East Germany Podcast - Radio GDR

There is no shortage of recent articles regarding the too long overlooked subject of female directors. While many of these articles are specific to the women directing films today (Patty Jenkins, Kelly Reichardt, Kathryn Bigelow, etc.), there are many more that claim to be comprehensive overviews of the contributions made by women to the art of cinema. These articles are careful to remember female directors from the distant past (Lotte Reiniger, Alice Guy-Blaché) and the ones who boldly made films in Hollywood when women weren’t even considered for jobs as directors (Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, Barbara Loden). They are careful to include women of color (Gina Prince-Bythewood, Chloé Zhao), and they don’t forget the well-known foreign women directors (Lina Wertmüller, Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman). But there’s one group of female directors who haven’t been given due credit for their work: The female directors of East Germany. You can go through as many articles on the topic of female directors as you’re willing to read, and you won’t find Iris Gusner, Evelyn Schmidt, or Hannelore Unterberg mentioned at all. Never mind that the films by these women are often better than any of the films made by some of the directors that did make those lists. Even the list of female directors Wikipedia includes no female East German directors. Join us today as we speak with Jim Morton, author of the East German Cinema Blog, and Jeffrey Babcock, who curated a program on East German cinema for the Goethe Institute in Amsterdam, on the often overlooked topic of female directors in DEFA films.  Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history. If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/. For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook. Vielen dank for being a listener!

Gay spies and espionage….absolutely one of the most incredible topics you can study about the GDR. On today's episode of Radio GDR, we are going to dive into the topic of LGBT espionage, life and struggle for equality behind the Iron Curtain. We have the honor to be joined by Dr. Samuel Huneke, assistant professor of history at George Mason University and author of the riveting book States of Liberation - Gay Men Between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. In the book, Huneke traces the path of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of the Second World War to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, States of Liberation tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men - and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won new rights and created new opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cold War Europe. Relying on untapped archives in Germany and the United States as well as oral histories with witnesses and survivors, Huneke reveals that communist East Germany was in many ways far more progressive on queer issues than democratic West Germany.   Dr. Huneke's book is fantastic and is available here - States of Liberation. Check out Dr. Huneke's bio here.   Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at  https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!

Venceremos! We will overcome! This one word defined the socialist political movement of Salvador Allende's presidency in Chile and, after the military coup of 1973, rolled off the tongues of Chilean exiles and musical bands who found a new home in East Germany. As many of you know, I have long been interested in the GDR's international relations, particularly with Chile given that I studied abroad there in 2007. I was amazed to learn that Chilean refugees fled to the GDR after the 1973 military coup in Chile, that many Chilean bands appeared at political festivals in East Berlin and that Erich Honecker, the deposed general secretary of the SED, died in exile in Santiago, Chile in 1994. John Paul Kleiner introduced me to today's guest, Jesse Freedman, because of our shared interest in the connections between Chile and East Germany, specifically the Festival des Politischen Liedes, or Festival of Political Songs, a musical festival held for many decades during the GDR's existence that hosted bands from Chile and around the world in the name of socialist solidarity. Jesse is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on the reception and role of Chilean nueva canción, a revolutionary musical movement in the 60s and 70s, and the experience of Chilean exiles in the former German Democratic Republic during the years of the Pinochet military dictatorship. Let's join Jesse as he tells us about the history of this festival, the role Chilean bands like Inti-Illimani, Quilapayun and Illapu played to popularize revolutionary music in East Germany and how the festival shaped the GDR's foreign policy all the way until its end. For more information on the Festival of Political Songs and Chilean bands in the GDR, check out https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e8 Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history. If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/. For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook. Vielen dank for being a listener!  

From an outside perspective, it would seem that human rights would be an idea that the East German regime would have had great difficulty reconciling itself with. However, in this episode of the pod, Dr. Ned Richardson-Little, author of The Human Rights Dictatorship: Socialism, Global Solidarity, and Revolution in East Germany, explains how the ruling SED Party fostered the development of a concept of human rights which was compatible with the socialist regime’s domestic and international aims and rejected a liberal individualist understandings of such rights. Dr. Richardson-Little joins host John Paul Kleiner (GDR Objectified blog) to discuss how human rights evolved within SED from a subject the Party was uncomfortable with to one which, for an extended period of time, played a key role in helping secure support for the socialist project in the GDR. He also unpacks how human rights were understood within the population and the role human rights discourses played in bringing down ‘real existing socialism’ in 1989. Dr. Ned Richardson-Little is a Freigeist Fellow at Universität Erfurt, Germany, where he leads a project on international crime and globalization. Some of you may have encountered him on Twitter @HistoryNed handle or his blog “Superfluous Answers to Necessary Questions”. More information on subjects raised in this episode: The 1946 German Elections Wolf Biermann: The Cologne Concert and his explusion from GDR The Helsinki Accords (1975) The Initiative for Peace and Human Rights (1986-1990) Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history. If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/. For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook. Vielen dank for being a listener!

This episode seeks to answer a burning question - what does an artist do with a piece of the Berlin Wall? In our last episode, we interviewed Dr. Jim Doti, Professor and President Emeritus of Chapman University in Orange, California (chapman.edu), about how Chapman secured a piece of the Berlin Wall for the university's lovely campus. Today I am honored to be joined by Chapman's own Professor Emeritus Richard Turner, the artist who designed Liberty Plaza where Chapman's Berlin Wall is displayed. Liberty Plaza is breathtaking - set amongst crepe myrtle trees, the Berlin Wall sits in an oval reflecting pool ringed by Abraham Lincoln's quote "A House Divided Cannot Stand." A stone chair inspired by the Lincoln Memorial sits on a mound facing the wall encouraging students and visitors to consider the importance of freedom. Richard tells us how his time in Asia in the 1960s inspired his beautiful public art projects, which range from metro stations, public parks and water treatment facilities to a justice center, veterans’ memorial and a university chapel. His public work is guided by a desire to make pieces that are accessible but not obvious, pieces that reveal themselves over time to a diverse audience. Thank you, Professors Turner, Doti and Chapman University, for this amazing story.   To learn more about Dr. Doti and Professor Turner's efforts to bring the Berlin Wall to Chapman University, visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e5 and https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e6. Learn more about Richard Turner and his art by visiting http://www.turnerprojects.com/about   Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!

