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Especially worth remembering given that if the East German authorities had had access to the kind of information that current governments have access to that th

Especially worth remembering given that if the East German authorities had had access to the kind of information that current governments have access to that these families likely would not have made it out at all and/or would have been killed in the attempt. Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration, disproved by the many criminals (arguably the the existence of otherwise traceable crimes) and people under surveillance who regularly get away? Useless anecdote: I've sometimes seen border guards checking passengers' faces/details against faxes as they exit the plane I'm on. I'm nosy, and have hung around a couple of times to see what's happen - in the end, absolutely nothing. It seems that even if they know you've got away, the how and where can remain elusive, even in this day and age. Edit: Forgot to add, I loved your comment! I would love to hear more about your times in e.g. Poland at that time in your life.

jacquesm 11y ago
> Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration, disproved by the many criminals (arguably the the existence of otherwise traceable crimes) and people under surveillance who regularly get away? It's proven by the many people that were picked up before they could make their attempt because the VoPo's picked up on that before they could actually do it. These guys would happily turn in their mothers if that's what it took to rise in the ranks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkspolizei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkspolizei A bit of 'big data' (to use a popular buzzword) magic would have turned up the names of the two buyers of fabric from the story linked in mere seconds. Your experience with passengers exiting planes is probably not comparable unless it is in a country like Israel or North Korea. Keep in mind that it wasn't that the police was looking to stop particular people at the border but that they were simply trying to stop everybody from leaving (which tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands would have done if given the opportunity) I've written a bit about what it was like to be in Communist Poland here: http://jacquesmattheij.com/a-western-kid-living-in-communist-poland http://jacquesmattheij.com/a-western-kid-living-in-communist... Joke from the era: Erich Honecker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker) has been abroad for a state visit and returns home. Upon reaching Berlin looking out from the windows of the aircraft he notices that the streets seem very quiet. After landing this is confirmed, they drive around for hours on end without encountering a single soul. Finally, in desperation they drive up to the Berlin wall and search along side it, when they reach a very large gaping hole in the middle. Next to the hole is a wooden post with an envelope stapled to it, addressed to Honecker. He opens it and finds a note inside: "Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus...".
- camperman 11y ago
  For non-German speakers, the joke's punchline is "Honecker, you are the last to leave, please turn out the lights." It sounds much better in German of course :)
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  "Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus..." I think there's a little typo, it should be "macht". Then it yields the sentence "Honecker, you're the last, please turn off the lights."
  - tazjin 11y ago
    "mach" is imperative singular, "macht" is imperative plural. So "mach bitte das Licht aus" is addressing Honecker directly (which is most likely intended here), where "macht bitte das Licht aus" would also address the people with him.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - lschmelzeisen 11y ago
    "mach" is the imperative form of "machen" and perfectly fine in that sentence in the sense of "Honecker, please turn of the lights!". With "macht" the sentence would be more of an observation and the "bitte" (please) would sound weird: "Honecker please turns of the light." Edit: as tazjin stated "macht" can also be used to address the whole group.
- joesmo 11y ago
  Thanks for the joke. I assume all the Soviet bloc countries were like this. Having lived in Romania during its communist years, it seemed that every single person who was not a communist wanted to leave or at least thought about it. After my parents managed to get out and get to the US, we met a lot of others from various Eastern European countries as well as Russia who all had pretty incredible stories of escape. I think for others who had not been there, it's incredibly difficult to imagine the conditions that would lead people, including people with families and small children, to literally risk their lives (or at least torture and jail) to get out, oftentimes without their children, not knowing if they would ever make it or see their family ever again. If there is a "hell," I doubt it's worse than communism.
joesmo 11y ago
It's not an exaggeration. You're assuming that current authorities are interested in and have the capabilities to prevent the criminals and traceable crimes you speak of and that there is an ongoing, massive effort to do so. For most crimes, this isn't currently the case, at least in the US, even though the data is being collected. Right now, only high profile cases get this treatment (think Boston marathon bombing) and there is generally no problem solving those. It could be the case that this starts to be applied for victimless petty crimes (the favorite here in the US to lock up people on) and thought crimes soon as it was in the Soviet bloc countries. I wouldn't be surprised as this stupid idea that all infractions of criminal code (formerly called crimes, but that implies malicious conduct which is not the case for most infractions in the US) can be solved and should be punished is pretty popular in the US (tough on crime attitudes), despite ignoring the fact that almost all major positive social change comes from criminals (civil rights movement, gay rights movement, cannabis legalization, etc.). I'd like to say that the police in the US do not have the same nature and motivations as their communist equivalents, but the only real difference is the size of the population and those pesky bill of rights amendments. So really, for practical purposes, only the size of the population.
- eru 11y ago
  > [...] and those pesky bill of rights amendments. Have you read the constitutions of East Germany or the Soviet Union (or of modern day mainland China)? They have these rights on paper, too.
brc 11y ago
You should read up on some of the released data where someone or a family was under surveillance. They had teams of people listening and watching absolutely everything. I'm convinced one of the factors that collapsed these totalitarian societies was the sheer amount of manpower and infrastructure that went into watching their own citizens. If for no other reason than it was a counterproductive waste of resources. If they had access to the types of data collection available today they would have caught a lot more people. Of that there can be no doubt.

