A 79-year-old former agent of East Germany's Stasi secret police has been charged with shooting dead a Polish man in 1974 as he tried to escape to the West, prosecutors said Thursday.
Wednesday January 27th marks the 25th anniversary of Holocaust Memorial Day. The Local spoke with one survivor about her experiences and why she ultimately returned to the place she once fled.
The Beatles famously sang "All you need is love." For Hans and Uschi Kriz, living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, both love and grit were necessary for starting their lives together.
In a time when US absentee ballot signatures are being questioned, author Susan Signe Morrison remembers the 1988 election and a vexed incident of signature recognition.
Three decades ago this week, demonstrations against the GDR reached fever pitch, signalling the beginning of the end for the East German communist regime - and it all began with meetings held in a Leipzig church.
On October 3rd, Germany celebrates 30 years of reunification. But by that date in 1990, the cogs of reform had already been turning for quite some time. The Local looks at just what happened during this momentous year - from the night the Wall fell to the day two countries truly became one.
Many terms used in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) fell out of use after German reunification, but some can still be heard in former East Germany today. A new book seeks to help west Germans brush up on their GDR lingo.
Almost 30 years on from German reunification,
the former East Germany has largely caught up with the west economically but
still has a lower level of trust in democracy, according to an annual report
presented Wednesday.
To mark German Reunification Day on Thursday The Local spoke to two eastern Germans from different generations to find out what unity means to them and what they think the country can learn from its past.
Citizens of former East Germany were subjected to communist dictators, an all-imposing secret police and material shortages. Yet these issues became the butt of many knee-slapping jokes.
Nearly 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell,
Germany's parliament voted Thursday to transfer the vast secret police files
of the former East German communist regime into the Federal Archives --
despite concerns voiced by some historians and ex-dissidents.
Nearing the 30 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we explore how five films compare to the real East Germany and how east Germans feel about these portrayals of their former state.
For years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the mantra for millions of former East Germans was to "Go
West" for better jobs and opportunities. But now the reverse is often the case.
In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) he was a hero of the people, and in all of Germany he was a role model: the cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn has died at the age of 82.
The little known tragedy of the 1969 rumoured Rolling Stones concert captures both the East Germans’ determination for freedom of expression, and the horrors of life under the Stasi.
August 19th marks the 30th anniversary of a pivotal event that led to the fall the Iron Curtain. We remember the East Germans who tried to escape via the Bulgarian border in the years leading up to the end of communism.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will
welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the city of Sopron Monday to commemorate a pivotal moment in the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.
Feeling ignored and short on resources, many in the east German state of Brandenburg are turning to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the September 1st state elections.
Though national stereotypes purport that Germans adore order and rules, Germany is not shy of protests and demonstrations. Here is a look at what sparked the protest culture of today.
The number of people living in eastern Germany has fallen back to a level last seen in 1905, while more people now live in the regions that used to make up West Germany than ever before in history.
People who as children were forced into state care by the former communist East German regime will more easily be able to obtain compensation, Berlin said Wednesday, as it sought to lift barriers to claims for payment.
Although the former GDR may not be first on everyone's list for exciting tourist destinations, these UNESCO World Heritage sites in the former East will make you think twice before planning that next getaway.
More than 30 years after the Lockerbie bombing, German prosecutors confirmed Thursday they have interviewed ex-East German secret police agents, at the request of Scottish investigators, over the attack.
Violence against refugees is been far more prevalent in Germany’s eastern states, with asylum seekers in the former east ten times more likely to be victims of hate crimes. New research has shed light on the phenomenon, in the process debunking much of the established wisdom on xenophobia in western countries.