There are many pieces of the Berlin Wall on display all around the world. How did universities, museums and other places secure these sections of what was once the most intimidating symbol of the Iron Curtain? In this episode of Radio GDR, I have the privilege of being joined by Dr. Jim Doti, Professor and President Emeritus of Chapman University in Orange, California (chapman.edu), to tell us how he secured for Chapman what is today the second largest piece of the Berlin Wall owned by an American university. In 1997 after seeing the Berlin Wall at the Reagan Library, Dr. Doti was inspired to procure a piece of the wall for Chapman. Over many months he and his colleagues worked through the Mayor of Berlin's office to secure one of the last sections available. Known colloquially as "the Candy Bomber," Dr. Doti describes the painstaking process of securing the wall to shipping it to California to building their own Berlin Wall memorial known as Liberty Plaza. Upon receipt of the wall, art professor Richard Turner, who we interview in our next episode, designed Liberty Plaza to contrast totalitarianism and freedom - the Berlin Wall sits in an oval reflecting pool surrounded by cement engraved with Abraham Lincoln's quote "A House Divided Cannot Stand." A stone chair sits on a mound facing the wall encouraging students and visitors to consider the importance of freedom. Thank you, Dr. Doti and Chapman University, for this amazing story.   For pictures and more information about Chapman's piece of the Berlin Wall, please visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e5   Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!

We Radio GDR hosts all agree on this simple truth - our favorite interviews are of you the listeners and members of the Facebook group. Jeff Myers joined the group in January of 2022 and has proceeded to post some of the most captivating photos of his trip to the GDR in 1987. From pictures of old East Berlin to Trabants to an eerie "teaching assistant" Stasi officer observing a class, Jeff's pictures tell a story of a trip he's never forgotten. Today an Associate professor at Wake Tech Community College and host of the Let's Talk Wake Tech Travel podcast, Jeff went to the GDR in 1987 as a study abroad participant at Salzburg College where he took a class on capitalism vs. communism. The trip to the GDR inspired his love of travel, and he's been to 54 countries including Cuba, Myanmar, China, Vietnam, and even North Korea in 2007. He has taken 23 trips with his students and teaches at his former study abroad college, Salzburg College, every summer. Join us as Jeff tells us about his trip behind the Berlin Wall.   For Jeff's photos, please visit us at www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e4   Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook. Vielen dank for being a listener!

In 1952, a 24-year old American soldier defected to the Eastern Bloc in order to avoid a US Army disciplinary hearing and what he feared would be draconian punishment for his involvement in socialist and communist politics in the United States. This decision put his life on an entirely new trajectory, one that left him with a new name, Victor Grossman, and left him in the then young German Democratic Republic, a country that became his home for the remaining 37+ years of his existence. A committed socialist, Grossman identified closely with the aims of the East German state, but always maintained a critical perspectives on his new home. Over two discussions with Radio GDR host John Paul Kleiner, Grossman takes stock of “the workers and peasants state.” In the first of these, Grossman focuses on the achievements of what the GDR labeled “real-existing socialism,” laying out the ways in which East Germany broke with German history and contrasting it with the Federal Republic to the west. He discusses how the country’s priorities were reflected in the everyday lives of its citizens and openly addresses some of the contradictions which were evident in GDR society and economy as its leaders sought to consolidate a socialist state on German soil. John Paul would like to give special thanks to his friend Marcus Funck in Berlin for assistance with this interview. Without this help, it wouldn’t have happened, so thank you, Marcus! For more resources on Victor Grossman, including information on his book, please visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e3 Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!

In our first interview of season 3, we speak with Michael Califra, author of "No Man's Land," one of our favorite works of fiction about life in divided Berlin. Michael lived and worked in Germany, mostly in Berlin, from 1986 to 1998 where he crossed between East and West many times. When he first considered writing about Berlin, it was still divided. The challenge then was to render in fiction a situation more absurdly fictional than any he could imagine. When the Wall fell and Germany and Berlin were reunified, it soon became clear that the city he knew would be quickly erased, just as the Berlin of the Kaiser had been overtaken by Weimar Berlin, which had then been wiped away by Hitler's capital, which was then replaced by Cold War cities of East and West Berlin. Wanting to document the place he knew would soon dissolve into history was the motivation behind writing his novel. Join us as Michael relates his crossings between East and West, his impressions of what life was like in the GDR and his memories the night the Berlin Wall fell.   For Michael's photos and a link to purchase Michael's book, please visit https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/s3e2   Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!

Welcome to Radio GDR Season 3! Join Steve Minegar, Shane Whaley, Anke Holst and John Paul Kleiner as we talk about what we’ve been up to, what we’re learning and what we look forward to sharing in this season. Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of the most important pieces of Cold War history.   If you feel more comfortable leaving us a review to help us get more listeners, we appreciate it very much and encourage you to do so wherever you get your podcasts or at https://www.eastgermanypodcast.com/reviews/new/.   For discussions about podcast episodes and GDR history, please do join our Facebook discussion group. Just search Radio GDR in Facebook.   Vielen dank for being a listener!