Astrid Sverresdotter Dypvik

That was gdr stories about a dismantled country

On 3 October 1990, GDR was dismantled and Germany became united. It was the end of state socialism, the Berlin wall and the Stasi, but also a society without unemployment. The stories in this book portray the legacy of GDR. Here you meet people with extraordinary, distressing and tragic stories, everything from Stasi employees and leaders of the communist party to those who were the victims of a brutal dictatorship. All these histories have their place in the great narrative about the GDR.

Astrid S. Dypvik has met a number of people who have in various ways been affected by this country that has now become history. Vera Lengsfeld, whom her husband spied upon. He regularly reported to the Stasi about her. Katrin Behr, forcefully taken away from her mother and adopted when she was four years old. Today she is the leader of the organisation Help the victims of forced adoptions in GDR. Mario Röllig whom the Stasi attempted to recruit as agent, but who said no and as a result his life fell apart and he ended up in the secret prison of the Stasi. You also meet Lothar de Maizière, the only elected prime minister of GDR, and Helmut Müller who was a member of the central committee in GDR. He is among them who had the ideas, saw the solutions and took the initiatives in the autumn of 1989. He and the rest of the powerful party apparatus witnessed the disbandment of their homeland.

English sample translation available