TRS - Jim Spence's Rangers Jibes

[andy steel 0]

Bloody interesting diversion, though.

 

What about the industrial sized spying on the entire population? You have said yourself that you'll have a file; no doubt there are plenty of files in the UK's offices somewhere too, but to spy on an entire nation? The image in my head of the DDR is a complete psychological basket case so its really interesting to hear of people presumably going about their daily lives without the dread 3AM knock at the door looming ever present in their minds.

 

In final protest against the Actually Existing Socialism of that state, I must say that some of your lady athletes were a little hairy.

[amms 0]

Having watched 'Goodbye, Lenin!', 'Run Lola Run' and the excellent 'The Lives Of Others' (all three were excellent actually) I feel I'm now an expert on East Berlin...

I think what we can conclude from this is that DB remains a sleeper for either the Stasi or the Red Army Faction awaiting further instruction from the 'east'. He's like Gersnet's own Manchurian Candidate, the Mikhailichenko Candidate if you like. One can only conclude that when he's reactivated Speirs and Spence will not sleep soundly in their beds.

[der Berliner 3,743]

If you'd see all the data I've collected on each and every one of you ....

 

Ahem ... nope AS, I did not say that I have a file, I say that I have not looked up whether I have one and if so, what's in there. I would assume there is one, a) because of my father (which remains private, but don't get paranoid) and b) because everyone above soldier level who served at the HQ of EG Navy will have been checked. I would assume the same happens with each and every officer et al at any army/navy/air force HQ in the western world. My rather open interest in Scotland and Rangers even at school level MIGHT have raised an eyebrow, yet, nothing came of it as I was still sent to the Navy HQ.

 

Spying on the entire nation is blown out proportion* and while we are at it, 'Goodbye, Lenin!' (to a degree) and 'The Lives Of Others' are hopelessly tainted by stereotypes. Likewise, I could point at 'The Bourne Supremacy' (also taking place in Berlin) is the way the CIA works and has always worked.

 

*They leadership grew not only old, but rather paranoid from the mid-80s onwards. Not least since Poland "jumped ship". The measurements of clinging to power and keeping everything under control went way beyond any previous measures as well as - at times - against East German law.** As I've said above, that was a desperate time though and most of the naughty stuff being done there by a rather selective group of people is being used now to portray East Germany and the Stasi much like you perceive it and relate to above.

 

** If you dig deeper, one would find (in the actual files) that nigh all (sic!) of the "spying activity" upon East Germans had to be sanctified by lawyers and judges - no laughs at the back - according to EG law, which was as strict and "lawful" as West German law was and modern day German is. And rest assured, I know how difficult to understand that will be for people who only got and get one way of information, i.e. the Western World's and those "tainted" by the victors. (Victors, whose own secret service (Organisation Gehlen -> Bundesnachrichtendienst) was made up entirely of former Nazi intelligence officers ... )

[amms 0]

Hang about, I thought the Bourne Supremacy was a documentary.

 

You might be surprised to know there were people, and a good number of them too, who lived very close to where Andy, me and many of the guys on here live in Central Scotland who were card carrying communists and firm believers that East Germany in particular was the ideal state. I knew a man who used to go to the May Day parade in Moscow every year and would send my girlfriend's father a postcard back with the same message 'Greetings from Red Square, comrade'.

 

Your take on the Stasi is interesting. For what it's worth I very much doubt Speirs is as enlightened on their activities as you. Rightly or wrongly it is used as shorthand to describe people who would suppress free speech or dissent.

[der Berliner 3,743]

Rightly or wrongly it is used as shorthand to describe people who would suppress free speech or dissent.

 

Yep, no doubt about that. BTW, I was referring to the Matt Damon "Jason Bourne" movies, one taking place in Berlin. Much like the movies about the Stasi mentioned above, they give a peculiar look upon the (possible)* work of the CIA and its attached services. I would assume that if people look into the CIA files they would find some rather naughty facts and statements about their activities (or activities carried out in their name) all over the world. And yes, the Stasi was also a rather active secret service outside of East Germany. Which is no praise, just to make sure that it is not misunderstood to be some sort of late-Gestapo-like enterprise ... which people might conclude all too easily.

 

*Well, the Stasi would probably be shamed by the activities unveiled by the "whistleblower" ...

[The Real PapaBear 0]

Bloody interesting diversion, though.

 

What about the industrial sized spying on the entire population? You have said yourself that you'll have a file; no doubt there are plenty of files in the UK's offices somewhere too, but to spy on an entire nation?

 

Ahem...NSA anyone? Edward Snowden?

 

The image in my head of the DDR is a complete psychological basket case so its really interesting to hear of people presumably going about their daily lives without the dread 3AM knock at the door looming ever present in their minds.

 

Too much George Orwell for you, m'lad, or maybe not enough. Animal Farm was intended at dB's lot, but 1984 was aimed squarely at us in the West - and lo!, has much of it not come to pass?

 

In my experience of the DDR, the people were more frustrated than afraid. They could get West German TV and radio and had frequent, albeit not unhindered, contact with friends and relatives in the West, so they knew how we lived and the freedoms we enjoyed. But, 90% of them were like 90% of us - and just wanted to go to work, come home, have a beer and spend time with the family - they had no more reason to expect a 3AM knock at the door then you or I.

The difference was what happened to that 10% of 'troublemakers'.

