East Germany Quotes:

The ways sexuality plays out in political economies is central. And Cambodia's political economy is organized around this notion of family. So lesbianism is actually perceived as being threatening to a degree that it would have not been, for example, under socialist East Germany. But it's one of the essential issues of women's freedom: Do you get to do want you want to do with your body? Not if you don't know what your body is for.

- Anne Elizabeth Moore

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: East Germany, Play, Issues, Lesbianism, Cambodia

The Germans are often too bureaucratic, too fixated on rules and not risk-oriented enough. And some of their officials have the feeling that they need to make everything in the cityscape look nice and pretty as quickly as possible. That was particularly apparent in the former East Germany after reunification. Then cities sometimes get a bit too neat and tidy.

- Charles Landry

source: Source: www.spiegel.de

topic: Nice, East Germany, Neat And Tidy, Cityscapes, Reunification

In East Germany it was very normal for a woman to go out and work even if she had children. A few weeks after giving birth women would return to their normal working life. We never had housewives in East Germany.

- Christian Schwochow

source: Source: blogs.indiewire.com

topic: Children, East Germany, Giving

It's a historical fact that the Stasi did horrible things and that they monitored a lot of people in East Germany, but I find it very interesting to think about the importance of the Western secret services back then and still working today.

- Christian Schwochow

source: Source: blogs.indiewire.com

topic: Thinking, East Germany, Interesting, Secret Service, Historical Facts

There was no special event that made me decide. I had collected some photos and the idea was in the back of my mind for a long time. It was growing and growing, so finally I said, 'I must paint this.' I come from East Germany and am not a Marxist, so of course at the time I had no sympathy for the ideas, or for the ideology that these people represented. I couldn't understand, but I was still impressed. Like everyone, I was touched. It was an exceptional moment for Germany.

- Gerhard Richter

source: Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

topic: Art, East Germany, Ideas, Special Events, No Sympathy

East Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn't compulsory.

- P. J. O'Rourke

source: P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

topic: Funny, Humorous, East Germany

I don't have to come back, because I am still here! And I'm not an '80s thing. I already worked with my first band back in East Germany and that was soooo '70s, young man. I'm a '70s thing. If I'm a thing at all... and an exciting thing.

- Nina Hagen

topic: Men, East Germany, Band, Exciting Things, Young Man

[Mikhail] Gorbachev complained. He was told look, there's nothing on paper. People didn't actually say it but the implication was look, if you are dumb enough to take faith in a gentleman's agreement with us, that's your problem. NATO expanded to East Germany.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Source: www.counterpunch.org

topic: East Germany, Agreement, People, Gorbachev

[Mikhail] Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn't move to East Germany. And [George] Bush and [James] Baker promised verbally, that's critical, verbally that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east," which meant East Germany. Nobody was talking about anything farther at the time. They would not expand one inch to the east. Now that was a verbal promise. It was never written. NATO immediately expanded to East Germany.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Source: www.counterpunch.org

topic: Moving, East Germany, Talking, Gorbachev

Okay, NATO expanded to East Berlin and East Germany. Under [Bill] Clinton NATO expanded further, to the former Russian satellites. In 2008 NATO formally made an offer to Ukraine to join NATO. That's unbelievable. I mean, Ukraine is the geopolitical heartland of Russian concern, quite aside from historical connections, population and so on.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Source: www.counterpunch.org

topic: Mean, East Germany, East Berlin, Geopolitical, Nato

After visits to several Communist countries (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, East Germany, Vietnam, China, Cuba), I feel strongly that most "revolutionary" types around the world don't realize the importance of freedom of the press and the air, a right to peaceably assemble and discuss anything, including the dangers of such discussions.

- Pete Seeger

topic: Country, Air, Cuba, Ussr, Czechoslovakia

President Bush Sr. and Secretary Baker, way back when, told Gorbachev, "We are not going to advance NATO into Eastern Europe. We're not going to - we're not going to advance NATO into East Germany, if you allow the unification of Germany." Where is that pledge? Where is the logic behind a military alliance, devised in the time of communism, before the Berlin Wall fell, now being in the Ukraine, in Poland, in Estonia, in Latvia and Lithuania? I don't understand.

- Rashid Khalidi

topic: Wall, Military, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia

When I was an adolescent, I was obsessed with having many commercial things, cars, clothes, stupid things. Now that I have all that, I understand that the superfluous things can turn to you into a very stupid idiot-type. In East Germany there were very few things, but there was also a feeling of solidarity that no longer exists. Now we are up to the neck in consumption, the ego, the individualism. Now before friendship, it is merchandise.

- Till Lindemann

topic: Stupid, Clothes, Car, Very Stupid, East Germany

The people in East Germany have lived through so many changes in the last 15 years like never before in the country, and they did this often with great enthusiasm. But in the West we also have a high degree of transformations.

- Angela Merkel

topic: Country, Years, People, East Germany

Few tears will be shed over the demise of the East German army, but what about East Germany’s eighty symphony orchestras, bound to lose some subsidies? Or the whole East German system, which covered everyone in a security blanket from day care to health care, from housing to education? Some people are beginning to express, if ever so slightly, nostalgia for that Berlin Wall.

- Bob Simon

topic: Wall, Army, Day Care, Symphony Orchestras, East Germany

Some people say Russia is running at 50 percent of its gross domestic product under that during the Communist period. In fact, none of the countries seems to have recovered the level that they had under communism, although the other countries in Eastern Europe are doing better than Russia and particularly the Czech Republic seems to be doing modestly well. East Germany I can't count because they have a rich uncle. You have economic benefits which have nothing to do with the workings of the system.

- Kenneth Arrow

source: Source: www.minneapolisfed.org

topic: Country, Running, Uncles, Gross Domestic Product, Eastern Europe

These are the highlights in a lifetime of following sports. Hilarity. The most sheer fun I ever had in sports was playing volleyball, a game I commend highly ... if you have ever seen the great women s teams of Japan and Russia or the equally good men's teams of Cuba and East Germany, you know how exciting this playground game, which requires so little equipment, can be.

- James A. Michener

topic: Sports, Volleyball, Fun, East Germany, Hilarity

History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago. [...] The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this yearning that brought down the Iron Curtain that divided Germany and Europe, and indeed the world, into two blocs.

- Angela Merkel

topic: Wall, Years, Europe, Iron Curtain, East Germany

You know, North Korea situation is far worse than East Germany, and South Korea is weaker than West Germany.

- Kim Dae-jung

topic: Korea, Germany, East, South Korea, East Germany

I was the very first athlete in East Germany allowed to go professional.

- Katarina Witt

topic: Athlete, Germany, East, East Germany