‘I have so often wondered’, the historian Katja Hoyer says, ‘what I would have made of the state that I was born into had I been born a few years earlier and lived through it in the way that other people did.’

That state was East Germany or the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This was a nation that emerged out of the ashes of World War II and existed until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1990. The GDR is remembered today in the West as a neurotic, oppressive nation, synonymous with its Ministry for State Security or Stasi.

But in her new book Beyond The Wall, Hoyer attempts to present a fresh image. What was life really like for the citizens of the GDR, especially its youth? How did the ideals of the time impact them? Why were young leftists - among them Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn - so drawn to visit?

In this revealing episode, Hoyer takes Artemis Irvine back on a trip to 1973 to find out. 

Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian, journalist and. A visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a columnist for the Washington Post and hosts the podcast The New Germany. Her new book, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990, is out this week.

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Show notes

Scene One: 29 March 1973, the Kosmos cinema, for the premiere of the film The Legend of Paul and Paula.

Scene Two: 2 July 1973, East Berlin in the Alexanderplatz, for the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students.

Scene Three: 7 August 1973, the death of Walter Ulbricht, the man at the top of the GDR’s political framework.

Memento: A silk scarf bearing the inscripted hopes and dreams of anyone the guest may have met at the Youth Festival.

People/Social

Presenter: Artemis Irvine

Guest: Katja Hoyer

Production: Maria Nolan

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