The GDR existed for 41 years. That is considerably longer than the period between the Weimar Republic and the “Third Reich” combined. Nevertheless, the knowledge of Germans about the “second German state” is rather poor. As early as 2010, just 20 years after reunification, one in three young people in West Germany said the GDR was “not a dictatorship”; in the East it was even every second. Willy Brandt and Konrad Adenauer were named as prominent GDR politicians. The demonstrations against the supposedly totalitarian federal government in the fight against the corona epidemic show that, in principle, knowledge about different forms of rule – dictatorship or democratically legitimized state – is poor even in not exactly small parts of the older population.
Given this situation, a book like “And between us the wall” comes at the right time. The volume by the author Suza Kolb, who has made a name for herself above all as a horse-loving children’s book author with a 19-part series (“Haferhorde”), this time deals with the unbelievable peculiarities of the German division. The aim is to address the youngest possible readers between eight and twelve, but in view of the current confusion about issues of “freedom”, reading it would certainly not hurt even significantly older readers.
The author knows what she’s talking about. Suza Kolb, who was born in the Rhineland, had relatives in the GDR through her mother, who came from the Ore Mountains, and she visited them frequently.
They would then – like the fictional 13-year-old Luisa Hermann from West Berlin visiting her East German relatives in 1983 – learn strange things that have apparently been largely forgotten. That even apparent trivialities like playing “system-hostile music” (like that of Udo Lindenberg or Queen), “clothing not conforming to the system” (Levi’s denim jacket) or even a suspicious Mickey Mouse comic by the “class enemy” Luisa is the moloch-like surveillance apparatus of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) were able to bring them to a state of alert.
The author knows what she’s talking about. Suza Kolb, who was born in the Rhineland, had relatives in the GDR through her mother, who came from the Ore Mountains, and she visited them frequently. So she found out that they were being targeted by the Stasi and that one uncle or the other aunt had also been asked to cooperate. The fronts often ran right through the families, as in her book, in which a young girl betrays her 15-year-old brother who is determined to “flee the republic” and who is then placed in the “care” of a youth home.
Despite the serious topic, Suza Kolb managed to make the world of thoughts of Marietta loyal to the state and her fellow fighters from the “Free German Youth” (FDJ) vividly as well as the gradually growing horror of unsuspecting Luisa, especially as an old neighbor to her also told some stories from her family. It goes without saying that the delicate but not kitschy love story of her and the locked 15-year-old Uwe, whom she will only meet again after the fall of the Wall, is one of them.
The author apparently wrote this story with her soul. She herself says: “The historical events and personal experiences were so drastic and unique that every single memory of them is worth preserving – as a small piece of the great mirror of the past.” (from 13 years)