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Sector lock in Berlin 1961: The wall in the mind
Photo: A9999 DB dpa / dpa
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Baer, you and your family fled from Spremberg in Lusatia to West Germany in 1960 as a ten-year-old - and never returned during the GDR era.
Did you miss your home?
Baer:
I went there a lot after the fall of the Wall, and that was very familiar to me straight away - and I'm still very connected to the people there.
In this respect, the GDR is actually still a piece of home.
But I don't miss it: not hypocrisy, not feelings of guilt, not fear.
SPIEGEL:
Fear?
Of what?
Baer: In
front of the Russian tanks and soldiers, for example.
Or from being whistled for.
I also got to know a lot of people who feared being reported for fleeing the republic.
Such fears are a central component of what I call the "GDR heritage in the soul".
SPIEGEL:
Why does hypocrisy play a role in this?
Baer:
There were two worlds in the GDR: the public - and the private.
I know of teachers who railed against religion in class and then later handed out notes at the exit, on which private religious instruction was offered at home.
So you never knew where you were with someone.
This still affects the behavior of some former GDR citizens today.
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