They were poor because they spent a large fraction of their GDP on the Wall.

I've heard the claim before that the Wall was built to keep Westerners out. But, as I said, I've visited the Wall in 1969. It was very clearly designed to keep people in, not out. The defenses pointed East. It was a layered defense, with the weakest parts easternmost and the deadliest parts adjacent to the Wall itself. Exactly what would be built to defend from attack from the East. You'll see the same setup in fortifications from castles (layers pointing outwards) to prisons (layers pointing inwards).

For another example, West Berlin helped out people who wanted to invade East Berlin by building platforms so one could look over the Wall (as myself and lots of tourists did). Nobody hopped over, though, to invade the East. But many got shot trying to go the other way, there's a museum there documenting it.

BTW, it was the East that blockaded West Berlin, attempting to starve the city into submission, not the other way around.

The wall was mainly built to prevent brain drain. The richer West was bribing people to move there, after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East. It was a last resort taken out of desperation over the West’s constant economic and covert military attacks and arguably still a mistake. For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it.

A similar kind of brain drain is happening all over Eastern Europe, to disastrous consequences. Especially with COVID it’s a massive problem that most trained medics have emigrated.

The West didn't need to bribe people, it just had to not take people's rights and things.

> For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it.

It's a laughable idea that the GDR did decide such things without Moscow. Closing and fortifying the German-German border effectively happened on Stalins orders, the Berlin Wall was built with Moscows permission.

The why do the Soviet archives contain detailed accounts of Stalin himself (and several other leaders) discussing the matter and sending a recommendation against the wall? Why do the same archives tell us about the proposal of a unified neutral Germany after the war?

> recommendation

Recommending is not the same thing as ordering or proscribing.

> proposal

I'm sure a lot of proposals were floated and discussed.

> after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East

Yeah, I've heard that before. How the communists provided a free education, and so the citizens then owed a lifetime of servitude in return.

While not agreeing with them, I was interested in your arguments in the parent comments.

This one is wrong to the point of making you seem delusional.

> The GDR was poor because it was small,

It was about double the size of Switzerland, four times the size of Norway or Denmark, 30 times the size of Luxembourg. Do you see where I am going here?

> didn’t start out with much industry,

Berlin and Prussia have a rich industrial history.

> had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital,

Calling West-Berlin the hostile enclave is insulting to hundreds of people getting shot trying to flee towards it. You should be ashamed for this sentence.

> paid reparations,

... enforced on it by their communist puppet-master.

> competed with the US-funded western part

The effects of the Marshall plan are overestimated. It competed with its dysfunctional system against a functioning one.

> and was under constant attack from it.

I am confused. Are you talking about the care-packages sent to Eastern Germany by western family members?

That person should watch The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen

I understand it is difficult to question much of what one has learned growing up about the past. It took me a lot of talking to older Eastern Europeans and reading history and political theory to begin questioning the default narrative.

The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant.

It’s not the people of West Berlin that were hostile, but its state and US occupiers. The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany. Leaving Nazis in positions of power in the west was the second.

Now you are insulting the people of the former GDR by implying they were puppets of the Soviets. Did you know the USSR were against the wall, but the GDR built it after all? In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe.

In addition to the Marshal plan (which was significant in West Germany), imperialism continued. As the most obvious example, West German banks continued to export capital at extortionate rates to extract profits from poorer countries.

There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting? Western agents were found all over Eastern Europe spreading lies, arming fascists, assassinating people, etc.

I recommend you speak to some people that experienced the GDR. Their opinions are instructive.

Here’s one older Eastern European telling you simply: you know nothing. You are parroting Soviet propaganda lies.

Not all of us Eastern Europeans agree on everything. Having talked to hundreds older than myself on the topic however, I found overall they disagreed with you.

Well, of course, there was the ruling class, the party members. They are quite fond of the good old times when they ruled based on connections, politics and favors.

They hate with a passion the current times when people are able do better themselves and achieve their dreams on their own however they wish and wherever they wish, in freedom.

I’ve only talked to a handful of former party members.

What I did find is that those whose families were poor had most praise for socialist and condemnation for the return to poverty after 89. Freedom from poverty, hunger, homelessness, ignorance are important.

Former gentry, small business owners and fascists did hate socialism, indeed. The freedom to exploit others was what they wanted.

Secret police then - I bet they are in no hurry to admit their role in the commie shit show but there sure was an awful lot of them. You couldn't say one joke without an informant reporting it to the powers that be. Every group of friends had at least one and every family too.

And I wouldn't be so sure about the fascists hating socialists - weren't they even allies at some point? They seemed quite chummy to me. And they certainly had the same obsession with killing the ones they perceived as "guilty" for the whatever "societal injustices" their sick minds imagined.

"The poor" seemed quite happy to take off into the exploitative West to make some money after '89 though. ;-)

> The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant.

I repeat my point: Switzerland is tiny compared to Germany, yet it is richer. Russia is big compared to Germany, yet it is way poorer. China is enormous compared to Germany, yet it took ages to overtake German productivity and is still somewhat within range.

> The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany.

Historically just wrong. There were different plans during and after WW2. Britain had the idea to do a North-South division. The UDSSR wanted to split Germany permanently and as small as possible. Read what Stalin said in Teheran in 1943. It was not the US, who proposed to divide Germany.

All of them invaded Germany, but the US did so comitting less war crimes (e.g. against women) themselves than the UDSSR and with less intend to destroy everything or move it to America. That's of course also, because their people were less affected. We all know, who they acted in the Pacific. But it was also, because they had learned from WW1 and tried to bring stability to Europe. The UDSSR brought a totally different kind of "stability".

> In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe.

If you ignore giving up 25% of its landmass with entire cities like Königsberg/Kaliningrad, which is now impoverished because of the system you are defending, then sure. I also don't know whether Poland and other Eastern European countries would have called the UDSSR a victim, after they had been invaded by them.

> The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany.

Germans have to be forever thankful for the US keeping tabs on Berlin. It is part of the reason why Germany could reuinte eventually. You probably know about the Berlin Airlift. The UDSSR has proven its open inhumanity not only against enemies but also its own people and people they controlled time and time again.

> There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting?

It's own people. The documents are still there, you can look at them. It was a horrendous system. I cannot imagine why you defend it. I can admit that the West is not perfect. We can find ways to improve it, without defending a system that is so clearly worse.