I like how 90% of the comments criticizing the videos are just ignoring everything he said and are just "If DDR so good, why did people leave and why wall? Hmmmm???"

Important to note about the disadvantage east Germany was in, during the interwar period, it is usually mentioned that the Weimar Republic struggled economically and one of the reasons cited is the French occupation of the main industry centers of Germany in the west, but suddenly after the war, east Germany is just supposed to succeed without access to industry it was previously dependent on. Not only that but the fighting on the eastern front was among the most devastating in human history and somehow it’s socialism’s fault that east Germany had economic issues?

Ever since bad mouse removed his video of east Germany, it was hard to find another that actually defends it. Many Others (not all) are completely one sided against the country and not allowing any opposition in the arguments. This is refreshing to see.

Never ask a woman, her age A man, his salary The West Berlin Government, what it did to homeless children

Yugoslavia was Socialistic country and if you ask people that lived in Yugoslavia at those times you will hear 95% only good stuff and nostalgia compared to now. Yes people didn’t drive BMWs or Audi’s but some Yugoslavian made cars instead. They also got either money to build their own house or if you were employed you would get a free apartment. People were much happier then now.

I always thought all this happened in the sixties or something. Kind of scary to know that I wasn't just alive at the time, but lived nearby and was old enough to almost understand. No wonder we took souvenirs of the wall.

I love this video! As a US citizen, it took me 30 years to see the GDR clearly as it was. We need to learn from the good things the GDR offered. Thank you!

What banger introduction music

For anyone interested you can the book:The Triumph Of Evil:The Reality of the USA Cold War Victory by Austin Murphy. It has a chapter on the East West divide and how the East got poorer than the West

Huh, I’m a communist now. Neat.

Even as a communist I hadn't wrapped my head around the East/West German situation and how the Berlin Wall came to be. Thanks for making such a well-researched, clear and concise video covering the topic as well as for all the historical context. Your analysis of the factors contributing to the fall of the USSR was also really good and much appreciated; truly one of, if not the greatest, tragedies of human history.

Great video!!!

Absolutely amazing work ! Keep it up comrade

Thanks for this. Awesome info.

Apart from the death of my family members during my life, the fall of the Soviet Union was the saddest, most tragic day of my life. We live in a nightmare. The USSR gave us hope. Now, we live in darkness. Apart from the community of online socialists, life is completely alienating. Thank you again for such a fantastic video.

"We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality"-Mikhail Bakunin

Finally! Puts cookies by my side&tea and comfy on my Couch

Glad I found this channel This is great stuff

How can you paint an offer of a better paying job as a bribe?

UNFATHOMABLY BASED

Excellent video 👏🏻

Does leave out some things imo like the rebellion in the 50s and the police state which left many people in fear of political dissent.

At 22:20 I'm a lil confused cause you started to use the german accronym for the gdr, but the english acronym for the frd? Idk not a huge thing but I wouldve called them ddr and brd at that point

This YT feature undoubtly does defend the communism and condemn the captitalism correspondingly. And an argument used to defend the just the comnunism is the following: In the world of communism everybody wakes up every singe morning to another day of 100% safety and 100% predictability. Still the communism coliapsed in eastern Europe and Soviet Union, end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s respectively. Why?. And if the communism is such a blessing with a 100% "fantasticly happy" population - then a possible unification on the Korean peninsula, should change SouthKorea to a communistic society like NorthKorea of today. And NOT the other way around. Kind regards A rather more ANTI- than pro communist

I like this essay, it also affirms things I’ve said in the past. Where the government is on the political compass has little to do with economic prosperity. In American Politics there’s this perpetual argument of red vs blue states. A blue state like California is not prosperous because of its liberal policies, it’s prosperous because of the climate and resources. Meanwhile a poor red state like West Virginia is not poor due to Republican leadership, more so the decline of the mining industry and overall lack of a diversified economy. For a global example, China is not prosperous from the CCP, it’s prosperous because of the hoards of money from western investors exploiting cheap labor. I agree if the Soviets had invested into East Germany rather than pillaging it for the sake of Moscow they would’ve had similar success to West Germany. When people from Balkan states or Eastern Europe talk about “missing communism” what they really miss is their weak economy being propped up by the wealthier Soviet states. The fatal flaw in capitalism is that in order for there to be winners, there has to be losers. The fatal flaw in communism is the only winner is the state. If your only argument to support communism is that everyone gets three hots and a cot, it makes the second world sound like a first world prison.

