“Восточная Германия была огромным местом лишения свободы, управляемым русскими, Штази воплощала в себе наихудшие крайности немецкой авторитарности и бюрократического педантизма, все, у кого есть мозги, и все, у кого есть характер, бежали на Запад до возведения стены, но узники, оставшиеся искупать коллективную вину страны, были парадоксальным образом освобождены от немецкого начала в себе. Те, с кем я познакомился в Йене, были скромны, непунктуальны, импульсивны и щедро делились тем немногим, что имели.”
“The problem in the DDR wasn't No Future, the rallying cry of British Punk. As Planlos guitarist Kobs liked to say, the problem in East Germany was Too Much Future.”
Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
“Kids in tje East had also grown up with a genuine sense of fear that the world might actually come to an end during their lifetime. That it probably would in fact. For some this fueled nihilistic feelings - one reason Toster from Die Anderen, for instance, never got deeply political was because he stopped giving a shit.”
Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
“And as the Stasi began to pay more and more attention to the new network, they made the same mistake they had when trying to break up the punk scene a few years before: they sought to identify leaders and focus on undermining them. The Stasi assumed every organisation had a top-down structure like the Stasi, like the Party, like the dictatorship.”
Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
“Yeah, I guess I am a sadistic piece of shit. What can you do? What else is there to do? My grandfathers were Soviet officers in Germany. They were Men. Now what is my Father? he's a little bitch who ran away from Russia in 1998. What's his fate? Well. He's gonna get fucked in the ASS with so many different things, you can't even imagine.”
“Some of the “songs” on offer were served up with screams and inarticulate noises to an audience consisting mostly of teenagers who, whipped up by the music, carried out degenerate motions.”
Source: Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990
“From 1971, the rates paid were means-tested, allowing working class families with children privileged access. A four-person household in West Germany spent around 21 percent of their net income on rental costs while a similar household in the East only needed 4.4 percent.”
Source: Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990
“A great battle is a terrible thing," the old knight said, "but in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break your heart.”
Source: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
“This project was hugely successful, perhaps one of the most effective aid projects ever conducted. Vietnam is now the world’s second largest producer of coffee, producing around 30 million 60-kilogram bags every year, and its industry employs 2.6 million people. Its Robusta beans have a high caffeine content and are ideal for granular and instant coffee, which is drunk in large quantities around the world. Only 6 percent of the produce is used internationally, while the rest is exported at an estimated annual worth of $3 billion.”
Source: Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990
“Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart,” that was officially used to refer to the Berlin Wall.”
Source: Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990