Student Question
What were the quality of life differences between East and West Germany?
Quick answer:
The differences in quality of life between East Germany and West Germany were considerable. Life in East Germany was dull and dominated by the repressive political atmosphere imposed by the Communist Party-controlled secret police. In contrast, West Germany was a model of democratic freedom and economic development. East Germans risked their lives to escape the West and eventually rose up against the communists and tore down the walls dividing them from their brethren.
The contrasts between life in East and West Germany could not have been stark, nor more noticeable to the populations on each side of the Cold War-era divide given their obvious proximity to one another.
Germany was divided into four main sectors at the end of World War II per the agreement arrived at between the leaders of the victorious Allied powers. Over time, the United States, Great Britain, and France all allowed their respective sectors to merge into a single Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany, which would grow into a major economic power and a bulwark against the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact. Its economy reflected the democratic values that were institutionalized with its founding and its citizens were among the prosperous in Western Europe. It developed over time from the destruction of the war into a modern, technologically advanced society with a quality of life virtually second to...
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In contrast to West Germany, the German Democratic Republic, East Germany, reflected the Stalinist model that dominated the post-war atmosphere in those territories occupied by the Soviet Union. Whereas some of that territory, notably Czechoslovakia and Hungary, would provide a decent quality of life for.most of their citizenry; however, East Germany was founded as and remained an austere, featureless dictatorship, devoid of the vibrancy clearly visible across the heavily guarded borders separating the two entities.
Housing in the east was modeled on the featureless, drab apartment complexes prevalent in Russia; entertainment was strictly controlled to conform to orthodox communist dictates; and politics were nonexistent save for those fortunate enough to be members of the Communist Party hierarchy—a category that, as in the Soviet Union, enjoyed special privileges like access to better food and Western-manufactured clothing and musical albums (American jazz and rock being two particular favorites). As in the Soviet Union, consumer goods were often scarce, and what was available was of inferior quality to that found in the West. The penalties for speaking one’s mind included imprisonment and torture. East Germans were expected to inform on each other about any kind of infraction that could be deemed indicative of disloyalty to the communist state.
When the Berlin Wall was felled, it was by the force of sledgehammers wielded by East Germans desperate to enjoy the freedoms they observed on the other side of the border. The disparities in qualities of life were dramatic, and the reason the communist authorities worked so hard for so many years to prevent their citizenry from fleeing to the West. In fact, the Berlin Wall itself was built precisely for the reason: East German citizens fled to West Germany through Berlin until the wall was constructed in 1961.
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