jacquesm 11y ago

> Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration, disproved by the many criminals (arguably the the existence of otherwise traceable crimes) and people under surveillance who regularly get away? It's proven by the many people that were picked up before they could make their attempt because the VoPo's picked up on that before they could actually do it. These guys would happily turn in their mothers if that's what it took to rise in the ranks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkspolizei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkspolizei A bit of 'big data' (to use a popular buzzword) magic would have turned up the names of the two buyers of fabric from the story linked in mere seconds. Your experience with passengers exiting planes is probably not comparable unless it is in a country like Israel or North Korea. Keep in mind that it wasn't that the police was looking to stop particular people at the border but that they were simply trying to stop everybody from leaving (which tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands would have done if given the opportunity) I've written a bit about what it was like to be in Communist Poland here: http://jacquesmattheij.com/a-western-kid-living-in-communist-poland http://jacquesmattheij.com/a-western-kid-living-in-communist... Joke from the era: Erich Honecker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker) has been abroad for a state visit and returns home. Upon reaching Berlin looking out from the windows of the aircraft he notices that the streets seem very quiet. After landing this is confirmed, they drive around for hours on end without encountering a single soul. Finally, in desperation they drive up to the Berlin wall and search along side it, when they reach a very large gaping hole in the middle. Next to the hole is a wooden post with an envelope stapled to it, addressed to Honecker. He opens it and finds a note inside: "Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus...".

camperman 11y ago
For non-German speakers, the joke's punchline is "Honecker, you are the last to leave, please turn out the lights." It sounds much better in German of course :)
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
"Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus..." I think there's a little typo, it should be "macht". Then it yields the sentence "Honecker, you're the last, please turn off the lights."
- tazjin 11y ago
  "mach" is imperative singular, "macht" is imperative plural. So "mach bitte das Licht aus" is addressing Honecker directly (which is most likely intended here), where "macht bitte das Licht aus" would also address the people with him.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lschmelzeisen 11y ago
  "mach" is the imperative form of "machen" and perfectly fine in that sentence in the sense of "Honecker, please turn of the lights!". With "macht" the sentence would be more of an observation and the "bitte" (please) would sound weird: "Honecker please turns of the light." Edit: as tazjin stated "macht" can also be used to address the whole group.
joesmo 11y ago
Thanks for the joke. I assume all the Soviet bloc countries were like this. Having lived in Romania during its communist years, it seemed that every single person who was not a communist wanted to leave or at least thought about it. After my parents managed to get out and get to the US, we met a lot of others from various Eastern European countries as well as Russia who all had pretty incredible stories of escape. I think for others who had not been there, it's incredibly difficult to imagine the conditions that would lead people, including people with families and small children, to literally risk their lives (or at least torture and jail) to get out, oftentimes without their children, not knowing if they would ever make it or see their family ever again. If there is a "hell," I doubt it's worse than communism.

joesmo 11y ago

It's not an exaggeration. You're assuming that current authorities are interested in and have the capabilities to prevent the criminals and traceable crimes you speak of and that there is an ongoing, massive effort to do so. For most crimes, this isn't currently the case, at least in the US, even though the data is being collected. Right now, only high profile cases get this treatment (think Boston marathon bombing) and there is generally no problem solving those. It could be the case that this starts to be applied for victimless petty crimes (the favorite here in the US to lock up people on) and thought crimes soon as it was in the Soviet bloc countries. I wouldn't be surprised as this stupid idea that all infractions of criminal code (formerly called crimes, but that implies malicious conduct which is not the case for most infractions in the US) can be solved and should be punished is pretty popular in the US (tough on crime attitudes), despite ignoring the fact that almost all major positive social change comes from criminals (civil rights movement, gay rights movement, cannabis legalization, etc.). I'd like to say that the police in the US do not have the same nature and motivations as their communist equivalents, but the only real difference is the size of the population and those pesky bill of rights amendments. So really, for practical purposes, only the size of the population.

eru 11y ago
> [...] and those pesky bill of rights amendments. Have you read the constitutions of East Germany or the Soviet Union (or of modern day mainland China)? They have these rights on paper, too.

brc 11y ago

You should read up on some of the released data where someone or a family was under surveillance. They had teams of people listening and watching absolutely everything. I'm convinced one of the factors that collapsed these totalitarian societies was the sheer amount of manpower and infrastructure that went into watching their own citizens. If for no other reason than it was a counterproductive waste of resources. If they had access to the types of data collection available today they would have caught a lot more people. Of that there can be no doubt.