I don’t think it would’ve been a bad place if it weren’t for for the Stasi coercing everyone to spy on each other and the inability to say what one thinks, unless it fits the narrative they demand. The restrictions they placed on freedom of movement were also quite repressive and no one wants to have to wait 10-15 years to get a car when they already have the money to pay for it on the spot.

I will now tell everybody about this excellent film. Let's boost the views!

Well, that was a great video. As a side note, since this video is about East Germany, thoughts on Vladislav Zubok claims about stalin ideas for the National Democratic Party of Germany(East Germany.) from his book”A Failed Empire:The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev” If you need time before answering this question, totally understandable.

Go visit the political prison in Berlin - tell what they did to their own people with USSR pulling strings.

The East German economy only grew for its first 20 years. In the 1970’s it went stagnant and in the 1970’s it went into massive decline and the country no longer had the funds it needed to keep itself going any longer.

Greetings from Brazil

5:48 This means absolutely nothing, most men HAD to be members of the Nazi party if they wanted to properly participate in daily life, if they had joined before Hitler took power or were in some paramilitary (like some were) you'd have a point, but just mentioning that many were party members is absolutely worthless info and doesn't help your point. There were definitely actual (former) Nazis in the west German government, and you could've highlighted that properly but this is just a misrepresentation of history.

I funny this should come out as I storm the Reichstag as a member of the Red Army in Call of Duty! Onwards comrades! ✊🚩 Though I think its also important it be pointed out that Eastern Germany was historically and still is the more agricultural and poorer part of Germany anyway, most of Germany's industry is in the far west near the Rhine river.

Minor pet peeve, but the west german abbreviation is either FRG or BRD , not FRD. Sorry for being pedantic.

That's one thing about the ML left we are honest and transparent when we are doing propaganda, we tell you after all we want our message to propagate.

I mean offering better livingstandards is not really a bribe

The worst thing that came out of reunification is that it wasn’t called Weast Germany

3:43 if civilians were hiding in American factories as bomb shelters then it’s undeniable that the civilians killed were not collateral damage

So what you're saying is that Signalis actually lied to me

It’s finally here. Can’t wait to watch it.

Everything in this great expose is very substantial and well argued, great job writing this Comrade! The only thing I have to disagree and share with others is my critique of your conclusion. The tendency of your writing is to take up and defend the first-worldist position, to speak from it's perspective. Unfortunately this is also the case when you speak about China and it's role in the Great Split. You argued that the Chinese abruptly initiated it, and then, quite ironically, did the same some 10 years later. To know the truth, we need the context to this. The Soviet leadership, at the same time certain right elements in the party rose to power positions, drastically reduced aid, military advising and technology transfer at a very critical time in Chinese history -- The Great Leap Forward, which along with other factors such as drought season, and distortion of reported output values in the agricultural sector, caused a famine in that country. The Chinese recognized this fact along with the reintroduction of reactionary elements in the Soviet Union: it's tiptoeing around the imperialists, the halting of class struggle (Bureaucratic encumbering and the reintroduction of the law of value) and the peaceful coexistence policy. They quite rightly saw a historical scission being created in the Eastern European Bloc and criticized it. The Great Split was not a Chinese invention, it was a response to a perceived policy change that subordinated the People's Republic of China and the Third World to the whims of Soviet revisionist gradualism. The Sino-American Thaw was therefore an end to the perceived and real isolation that the Soviet Union imposed on the People's Republic of China, a historical opportunity and a gambit against an Eastern Bloc more and more ideologically and economically alienated from the People's Republic of China, a beacon of Third World Communist development. Not a peaceful coexistence between two super-powers but a tactical retreat that allowed the Communist Party of China and the government of that country to bid it's time and gather forces. It is ignorant to compare the position the Maoists were in the 1970s to the position the Soviets were in the 1960s, and more so to equate them. To compare a super-power to a Third World Country. This feeds into my last observation: The Chinese (perceived) Problem. If the portrayal of the national rejuvenation of China as a return to capitalism is to be believed, then we are left with a problem. Communists worldwide are stuck with the position they were after the advent of neoliberalism in the Eastern European Bloc, that is, historical nihilism. This is to say that the Communist Parties of the world didn't learn from this process and that we should we start anew, that we should resort to Ostalgia and long to times when things were better. This is to disregard history and to think it moves non-linearly, rather than linearly, at incremental paces in each epoch. That communism ebbs and to borrow Lenin's metaphor, the movement has to go back to the start of the trail and erase the progress made thus far. This is not how history has worked out; the Communist Party of China being a prime example of a working class organization adapting and fighting against incorrect tendencies in it's midst, biding it's time and avoiding the same pitfalls the Soviets and the Eastern Bloc once made, such as bureaucratisation, chauvinism and it's patches of semi-imperialist behavior. This is important for the Third World project, because we have a beacon and an ideal of how development and the transition to communism might look like for us. If we were to disregard that history we have like you suggest us to do, then, we would be aimless once again. All serious communist parties nowadays in our countries take this principled and modern road.

