Nostalgia for the GDR

In East Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden one can easily see teenagers in T-shirts and hoodies with the coat of arms of the GDR. In the east of Germany a unique phenomenon is observed — the socialist era is being transformed into a youth cult.

First of all, people recall free housing, education, healthcare, and support for motherhood and childhood. 65% of eastern Germans today are convinced that they lived better under socialism in the GDR, and this percentage is growing. The GDR was a social paradise. The people did not know what unemployment and poverty were. Many representatives of the older generation remember the kind of help that was rendered to East Germany directly by the USSR within the framework of socialist integration.

The GDR Museum in Berlin always has many visitors, and souvenirs in the form of clothing, pins, and magnets with GDR symbols sell excellently. In essence, this has produced a completely opposite effect for the ideological context of the museum, which was created in order to show socialism in a gloomy light.