Meet East Germany's hippies

...in a small town on the outskirts of Berlin

BStU, MfS, ZA Z 2411, S. 24

‘Did you have a nice time?’ I usually get asked when I return to Britain from my annual Christmas break in Germany. I’m never sure how to answer that. I have by now learnt that such questions are British small talk — nobody really expects or wants an actual answer. So I usually just say something noncommittal like: ‘Yeah, it was nice to see everybody… you know, catch up with friends and family.’ That usually does the trick and conversation swiftly moves on to the weather (‘Ohh, it’s been awful, hasn’t it?’), daylight hours (‘Aw well, at least the nights are getting shorter.’) and football (‘Classic Arsenal, flushing their title ambitions down the toilet at this point in the season!’). 

A more nuanced answer to ‘Did you have a nice time?’ would be: ‘It was nice to see everybody… you know, catch up with friends and family. But in order to do so I embarked on a grand tour of what was once East Germany because they live all over the place. Naturally, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to combine this with some research. I also bought a ton of books, spoke to people I have known for decades as well as some I only just met, visited familiar and unfamiliar places and used every spare moment in between to read books and write articles. So yes, I did have a nice time but my mental overload will probably take a few weeks to digest. How was your Christmas?’

I’m not complaining. These trips are full-on but always hugely enriching. Often the things encountered by chance are the most intriguing. This year, for instance, I was visiting relatives in the small town of Schöneiche on the outskirts of Berlin when I stumbled upon the remnants of an East German hippie enclave. 

That the inhabitants of Schöneiche are an interesting lot becomes apparent when you spend a little bit of time there. When I arrived and rang the doorbell, I was surprised to find that none of my relatives were in, which was odd, given that they were expecting me. I walked up the stairs of the block of flats and found that their door was open but nobody was in. Checking my phone, I saw a message: ‘At next door neighbours’. Come along.’

I dropped my bags and went back out into the hallway to find that the door to the flat opposite was open too with a sign stuck to it: ‘Come on in, neighbours! There is mulled wine, biscuits and Christmas songs.’ Feeling a bit awkward about walking into the flat of complete strangers, I was about to at least knock on the door when a large dog came running and jumped up at me, clearly happy to welcome another guest to the party. I told him he was a good boy and followed him into the lounge where I found five women, a small boy and a cat sitting around a piano singing ‘O Tannenbaum’ with varying degrees of proficiency. An elderly woman dressed in Indian-style trousers with elephants on them greeted me enthusiastically, then offered me a seat and a song sheet. 

Looking questioningly at my family members, I only got a shrug. After we had extradited ourselves from the festive merriment they explained that Schöneiche has long attracted people who seek alternative lifestyles ranging all the way from city dwellers craving a slower pace of life to the inhabitants of the local Buddhist monastery in which residents have given up their personal possessions and live solely off donations.

Situated on the eastern boundaries of the German capital, Schöneiche’s leafy neighbourhoods, elegant houses and historical tramway (which has connected the town to Berlin’s public transport system since 1910) make it an attractive place for Berliners seeking to escape the city. While much of eastern Germany is still losing people, Schöneiche grows year on year and now has over 13,000 inhabitants compared to around 8000 in 1990. Many creatives seem to call the town home with galleries, theatre productions and exhibitions filling the event calendar. 

I was intrigued and wanted to see a bit more of it. Christmas Day seemed a good time to go exploring. Everyone felt a little sluggish from eating their way through the animal kingdom over the festive period. Hefty portions of sauerkraut probably didn’t help. It was time for at least a token effort at getting some exercise and fresh air. 

So we visited the local ‘Kleiner-Spreewald-Park’ – Little Spree Forest Park. The actual Spree Forest is a well known landscape of canals, bogs and floodplains further to the south with its own culture famous for its shallow boats and gherkins. Schöneiche’s park is an homage to this with an artificial system of waterways crisscrossing a wooded park landscape. It’s existed since the 1920s when a local restaurant owner created it to attract customers who took the tram from Berlin to enjoy a day out in the country, boating and eating hearty food. In the 1930s a lido was added which remained in place until the early 1990s. 

Little Spree Forest. Img: Marcus Cyron

What intrigued me most was the park’s development after the Second World War. As it lay in the Soviet Zone of occupation and then in the territory of socialist East Germany, the restaurant and boat hire was nationalised and run by the state’s Handelsorganisation (HO), its ‘Trading Organisation’. In the 1970s it began to attract members of East Germany’s hippy scene who met there to listen to music and meet with like-minded individuals mostly from East Berlin.

Like their Western equivalent, East German hippies too were a diverse subculture vaguely defined by a common focus on peace and general freespiritness.