DDR survives

@Michael:
The attempt of an improved economic situation for the DDR seems almost pointless to me (in the sense of a surviving Communist DDR). Problem is, the socialist states would not use efficiently whatever trade surplus they would generate. They just did not have any structures rewarding efficient use of ressources.

Economic easing, though, can be an ingredient to such a TL, but it doesn't suffice as a reason for the DDR living on on itself.


*chuckles* Sorry, when I first read this thread title I thought it was about Dance Dance Revolution, and was like "When did that fad die?? And why is it revelant to history???" :p
When I saw this thread, I thought it was about Dance Dance Revolution.

As Ms Honnecker is my witness, I had never heard about "Dance Dance Revolution" before joining this forum ...
 

terence

Banned
I assume that technology and living conditions in West-Germany would be similar to OTL, maybe even better.

The GDR in 2009 would celebrate...

...finally telephone-access in every household. Also, if you order a cell-phone (one of the kind which only can do phone-calls and SMS) it only takes 7 years until delivery.
...the brand-new Trabant 601 and the Wartburg 2.0
The former being on the technical standard of the late 80s with a breathtaking 60hp and the latter being a thinly veiled Opel Vectra A reconstruction.
...internet? Well, you can apply for access. You can also try to access Western homepages - alas, due to the poor phone lines, it takes ages until they download.

The infrastructure? A nightmare! The ecological situation? It is a desaster area. Many of the old cities, which are in OTL beautifully restored, would have been torn down or just to derelict to safe by now...

I've just been watching a documentary about the last days of the DDR.
One joke was the man who went to buy a Trabant in 1979. He paid his deposit and the salesman said that they would deliver it on 5th June 1999. He asked, "Morning or Afternoon?". The salesman said "But that's in 20 years, why are worried about the time?"
The customer explained that a man was coming to fix the plumbing in the afternoon.

Second story was that the reason communism fell when it did is that the educated, political elite of the East realised that they would be financially better off as bank clerks in the West, than as members of the Politburo in the East.

As someone else has said. A DDR without a closed border would have been populated by six old men spying on each other.
 
Possibly a silly POD but one which might add something to the possibility: what if the two Germanies adopted different television systems to each other, even before the advent of colour? (With colour the DDR adopted SECAM wheras the BRD adopted PAL). I seem to have gathered part of the problem was that West German TV signals could easily be picked up in the East (apart from Dresden which was supposedly nicknamed "valley of the clueless" partly for this reason). If there is no means of seeing exactly how the West sees them and what things are "really" like, not to mention the West's spin on the fatal press conference concerning the proposed easing of border restrictions, would those in the East have as much to go on?

Of course this does neglect things like radio, and the obvious fact that other Communist nations collapsed in Eastern Europe without easy access to Western media in their own language.
 

terence

Banned
what if the two Germanies adopted different television systems to each other, even before the advent of colour? (With colour the DDR adopted SECAM wheras the BRD adopted PAL). I seem to have gathered part of the problem was that West German TV signals could easily be picked up in the East (apart from Dresden which was supposedly nicknamed "valley of the clueless" partly for this reason). If there is no means of seeing exactly how the West sees them and what things are "really" like, not to mention the West's spin on the fatal press conference concerning the proposed easing of border restrictions, would those in the East have as much to go on?

Of course this does neglect things like radio, and the obvious fact that other Communist nations collapsed in Eastern Europe without easy access to Western media in their own language.

Actually, East Germans bought PAL/SECAM decoders (they had Secam D/K as I recall), but plenty of the older B&W sets stayed in use.
People behind the iron curtain didn't need West German TV to know what went on in the West. THEY JUST KNEW. There was, and is, a good bellwether of a society's information access--- what music are the kids dancing to and what are the young women wearing?
Hungary was already a pretty open society in 1985/1986, as was Czechoslovakia and what they knew and heard went around the communist world within days. Freddie Mercury & Queen perform in Budapest and within days there are tapes and videos (yes, videos) on sale all over Eastern Europe and forget blue jeans and stockings---the best way to pull an East European girl in the 1980s was to have lots of copies of Burda--that's a german fashion magazine that includes dress patterns.
 
Possibly a silly POD but one which might add something to the possibility: what if the two Germanies adopted different television systems to each other, even before the advent of colour? [...] I seem to have gathered part of the problem was that West German TV signals could easily be picked up in the East ...

That's a crucial point.

Wolf Biermann, one of the most famous DDR civil rights activsts, once said his fantacy would not suffice to imagine a DDR without West TV.

Of course, in an AH forum, we might do better in terms of fantancy than a balladeer ...

Terence is of course right in that there are other channels than HF on which social streamings, rumors, moods penetrate an iron curtain. Moreover, one sense may substitute others if the fail. One of these channels were family contacts. You learn a lot from letters even if the STASI reads along, Western relatives sometimes visited, and (more frequently) elder people after retirement age were going to their Western kin and could tell a story or two on their return.

But TV is of course very fast, ensures broad spreading, and is creates deep and easy-to-remember impressions (through combination of movie and sound). Without it, almost any information, myth, or feeling would spread much slower, travel less far, and would be more easily doubted, opposed to, or disproved.

So I am sure that there would be a considerable dampening on civil rights activities.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, TV is capable of providing with quick information.
This was put to use in the "hot phase" in fall 1989, recruiting for demonstrations partially worked via West news ("tomorrow, more protests are expected in ..").
 
on The TV thing
i alwas wondert why had DDR not switch on Cable television ?
TV transmitted from large "community antennas" through coaxial cables to the televisions
the STASIS would had controll over "community antennas" and People get only DDR TV Channels.
 
Michel Van said:
i alwas wondert why had DDR not switch on Cable television ?

Even in West Germany there were parts in fall 1989 which didn't have cable (my parent's village got it in spring'89)
In the GDR the process of laying those cables would supposedly be even slower...
And that won't necessarily stop them from watching west german stations anyways (heck, even my TV which dates from the late nineties still has an option for a "Zimmerantenne")
 
Dance Dance Revolution is still quite popular in arcades. Also, as a spiritual descendant of Beat-Mania, its cousins still thrive. E.g. Guitar Hero.. Rock Band...

*ducks*
 

terence

Banned
on The TV thing
i alwas wondert why had DDR not switch on Cable television ?
TV transmitted from large "community antennas" through coaxial cables to the televisions
the STASIS would had controll over "community antennas" and People get only DDR TV Channels.

That is a very good point!
Co-ax "cable TV" was pretty common in the UK at one time, but run by a single company ostensibly for signal quality reasons. They rented the TV as well as the service and the sets were 'rigged' to only work on their service.
When TV started in South Africa in 1975, the government passed a law OUTLAWING any cable diffusion service to prevent anything other than their shit being broadcast. Anyone know what happened in Romania under Ceausecu? There are no private TVs in N Korea ( at least not in 1989)
 

terence

Banned
Surely it would be far more expensive.
In a totalitarian state nothing is too expensive to maintain control of the people.
How are these bits of fun.
The Stasi made anyone who they interrogated swab their armpits and crotch with a rag. The rag was placed in a bottle and labelled with the idea that if they had to track someone down, they could use a sniffer dog. ( Sort of an early DNA database).
In Romania, one needed a licnse to own a typewriter. A sample page of typing from a machine had to be lodged with the Securitate so that any Samizdat could be tracked down. ( They obviously never came across an IBM golfball).
 
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