In 1990, a country disappeared. For the previous forty-one years, East Germany had existed in Western minds as more of a metaphor than a place, more of a grey communist blur than a land of real people with friends and families, workplaces and homes. As Germany once again became a single state, the history of the GDR was simplified and politicized. It was nothing but Stasi spies and central planning, nothing but a wall in Berlin. Hoyer is becoming the authoritative voice in the English-speaking world for all things German. Thanks to her, German history has the prominence in the Anglosphere it certainly deserves.”

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, review: a brilliant warts-and Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, review: a brilliant warts-and

By 1988, the average East German drank 142 litres of beer a year, double the intake of the average West German. The obvious explanation is they drank to escape the unbearable awfulness of being in the German Democratic Republic, with its omnipresent Stasi, clown-car Trabants, travel restrictions, gerontocratic rulers, grim Baltic holidays and laughable elections.Heavy metal … a woman at work in East Germany, in an image from Beyond the Wall. Photograph: Imago Images On October 7 1989, a four-year-old Hoyer and her father celebrated the GDR’s 40th anniversary with a trip to the viewing platform of Berlin’s Fernsehturm, the socialist-built TV tower. Below, police cars converged on Alexanderplatz in an attempt to quell the unstoppable protests that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall a month later. The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. Matthew Sweet is joined by Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds and Esther Leslie. Plus, a report on the plight of the Lukacs Archive in Budapest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q380 This book has enlightened me to a lot of what happened in the country and why. I did feel, however, that the really dark stuff was rather glossed over. Yes, the word "dictator" was used a time or two. The number of people Stalin made disappear in horrific circumstances was stated. It is accepted that the Stasi was feared. Mielke was mentioned many times, but not in any real depth. Also, no light was shone on the ordinary citizens who spied on their families, friends, neighbors, colleagues. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side.

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Goodreads Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer | Goodreads

A colorful and often revelatory re-appraisal of one of modern history’s most fascinating political curiosities. Hoyer skilfully weaves diverse political and private lives together, from the communist elite to ordinary East Germans.” Forget everything you thought you knew about life in the GDR. This terrifically colourful, surprising and enjoyable history of the socialist state is full of surprises Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times Myth-busting, artfully constructed history. Hoyer displays a special understanding and wants to present a corrective to previous reductive assessments of the GDR that depict it as a field-gray Stasiland. Her command of detail, broad historical brush strokes, and evident sympathy for her interview partners make fora fascinating read.” Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? A fantastic, sparkling book, filled with insights not only about East Germany but about the Cold War, Europe, and the forging of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”

Hoyer’s book examines all aspects of East German life, including politics and everyday experiences, and reveals that perceptions of life in the GDR and the consumerism of the West aren’t necessarily as we might expect. Here we explore some of the aspects of East German life that Hoyer covers in her book that demonstrate how the commonly held view of authoritarianism in the GDR may not tell the whole story. The establishment of West and East Germany A gripping and nuanced history of the GDR from its beginnings as a separate German socialist state against the wishes of Stalin to its final rapprochement with its Western other against those of Gorbachev. Beyond the Wall is a unique fresco of everyday reality in East Germany. Elegantly moving between diplomatic history, political economy, and cultural analysis, this is an essential read to understand not only the life and death of the GDR but also the parts of it that still survive in the emotions of its former citizens.” To those familiar with East German history, little will be new. Hoyer rehashes all the surface-level events and GDR trivia without injecting substance. The incisive authorial reflections that are to be found in other history books I’ve read are conspicuously absent here. The narrative unfolds in simplistic, caricatured fashion. There is also a certain immaturity to the writing. Stalin is said several times to be Walter Ulbricht’s ‘hero’. Cliches abound. Hoyer takes every opportunity that presents itself to say ‘literally’ after a metaphor. Originally under Soviet army occupation following the end of the second world war, East Germany became an independent country on 7 October 1949. But the story Hoyer tells in Beyond the Wall starts much earlier with the German Communist party’s struggle to survive “between Hitler and Stalin”. In the run-up to the second world war, party members faced arrest and torture in Nazi Germany. This drove much of its leadership into exile in the Soviet Union, where most eventually perished, either in the gulags or by firing squad, as victims of Stalin’s purges. Katja Hoyer has done a magnificent job, providing a rounded insight into what life was like in the GDR. The more controlling aspects of the regime are not given much coverage which is fine by me, as I feel I have a solid grounding of the Stasi and their methods. A reader less aware of this aspect of the regime might conclude the GDR was a wonderful place for its citizens especially as great efforts were made to cater to the needs of the people who enjoyed the highest standard of living of any socialist state.

Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 eBook : Hoyer, Katja Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 eBook : Hoyer, Katja

Utterly brilliant . . . Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-World War II Europe' Julia Boyd It is here where one occasionally wishes that Hoyer broadened her vision from East Germany to the eastern bloc as a whole. A comparative viewpoint might have made clearer the peculiarity of East Germany’s achievement and its tragedy. Both were rooted in the same geographic fact. As part of a larger, pre-war Germany, East Germany was faced with the constant counter-example of the neighbouring Federal Republic. Its proximity just over the Wall encouraged its leadership to make their version of socialism as effective as humanly possible. It also pushed them to create one of the most extensive systems of control the world has ever seen.I discovered Beyond the Wall (2023) in the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction long list. I’m very interested in the GDR so was keen to read it. Hoyer does not speculate on the durability of the leaders's political beliefs, but a reader might easily suspect that as evidence of the failure of Marxist economics mounted, attachment to the personal attractions and benefits of authority, power, and dictatorship might have supplanted genuine belief. Consummately fair-minded as she is as a historian, Katja Hoyer tells the stories of both those GDR citizens who experienced the desperation of those needing to escape across the wall, but also those residents who built ordinary lives under the regime and came to appreciate its unchallenging stability. Aside from the state’s inherent paranoia (understandable given its “precarious position on the faultlines of the Cold War divide”), what ultimately did for the GDR was that it was a system utterly incapable of renewing itself. Once the supply of cheap Soviet oil was choked off, the regime crumbled. East Germany never managed to renew its ideology and instead remained dominated by ‘the old men’ (and their intransigent mindsets) who had founded it over 40 years earlier. Hoyer animates the story of the people of the East by beginning each chapter with an anecdotal snapshot of a personal event that replicates on an individual level broader political and social developments. Otherwise, her account follows a standard historical chronology of the East. It starts with post-war establishment in the late 1940s, and records the struggle to establish a working economy and society in the 1950s and '60s. Relations with the Kremlin were perennially mistrustful. The Soviet leadership would have readily sacrificed its comrades in Berlin if that meant securing a neutral, demilitarised Germany. Moscow also disliked warming ties between the two Germanys, though by the end West German bail-outs were keeping the easterners’ economy afloat.

Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – overturning cliches

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’ Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and the author of the widely acclaimed Blood and Iron. A visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Washington Post and hosts the podcast The New Germany together with Oliver Moody. She was born in East Germany and is now based in the UK. A great strength of the book is its use of anecdotes and personal stories to illustrate the diversity of life in the DDR - salvaging the lives of the citizens of the former DDR from the dustbin of history into which their former state has been unceremoniously dumped. Beyond the Wall is a satisfying synthesis of social history with political and diplomatic history and, as such, reads well; shifting between different conceptual lenses in a way that it feels dynamic and exciting throughout. One of the most interesting things that I had never thought about before, but explains a lot of why the DDR became what it was, is the origins story of the leaders of the DDR. Basically they were all German communists that fled to Soviet Russia in the 30s. What I also didn't know that 3 quarters of all German communists were murdered in the Stalinist terror. The horror. More members of the KPD's executive committee were murdered by Soviet Russia than bij Nazi Germany. To survive that and to climb to the higher positions one had to be rather morally flexible (the worst kind of scab) and become more stalinist than Stalin. These were the people that set up the DDR. Dedicated and in some way idealistic communists yes, but also the worst kind of party-hierarchy climbing apparatchiks.The reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 marked the end of the division between the democratic West (FRG) and the communist East (GDR), which had persisted since 1949. However, while West Germans continued their lives as usual, the reunification brought about significant changes for East Germans. The book was not what I expected. Far from being an analysis of the brutality and repression of the regime and the Stasi, it is an upbeat story of a country which had its own identity and got as much right as it got wrong. By way of example, I had no idea that East Germany had the highest proportion of working women of any country in the world (a proportion which, by the way, has declined since reunification). Brilliant. Hoyer is a historian of immense ability. Exhaustively researched, cleverly constructed, and beautifully written, this much-needed history of the GDR should be required reading across her homeland. Five stars.”