Another great read thanks and I love the talks and discussions you attend where at least one person in the audience turns out to have a first hand experience or connection to the subject. The richness of history indeed as you say.
I've also loved using the Vietnam coffee story with its ironic 1990 outcome as an anecdote since reading it in Beyond The Wall. Full credit of course given to yourself as the source.
That was fascinating and rather moving. I'm sorry that you have to keep explaining that you are not an apologist for the DDR regime but want to promote a true and full account of it. Your book did that marvellously and I have not ceased to recommend it!
Thank you, Katja! Monty Python is such a rich vein of allegory! Imagine going to coffee shop and, it eventually turns out, there is no coffee ("cheese shop" sketch). Imagine the British Army On the Rhine ("Basingstoke in Westphalia", aka "Anything goes" - alternativ version). I wouldn't be surprised if some of their material was influenced by the anti-Communist backlash in Cambridge (given that Monty Python originates there for the most part) following Burgess and Maclean and then Hungary (1950's) . At the height of the Cold War (1960's), absurdity might have been the only sensible and healthy response for most of us. Perhaps it has an increasing role again as a foil to the very serious business of the moment.
Interesting stories from Leipzig. Worth noting that the Vietnamese also cornered the cigarette smuggling market in the DDR. It was so prevalent that it must have been tolerated by the authorities- probably taking a cut!
“ersatz” as applied to coffee was my first German word fwiw!
Excellent article. The chapter in ‘Beyond the Wall’ also first put me on to the glories of Vietnamese coffee. So thank for both.
Another great read thanks and I love the talks and discussions you attend where at least one person in the audience turns out to have a first hand experience or connection to the subject. The richness of history indeed as you say.
I've also loved using the Vietnam coffee story with its ironic 1990 outcome as an anecdote since reading it in Beyond The Wall. Full credit of course given to yourself as the source.
That was fascinating and rather moving. I'm sorry that you have to keep explaining that you are not an apologist for the DDR regime but want to promote a true and full account of it. Your book did that marvellously and I have not ceased to recommend it!
Thank you, Katja! Monty Python is such a rich vein of allegory! Imagine going to coffee shop and, it eventually turns out, there is no coffee ("cheese shop" sketch). Imagine the British Army On the Rhine ("Basingstoke in Westphalia", aka "Anything goes" - alternativ version). I wouldn't be surprised if some of their material was influenced by the anti-Communist backlash in Cambridge (given that Monty Python originates there for the most part) following Burgess and Maclean and then Hungary (1950's) . At the height of the Cold War (1960's), absurdity might have been the only sensible and healthy response for most of us. Perhaps it has an increasing role again as a foil to the very serious business of the moment.
Interesting stories from Leipzig. Worth noting that the Vietnamese also cornered the cigarette smuggling market in the DDR. It was so prevalent that it must have been tolerated by the authorities- probably taking a cut!