Finnish media Helsingin Sanomat Propaganda

Finland: Helsingin Sanomat Scribbles Puff-Piece on Grandmas Remembering the ‘Good Ol Days’ in the German Communist DDR…….


 

Pathetic.

Forget about all that murder and mayhem by the state, life was tranquil, safe and no hate-speech…

 

Marcus Ohra-aho on Twitter:

I could have thought they had interviewed someone who was and is critical against the regime, which collapsed. It collapsed because it was cruel and corrupted. It didn’t collapse from outside pressure but by citizens, who finally realized socialism d.o.e.s. n.o.t. w.o.r.k.

 

Well said. The Helsingin Sanomat does this kind of crap/propaganda pseudo-journalism time and again. Some years ago during Holocaust Remembrance Week, they ran an article on the Jews of Iran, and how great the quality of life was there for them. It also reminds me of their ludicrous puff-piece on Heznazis of Lebanon “Hitchhiking with Hezbollah“. Two Finnish female journalists in a broken down car waiting for help in the hillsides of Lebanon: “They didn’t have any beards, spoke French and were so friendly!”

 

Totally detached from reality. Propaganda

 

This is the longest house in the GDR, within which you can walk more than three kilometers in one direction – Residents warmly remember the communal and safe time in East Germany

It is 30 years since German reunification, but everyone knows that there is no unity – Angela Merkel encourages us to see the achievements made together, even though there is still work to be done.

 

2:00 | Updated 9:30 AM

Leipzig

 

IN EASTERN Germany, on the outskirts of Leipzig, four ladies in white and gray haps are gaining momentum quickly. Let us now recall the good sides of the GDR. Yes, there were, and talking about them is not taboo here.

 

The sun is shining and the sky is clear – just like in the children’s song of the socialist era known in East Germany, the Soviet Union and Finland, the sun always shines.

The ladies are the inhabitants of the longest concrete colossus, or residential block, in former East Germany and now spend the afternoon in the smell of a newly cut lawn, with benches placed in the shade of a tree.

 

Leipzig is the largest city in the state of Saxony, bordering Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, with a population of about half a million. Saxony is one of the six “new Länder”, as the Länder of the German Democratic Republic is still called.

 

The huge Prefabricated Houses were one of the symbols of the GDR. There are still many of them in East Germany, and many are well taken care of. This giant is also in good shape. The renovation was done 10 years ago. The ladies are happy with their home. In addition to pensioners, it is home to immigrants.

The ten-storey house is 336 meters long. You can walk through the whole house without stepping out, and by walking through all the floors and blocks you can make more than three kilometers.

Outside there is an outdoor gym, playground and mini golf course that no one is using right now.

“There’s nothing to complain about in the apartments, and the rent is reasonable, too,” Isolde Berthold says.

The GDR is now being talked about because October 3 marks the 30th anniversary of the unification of East and West Germany into one constitution. It took almost a year since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The anniversary of German unity is like a day of independence in Germany. So the question is: what does German unity mean to you?

The ladies hesitated. Unification feels more like empty rhetoric, and it doesn’t really come to mind – just a comparison to the West.

“30 years – and nothing at all. There are better pensions in the West than we have. However, we have done a lot of work, ”Erika Klugel says. She worked in the GDR as a nurse.

It is true that in East Germany, women also worked outside the home, while on the former West German side, home motherhood was and still is the norm in many places.

As a result of the employment of both men and women, the pay gap between men and women in the states of the former GDR is smaller than in the West. However, wages are still lower than in the West.

 

The women think of the many good things about the GDR: All children were vaccinated and did not need to be vaccinated separately. Vaccine critique is now common in Germany.

 

There was a daycare place for all the children. Isolde Berthold says the children walked home with each other already from kindergarten because there was nothing to fear or dangerous. There were hardly any cars on the streets, and everyone in the neighborhood knew each other.

Now, in the state of Saxony, there are well over a quarter of people over the age of 65, the number of children has decreased and the migration loss in the East has continued for a long time.

 

More in Finnish at the HS

 

Rosi Lange, Erika Klugel, Edeltraud Berthold and Isolde Berthold spend time in the courtyard of the longest house in the former East Germany in Leipzig. Retired women have many good memories of East Germany. According to them, life was so safe back then that even the children walked home from kindergarten alone. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.