[andy steel 0]

My reading on the DDR was done about a decade ago, in the first rush of historians to get hold off interviews with Markus Wolf and the like, and of westerners moving into Osty homes and pretending to live the harsh reality...the bullet scarred streets, where the Red Army chased out Adolf, the fences, the wall and so on.

 

I don't know that it is one way information, because what I recall of it was heavy with peoples' life stories, how they were harassed and harried. It seemed pretty grim, anyway. I'm going up the Uni library later on and instead of boring old studying what I'm meant to be I shall gather what I can on the western, post-Communist take on the DDR because, frankly, it's more interesting than the poetics of urban space.

 

As for the allies after WW2, I still yell 'Nazi swine!' with great indignation at the TV every time Werner von Braun happens by in a NASA documentary. Rocket genius or not, he should have been shot.

[amms 0]

Yep, no doubt about that. BTW, I was referring to the Matt Damon "Jason Bourne" movies, one taking place in Berlin. Much like the movies about the Stasi mentioned above, they give a peculiar look upon the (possible)* work of the CIA and its attached services. I would assume that if people look into the CIA files they would find some rather naughty facts and statements about their activities (or activities carried out in their name) all over the world. And yes, the Stasi was also a rather active secret service outside of East Germany. Which is no praise, just to make sure that it is not misunderstood to be some sort of late-Gestapo-like enterprise ... which people might conclude all too easily.

 

*Well, the Stasi would probably be shamed by the activities unveiled by the "whistleblower" ...

 

Yeah, yeah, I knew, it was my poor attempt at humour, it could have done with an emoticon.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

My reading on the DDR was done about a decade ago, in the first rush of historians to get hold off interviews with Markus Wolf and the like, and of westerners moving into Osty homes and pretending to live the harsh reality...the bullet scarred streets, where the Red Army chased out Adolf, the fences, the wall and so on.

 

I don't know that it is one way information, because what I recall of it was heavy with peoples' life stories, how they were harassed and harried. It seemed pretty grim, anyway. I'm going up the Uni library later on and instead of boring old studying what I'm meant to be I shall gather what I can on the western, post-Communist take on the DDR because, frankly, it's more interesting than the poetics of urban space.

 

As for the allies after WW2, I still yell 'Nazi swine!' with great indignation at the TV every time Werner von Braun happens by in a NASA documentary. Rocket genius or not, he should have been shot.

 

Tbh there wasn't a great deal of movement from West to East, at least in the period immediately after the wall came down. What there was, from anecdotal evidence (I was living in West Germany at the time and a fair amount of my work involved 'refugees' from the DDR) was West Berliners, with West Berlin jobs and West Berlin incomes, renting property in East Berlin - and by doing so boosting their monthly disposable income by about 30%.

 

The big movement was East to West, where (much like the Poles, Hungarias etc in Scotland today) you had qualified people, lawyers, engineers, accountants, working as cleaners and shop assistants, just so they could live in the West.

And, also, so that they could buy bananas. Seriously; for 6 months after the wall fell, you could scarcely find a banana in West Germany - the Ossies were buying them all up.

 

Remember, too, that most people (i.e. the 90%) if asked to give their life stories, don't really have much to say - so those that do, are a fairly self-selecting group.

 

The DDR was, by all accounts, a drab place, where people lived drab lives - and, no kidding, you are the first person I can ever recall using the word 'interesting' with regard to the old DDR - although, they did have a cracking national anthem, it has to be said.

[Blue Moon 1,289]

Tbh there wasn't a great deal of movement from West to East, at least in the period immediately after the wall came down. What there was, from anecdotal evidence (I was living in West Germany at the time and a fair amount of my work involved 'refugees' from the DDR) was West Berliners, with West Berlin jobs and West Berlin incomes, renting property in East Berlin - and by doing so boosting their monthly disposable income by about 30%.

 

The big movement was East to West, where (much like the Poles, Hungarias etc in Scotland today) you had qualified people, lawyers, engineers, accountants, working as cleaners and shop assistants, just so they could live in the West.

And, also, so that they could buy bananas. Seriously; for 6 months after the wall fell, you could scarcely find a banana in West Germany - the Ossies were buying them all up.

 

Remember, too, that most people (i.e. the 90%) if asked to give their life stories, don't really have much to say - so those that do, are a fairly self-selecting group.

 

The DDR was, by all accounts, a drab place, where people lived drab lives - and, no kidding, you are the first person I can ever recall using the word 'interesting' with regard to the old DDR - although, they did have a cracking national anthem, it has to be said.

 

I would agree, to us looking on that their lives were drab. I was in Prague recently and you could see the streets and housing estates that were built during the communist era which can be seen all over the eastern bloc and just the sheer lack of any beauty or aesthetic value.

 

I did have a long conversation with our guide about attitudes towards the communist era as I had seen a very interesting documentary 2 or 3 years ago about the DDR. He was old enough to remember the period but also young enough to have a foot in both camps. According to him, attitudes in the Czech Republic are similar to those of East Germans: they dislike the uncertainty of the free market and miss the security of the state providing for them and many, particularly older people, would be happy to return to their former rulers. He does not miss the corruption!

 

Interestingly, I think the biggest building we saw was the Police HQ. I said to my other half, I could picture the thousands of agents interrogating their supects during the old regime.

 

A bit off topic!!