It's kind of here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, East Germany ceased to exist.

It was always an orphan state, freed off of Germany after the Second World War when this

part of the country was occupied by the Soviets, although the Soviets never trusted it.

The nation also had all sorts of internal dysfunction.

The first leaders were German communists who had fled Germany in the 1930s to the Soviet

Union and then returned 20 years later.

But it always represented a radically different Germany to what had come before and what

existed today.

Add socialism, secret police, central planning, barbed wire.

But despite all these authoritarian factors had positive elements, social mobility existed.

It was remarkably stable, which for a German who had had nothing like that from basically

the first World War up into the 1950s was a very positive feature.

Today's guest is Katya Hoyer, author of Beyond the Wall.

She was born in East Germany, and it's all the political, social and cultural landscape

existed amid oppression and hardship.

There were people who truly believed in what East Germany promised, despite the many people

who suffered from the Stasi, and the everyday double life of those who lived in the GDR.

When they would live within a public system, we would draw onto a private realm away from

a regulated social sphere, in the many niche societies that existed there.

Hope you enjoyed this discussion with Katya Hoyer.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for work from

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