Gunnar Schupelius expresses his fury. - The German Historical Museum is perceived as trivilizing the GDR.
The announcement states that the photo album details the GDR's history through seven chapters and approximately 200 image motifs.
This photo album presents a highly inaccurate and biased perspective of the GDR. It contains a mix of propaganda photos and everyday scenes to create an impression of life in the GDR. It's meant to offer realistic insight, but fails to do so.
The album showcases only harmless situations, such as a couple picnicking by the Elbe, with the caption: "The introduction of the weekend without work and the increase in minimum vacation to 21 days created the space."
While this is true, the album omits the deplorable workplace conditions in the GDR, particularly in industries. Additionally, the album says the Elbe was clean enough for swimming. In reality, it was severely polluted.
The book also features a photograph of a rural shop and claims: "Shopping in the village cooperative. The SED leadership kept the prices for basic foodstuffs low through subsidies." This is accurate, but the album does not mention the perpetual shortage in these shops. Often, pillars held up the shelves where subsidized goods were absent. The planned economy of the GDR failed to ensure proper supply until the end.
Of the book's 125 pages, only 9 deal with the ugly side of the dictatorship, from pages 88 to 97. However, it refrains from illustrating the brutality of political repression. There's no mention of concentration camps like Bautzen and Hoheneck, or the death toll from shooting people attempting to cross the Wall.
Anyone who selects images this way is manipulating the truth. People in the GDR lived under a regime hostile to humanity, which also ruined the economy and the environment. The air was filled with sulfur, dust, and ash. The Elbe river was lifeless. The Espenhain and Bitterfeld regions were deemed "uninhabitable" by the UN.
The SED regime illegitimately persecuted its opponents using raw violence. Up to 250,000 individuals were turned into political prisoners, and around 1,000 lost their lives at the Wall.
The GDR leadership backed international terrorism. They trained Palestinian terrorists in handling car bombs for attacks against Israel. The RAF member Christian Klar was trained in the use of hand grenades.
The German Historical Museum is tasked with portraying a complete account of the past. This has not been achieved. This GDR book is a disgrace.
Do you agree with Gunnar Schupelius? Email him: [email protected].
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