Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that the
drastic limits placed on people's freedoms to curb the coronavirus earlier
this year had weighed heavily on her, bringing back memories of life in
surveillance-riddled East Germany.
While a global row rages over the controversial background of historical figures immortalised as statues, on Saturday a divisive new monument to Soviet leader Lenin will be unveiled in
Germany.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Exactly 69 years ago, on February 8th, 1950, the fledgling German Democratic Republic(GDR) officially debuted its security service, dedicated to monitoring and preventing outside influences - particularly from the West.
The Czech Republic has compensated a man for wounds suffered during his 1982 attempt to cross the Iron Curtain, a spokesman has said. But the former East German citizen reportedly said the amount was "not satisfactory".
As head of the GDR, Erich Honecker dictated the lives of millions of Germans. The Local met East Germany-born filmmaker Thomas Grimm, who has been researching the Honecker family for nearly 20 years to find out who they really were and what happened to them.
From rich history with musical roots to sweet treats, revolution and a diverse alternative scene, Leipzig, in the former East Germany, has a place in our hearts.
Angela Merkel is known for tightly guarding her private life. But she made an exception for a group of young people when she confessed she had smuggled money from the West while on holiday in the Eastern Bloc, German media reports.
It is widely known that the Berlin Wall came down on November 9th, 1989. But the "Day of Fate" is a date on which several momentous events in German history have happened.
While the Trabant is a car made in East Germany that’s known for being noisy, slow and extremely polluting, the Simson Schwalbe - a moped from the GDR - is a wondrous vehicle that comes with lots of advantages.
In an escalating war of words between Ankara and Berlin, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble compared Erdogan's Turkey with the former communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Nearly three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, a new study sheds light on the long-unknown number of people who died at the strict border controls of the communist East German regime.
Tucked behind 10-storey tower blocks in the heart of Berlin stands an imposing metal gate marked "Border zone, restricted area", guarded by a stern-looking Stasi officer.
By law, parts of the German government must still be based in the former West German capital of Bonn. But this divide involves additional effort and money, while sacrificing efficiency, according to a report presented on Tuesday.
A new documentary based on confidential reports sheds light on what East German officials were hiding from their citizens after accidents: poor work safety, old infrastructure and lousy organization.
A new report suggests the number of deaths along the Cold War East German border is much higher than prior estimates. But there are still doubts about the true figure.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government took a step forward on Wednesday towards atoning for East Germany's murky past by approving €10.5 million of aid for victims of the Communist state's doping programme.
German reunification has been an expensive 25-year project that hasn't always gone according to plan. Jörg Luyken asks if things would have been better if the two states never united.