Great video

Great job - highly informative and well balanced. Congratulations from an American who has lived in the GDR and knows the score.

You got NATO wrong

I had a great uncle who was some sort of government functionary during those times. He was rare for having the best available automobile. It wasn't much. He had horror stories to tell about everyone spying on everyone else. Nobody could be trusted according to him.

you are doing a great job, keep it up-

Ich frage mich ob Sie je ein Stasi Gefängnis gesehen oder mit einem der ehemaligen Insassen gesprochen haben?

i tend to think that "taking care of one's own does not require socialism" but maybe that is a cope

Best Germany ever!

Agreed.

Would you do a similar video about the koreas? It would be a nice watch too.

Oh yeah the brutal stlinistesce dictatorship that was indebted to the west was „based“. Besides the brutal imprisonment of family members (one just for liking Punkrock and party) and employing n*zis and using uniforms inspired by theirs I gues our hymn and the felling of comradeship (because of the hardships we endured in this god awful and incompetent regime) were the only good things. Yes some of our inventions were great and you know for the simple people (most often of Russia) but they were getting outdated and in the end just expensive prestige projects. Oh yeah did I forgot the invasion of Poland and the brutal suppression of harmless revolts? Seriously f u for saying it was based. It was scary. Livable but also depressing. Like birds in a big cage. All that while the elites feasted and had a grand old time until they completely bankrupted the nation beyond possibility of sovereign rule wich is sad we would have liked to remain independent as a true socialist nation.

algorithm

Nice one👌👌

Germany didn't deserve reunification!

Mind I point something out You said NATO was the North AMERICAN treaty organization The actual name is North ATLANTIC treaty organization

Thanks comrade for this vital history lesson. I've always respected East Germany.

your voice is very nice, and speaking based things helps that, keep up that good work brother! 🚩

A book on this is "Stasi State or Workers’ Paradise - by Bruni de la Motte & John Green" Most of his claims are explained in depth there.

I'm sure Mielke is smiling from the nether regions.

Amazing video as always

In capitalism is no product shortage for the consumers, in capitalism a shortage of goods for the consumers won't make them form lines infront of the store, the poorer consumers simply won't go to the store because they can't afford it. But such a system of not fighting g the deficit but reducing demand doesn't function in necessary things like Housing.

This is truly, an epic video

The question is why did Soviet Union take reparation from East Germany while USA didn't from West Germany!

1:04:02-1:05:00 I don’t like Khrushchev but the idea of siding with the USA over post Stalin ussr is just crazy.

This is what I wanna see from FT

we had a good live. Not like today in red "green" Scholz- Reich IV!

👍

18:06 *mammalian class

The GDR was based but it became just as revisionist as USSR in the Honecker era.

Finally, another video

🎉

And East Germany likes me. The GDR preserved much of the German identity whereas this became redundant and got diluted in the West. But the country was left to make a living by itself. The fact that the East Germans originally wanted the reform of the socialist system instead of the dissolution of the GDR on behalf of German reunification proves that a national identity had been making up since 1949. The East German hymn is a worth remembering testimony of a collective will. At the end, all went wrong. People got seduced by the euphoria after the fall of Berlin Wall.

