I love that movie! I hope it will be successful in other countries, too. And btw: I don't like German movies, either;-)

"But then again it's sad how the GDR was conquered by the German West"

Sorry, I find this remark mildly preposterous. Allow me to share the story of how I predicted the Fall of the Wall:

Summer 1989, I ended up doing volunteer work beautifying the Unter den Linden in East Berlin (long story).

My espanol characterization of the Trabant, "La leyenda que se puede conducir todos los dias" (the legend you can drive every day) endlessly amused the Cubans in our group. As did my opinion that the ubercommunist director "mame la pinga."

Anyway, one morning we were taking a break (unlike in Poland at the time, the socialist brigade leaders were some Stakhanovite M.F.s and we had to be downtown by 0700).

I asked a West German what was in the East German answer to pravda. She laughed and said in English, "You can't believe anything in their papers."

The female half of the pairing I had termed "The Perfect Socialist" couple, who had theretofore not spoken English, exploded in a tirade, in German, in response to our conversation in English!

Mildly hungover, I dozed off and woke up 45 minutes later. Frau Perfect Socialist Girl was still arguing. Unbelievably, our break had stretch past the hour mark.

It occurred to me: the brigade leader was not there and we were out of earshot of any authority figures.

I learned from the West German that the East German had complained vociferously about the stifling conformity and suffocating and ultimately disspiriting misery of life in the GDR. Lack of freedom, lack of consumer choice, fear of the Stasi--it all came out.

That was August of 1989. When I returned to this side o the pond at the end of the month, I repeatedly predicted the fall of the DDR.

Incidentally, a Stasi dude followed me and a Dutch friend all over the place one day. I am still honored.

I don't think conquered is even close to the right word. Gorbachev's liberalization and the initative taken by the people themselves freed East Germany.

I mean seriously, the footage of the wall tumbling was a celebration, not a conquest. The DDR built and shot those who sought to scale it--not the FRG. Communism is death.

Yes, you can see it from different sides. I've grown up in the West of Germany, and I was happy when Germany was reunited. Though I was still a kid at the age of 13 at that time. And I could only see the positive things about it.

I've later at the age of 21 moved to the East of Germany to get to know the area and to get to know people that lived in the GDR. And I've seen a lot of disappointment. I think a lot of the GDR's culture has just simply replaced by the West, even though a lot in the GDR was not really that bad.

One example is that women could take their children with them to their jobs, they had kindergarten's at the jobs, so that also women could work. It's been taken away after the reunification.

There are many examples. This is what I think the country's been conquered for. And maybe in the past you didn't have great jobs in the GDR, but nowadays many do not have any jobs at all in the East. In my city there's 20% of unemployment, in some areas outside of cities there's 50% unemployment. For these people the reunification of Germany did pretty much nothing.

Many people who had a qualification in the GDR had to learn again to be qualified for other jobs for the new Western East, because their old qualification was not recognized in the new East. These people have just been taken away their roots.

Fair points.

To take issue with the term "conquer" is not to dismiss entirely the points that you make. On balance, though, good riddance to the DDR.

For what it's worth, I saw that the DDR had a much higher standard of living than the other Soviet satellites. Personally, I enjoyed the cold milk in plastic bags and the selection of affordable wursts.

Cheers.

I think Michelle (the other one, not me *g*) means conquer in the sense that the reunification took place only a year after the wall came down. Later on a lot of talk came up that it would have been better for East Germany, if the reunification would have been later. Much later. In this sense West Germany "swallowed" the former GDR in whole and a lot of things vanished from one day to the other. Only years later people were ready to realize that some things were much better in the GDR. And only a later reunification could have made a political/social/cultural melange between the countries possible. The West conquer the East - but the tragic thing is that the East welcomed the West with open arms and didn't realize that it was giving up a lot of things that were worth saving. The kindergarten is only one example and the fact that a lot of old GDR products are successfully in stores again is also just a symptom for that.

'Nuff said;-)

Fair enough again.

I just think that expectations are sometimes a bit too high. Radical transformations such as German unification are inevitably going to cause dislocations, no matter the timing. On balance, erasing a Stalinist regime is an overwhelming positive.

Personally, I opposed unification primarily because the first 75 years of a strong, united Germany taught us that a strong, united Germany is not necessarily a welcome phenomenon.

Yes, Michelle, that's exactly what I mean. I do not regret that Germany was reunited. It has its good and bad sides. But I'm sorry the GDR was purely "swallowed" as you said it. We should have merged, and not take over.

@Chris: Sure, a radical transformation will cause dislocations, as you call it. The point I was trying to make, is that the transformation could have been less radical. But in the end it's just theoretical talk. We're talking of a country that was seperated for 40 years, where nearly 100 percent of the inhabitants didn't even know how the other part of Germany looked and felt like. It's just logical that we wanted what we saw on TV for years - we wanted the west and we wanted it now and fast and complete.

Well, I agree. So there.

Russia is another compelling case against too radical a transformation.

Cheers.

P.S. I think it was a handball ;)