This applies to all people. I am born into a party dictatorship and emerged into a fucked up democracy that isn't as free as one wishes.
Still, the penalty for light was not being shot, it was being imprisoned. People were shot on the run after called to stop or in rare occurances in self defense.
The highly educated were a major factor of the power potential of the GDR as well as a certain growth factor in West Germany before 1961. Giving the enemy power potential is not what any nation would desire. The RAF didn't train Luftwaffe pilots, I think.
"
The "freiheitlich demokratischen Grundordnung", who's is it getting into trouble ? Can you give me an example? I agree that using the law against dissidents is never a good thing. Because in Belgium there is a similar tendency which goes against everything I believe in.
"
It is the law that allows to prohibit parties that have a dissident program. Anything but represented democracy etc is out of question. Now if tech development allowed for an efficient system of direct democracy it could not be implemented.
The law itself still looks rather harmless but currently there is a movement to prohibit the nationalist party on the basis of FDGO. Without any reason since the nationalist party has no intention to get rid of democracy. All that counts is what the Verfassungsschutz ( German interior intelligence, western Stasi) provide. Since the Verfassungsschutz is controlled by the Government and not the parliament it is quite reasonable to assume the govt can instruct them to claim anything. Once prohibiting parties becomes a common practice (it would be the second party prohibited after the socialist party) we have a hell of a democracy.
The FDGO is also basis for a series of laws that prohibit publishing books not wanted by the government.
Could you expand?
Sure I try. One case is the Kosovo war. The German public was intentionally told lies by the minister of defense to manipulate opinion and allow the Luftwaffe commitment to bombing Yugoslavia. Our constitution only allows usage of Bundeswehr on German soil or in collective defense.
Whatever you believe this campaign was, collective defense is a rather cynic interpretation of it.
Another one is the Euro thing. The German public never got even close to favouring the Euro by 50 %, still the government decided it had to be done. Afterwards they began to brainwash the public to make them accept what was decided anyway. One common statement will be "the Euro will be as stable as D-Mark". As we all know, this isn't quite right.
Similar thing is the reformed rules of writing enforced by the government. Few ever wanted such a reform and even less accept its implementation. The public was never asked and afterwards was told all would be for the best of the students, who to the date suffer from having to learn that the old rules they knew after using them for years have been replaced by new ones that are far more confusing and - worse - have a lot more exceptions.
Finally the "ecology tax", a more than harsh tax on all sources of energy including fuel. Not even 20% of the revenues are used for any ecologic projects but to the date, politicians call it an ecologic necessity.
"I can't believe you equate the lack of freedom in the GDR, with some minor discontent with travel restrictions. "
I don't exactly do that, I just state from experience that if you talk to people what they didn't like about their old state the first is travel restrictions, the second is environmental problems and you rarely hear a third one. They tell you stories about what good people all those party guys really were since they did not take the whole thing serious. Of course, the upper echelons were a different thing but really few people seem to have been really unhappy in this system. Freedom, whatever this means, was sometimes missed but it was no major concern for most of the people. This is what the average GDR citizen seems to have fought on the rare occassion there were talks among friends or family as well as most people you ask today in a private athmosphere. Of course there also were people who felt really oppressed but they were a small minority.
To sum it up altough I understand why you feel the GDR was a state where people lived under harsh restrictions, the majority did not feel too many wrongs. A lot of small things to disagree with but not much serious. Most discontent in fact was driven by economic problems. They would also have hit a poor western style state. If the same German people on the other side of the fence gets off so much better (between 30% and 60% over the times) then you feel discontent even if you fare much better than most of the other states of your block.
This isn't exactly what the current government wants people, especially westerners, to view the former enemy.
----------------------------
Defending the state from manipulation and infiltration requires resources.
I am at a loss of words to answer to this. I have the impression that you make a moral equasion between communist dictatorships and western democracies or even prefer the first to the latter.
-----------------------------
A state that feels threatened needs to build up defenses. The GDR did it and the western Germans did it too. In the 50's the west was on the offensive and GDR had all reasons to feel threatened. That is no moral question, it's just a fact. If GDR hadn't collapsed I'm sure I would have been a working citizen who questions the governmental decision but in the end will be loyal to his state. Even if I find this German republic disgusting in the way many things work I am still
a citizen who does his civil service and if needed is ready to take part in defense of the state. I don't think the average citizen of any state is much different.
And it would also make this discussion a bit pointless.
would it? would an exchange of views be fruitless just because it doesn't end the way you or I would like to see?
If you don't, I sincerely apologise.
You don't have to.