Well, it's a pro-communist for sure. But I find it fascinating none the less. Particularly about how the USSR initiated the Berlin Blockade in response to the Deutschmark being introduced which kept them from receiving reparations from western Germany. Never heard that before.

The best video you've ever done.

East Germany was NOT by any means a multiparty democracy. Politics in the DDR took a similar model to China, in which there were a number of minority puppet parties part of a ruling coalition. The parties under that coalition were more or less the same in ideology with different names to give the illusion of a democracy when it really wasn't.

Dear fellow traveller! I have watched your video to the end. Which means I have respect for it. However: you didn't deal with the issue of Stalinism, in the USSR, and the Stalinist system, as it was present in the DDR. What about such key terms as "nomeclature"? What about its privileges? What about its real turn towards restoration of capitalism? As someone, who left the USSR at the age of 12, and now living in the USA, I can say that your esay has a lot of good points about the DDR, and the USSR. However, you should undestand that the fall of the USSR, and the DDR, is first of all an internal problem, not due to the propaganda imposed by the capitalist West.

You made a very valuable video. Thank you.

Great video.

Great work.

Socialism 4 All left a link in his recent video which brought me here to watch. I did not know this channel existed. You made a very good video which actually gave me more pieces to the puzzle on the history of East Germany. Thank you for your research and presentation.

Lets GO

I would be interesting to know what would have happaned; had there been no Splits between the Socialist Countries.

Great info

Thank you so much for your research and uploading of this eye opening documentary. Let's hope more and more people will become aware of this and demand change; otherwise, the people will rise up and one day, revolution will be thrust upon our governments!

People were not BRIBED across the zone border. An entire video about a DDR-lüge

Bribes?

a country with barbed wire all around, that's the truth. The GDR had increadible enviromental destruction (Wismuth, Leuna, open pit mines, smog, poisoned rivers, ...). It never could feed itself, after they expropriated the family farmers. Most of those farmers emigrated to the West and in the state run LPG farms, productivity was always lower than in the West (but with more pollution, chemical fertilizer, pesticides, etc.). That's why they had to export consumer products to the West, to cover their trade deficit and for the own population only the low quality stuff remained. Also remember: in a country with 17 million inhabitant, about 100.000 were working just for the secret police MfS (ministery for state security). Of course all those spies, policemen, prison wards, informal informants, etc. didn't produce anything, but had to be fed by the working people on who they spied on. If there are about 8 million people in working age, letting more than one percent of those work just for the security apparatus is quite a luxury for such a small country, that is more than 1 % GDP. Military is extra, another one hundred thousand permanent employees plus drafted recruits (that lack in the factories, while they serve). And remember: officers retired with 45 years and didn't work after retirement at all. No free speach, repression all around, closed borders (for the own population), low quality products in the stores, unfriendly unmotivated employees in the stores, everybody was trading stuff on the black market (which meant you had to steal from your workplace, the have something to barter). But they had cheap rents and enough kindergartens ... and low income inequality!

1:00:00

this is a really good video historically accurate and very good perspective of our Eastern Europe perspective

Excellent video essay 50/10

I remember in the early 80s, when I was in my 20s, we in the Philippines looked at the Scandinavian countries as the ideal socialist countries. We felt the communist party of the USSR acted more like Czarist Russia than a socialist country.

I consider myself a socialist, but my heart utterly breaks at the stories of intense persecution faced by Christians under socialist regimes in the 20th century. Ultimately, i am very reluctant to support socialist movements because it really seems that religious people are not welcome and are going to be treated as reactionary counter revolutionaries. Id be ensuring my own destruction. Yet i know capitalism is evil system that perpetuates the social ills that lead to the kind of desperation that leads to drug use,abortions, etc. things which my faith understands as injurious to the soul and body.

Indeed would love to see it reforme again. No wonder so many mis it.

5.13...The North American Treaty Organisation..,lmao,...

Katia Hoyer paints a much more illuminating picture in her book "Beyond the Wall" Though she has quite a few different opinions than our host.

Truly DDR pilled

Very good documentary! 5 plus! DDR was superior!

Wow boy life was really good! We in the US have so much to learn from East Germany! Gosh I sure hope Der Leader Biden unt Kamala watch this video!!!!!