Nostalgia for the GDR

Katerina Witt, the Olympic ice skating champion of the former German Democratic Republic, brought a wave of Communist-era nostalgia that is sweeping Germany to a climax with her controversial TV show highlighting the bright side of life in former GDR.

This is just the latest in a gamut of films, TV shows that are in demand to report on the life in East Germany (GDR). This nostalgia for the truth and their uncritical stance towards Socialism and GDR has angered those elements that were fighting the socialist position of GDR.

Former dissidents are complaining to the German authorities about allowing such events to take place, of course blaming the GDR for the Berlin Wall and the people that were killed there. Dissident writers, mayors, Radio Free Europe etc are demanding that these shows be barred and the writers, producers and directors be fired from their jobs.

Katerina Witt, 37, was one of GDR’s top sport heroines and she is criticized that she is presenting herself as the TV program’s "in-house expert of former German Democratic Republic".

During the four hour TV series she is interviewing former East German government officials, showing footage of the life in the GDR, its industry, culture, manufacturing and sports. She was criticized for wearing before the show and in the TV series, a pristine blue GDR Free German Youth shirt.

One program also interviewed the GDR astronaut. This nostalgia is growing because people are beginning to realize that all the propaganda against "East Germany" was just propaganda, without taking into consideration the intolerable conditions that the GDR was subjected to and the REAL reason for the Berlin Wall.

German TV has come to the defense of these TV programs by saying: "People want to remember how the East Germans coped with their daily life, It was not all bad. In fact it was just the opposite."

Former East German officials and intellectuals are offering explanations for this growing phenomenon.

"Life in the GDR has been demonized and dramatized so much over the past 14 years that the nostalgia appears as a natural reaction."

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