep surveillance, secret police, imprisonment and torture.
But the light side is also revealed following the reunification with former East Germans expressing a sense of a loss of identity, loneliness, social, cultural and educational support.
The Socialist Unity Party established its dominance by nationalising the banks, large companies and land. In June 1953 an uprising was violently put down and in August 1961 the anti fascist protective Berlin Wall was built.
The lead up to the fall of the Wall saw a seismic shift in Soviet Union control of countries under Gorbachev.
A series of missteps by those in charge of border security included an off the cuff announcement by an official that the free movement of East Germans would have immediate effect.
Artist Stefan Roloff installation of a all-German living room with video sequences taken in 1984 of border patrols along the Berlin Wall
questioned life in East Germany.
Artist Mathias Koeppel in a work titled ‘….and everything will be fine again’ in October 1990’reveals the hopes no doubt dashed for many.
It’s a story told across Germany but with an east and west perspective….a work in progresss.
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