• @anewbeginning@lemmy.world
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    531 year ago

    Beautiful story until he returns to east Germany after reunification and his family rejects him and he kills himself 9 year later.

    • PugJesusM
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      231 year ago

      Indeed. It’s astounding how some people have the ‘crab bucket’ mentality, even towards their own family members.

      • Chariotwheel
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        131 year ago

        It’s not just that, although that’s certainly part of it. As such a famous “traitor” he was a target of the Stasi, and as people knew from the Gestapo, operations don’t necessarily seize just because the organization is officially shut down.

        Now, all in all, he wasn’t very important and nobody actually came for him, however, thanks to the panoptic nature of the GDR surveillance state you never knew what exactly was important and what wasn’t, who watched or if you were watched. So associating with a traitor was dangerous.

        That is the nature of mass surveillance. And also a reminder for today. The Stasi would’ve creamed itself if it had a quarter of the tools available today.

      • @redcalcium
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        11 year ago

        Was the family punished or shunned for having a family member defect?

  • @TalesFromTheKitchen@lemmy.ml
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    191 year ago

    My mom and her mother fled from east Berlin in the 50’s before they built the wall after being pressured by the Stasi. They put all their belongings in a stroller and fled in the night. Wild times, but certainly the right decision.