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Absolutely. The decay was grim. Take Leipzig for example, once one of the trade centers of Germany and what it became after 40 years of socialism: https://www.y

Absolutely. The decay was grim. Take Leipzig for example, once one of the trade centers of Germany and what it became after 40 years of socialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cDOqb53Kfk [1] And mind you, that when we're speaking about Eastern Europe, we're talking about the more prosperous part of the communist bloc. [1] granted, WW2 left its mark as well but Western Germany started with the same handicap and didn't turn it's inner cities into Favelas.

quakeguy 9y ago
Another example is Stralsund at the baltic sea, it looked unreal with all the decay and soot-tinted houses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw
- odiroot 9y ago
  Stralsund is one of the prettier cities I have visited in Germany. Even plattenbau there is not so bad. I'd take it any day over most parts of West Berlin.
novalis78 9y ago
That's communism for you right there. Did not someone once project the Eastern Bloc would collapse x-years in the future when communism had eaten up all communal resources and the buildings themselves would not get repaired anymore. Looks like that was the end.
majewsky 9y ago
> Western Germany started with the same handicap It depends. Some counter-points: - Western Germany had all (or at least nearly all) of Germany's supply of black coal, the energy source that powered nearly all of Germany back in the day. East Germany only had brown coal, which has a worse energy density and is more complicated to mine and use e.g. because of the water contained in it. Over the lifespan of the GDR, about 40% of all investments in industry went into the energy sector as they tried to make brown coal more efficient and build nuclear reactors. - While the Western allies realized fairly early on that it makes more sense for them to integrate West Germany into their political and economical networks, East Germany had to pay huge amounts of reparations to the Soviets. Entire factories and hundreds of kilometers of rail tracks were disassembled and shipped to Russia. [1] That also took decades to recover from. [1] While motivated by an understandable desire for a payback on the part of the Soviets (who suffered millions of casualties during the war), this was an incredibly stupid move for the Soviets: A lot of those reparations got lost to their "brother countries" through which stuff was shipped to the Soviet Union, and when machines managed to arrive in the Soviet Union, they often lacked qualified personnel to operate them. And, of course, it also reduced competitiveness of the GDR (and, therefore, of the Communist bloc as a whole).
- Sharlin 9y ago
  Wow. Finland (which didn’t get occupied and remained nominally neutral) also had to pay hefty war reparations (mostly in the form of heavy machinery) but that had an almost opposite effect: they kickstarted rapid industrialization and economic growth in the hitherto poor, largely agrarian country.
  - refurb 9y ago
    Nominally neutral? They fought the Soviets in alliance with the Nazis! It wasn't until the end of the Winter war they switched sides.
    - danielvf 9y ago
      Finland was neutral before, and only worked with Germany after a massive, unprovoked military invasion by Russia and essentially no help from the allies during the entire Winter War.
    - throwaway2048 9y ago
      They did not have much choice, it was either ally with the germans and receive aid, or get taken over by the USSR.
    - fleitz 9y ago
      Two sides of the same socialist coin.
    - Sharlin 9y ago
      Nominally neutral in peacetime I meant. Meaning, didn’t become a Soviet vassal, remained a democratic market economy open to the West. In practice we had to make some concessions to the East. Also, in the Winter War Finland fought alone against the Soviets. During the Continuation War we made an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of pact with the Germans and, in 1944, wiggled out of that agreement and sued for a separate peace treaty with the USSR (as it was becoming clear that the alternative was being run over). The terms of the treaty dictated that we had to drive remaining German forces out of the country, leading to the Lapland War as the understandably pissed Germans used scorched earth tactics as they retreated from Finnish Lapland to Norway, at the time under Nazi occupation.
paganel 9y ago
Thanks for the link (am Eastern European who grew up in communist Romania in the '80s). It's interesting that the East Germans propaganda songs were pretty similar to Romanian propaganda songs which used to glorify the Communist Party and especially the Ceausescu couple (the most famous propaganda song is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOMDUyMlPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOMDUyMlPE).
jacobush 9y ago
Western Germany got a lot of money from the US to rebuild. I guess you could give capitalism credit for that, but it certainly helped that the US didn't have more than 1000 cities destroyed like the Soviet Union had.
- adventured 9y ago
  What's the difference? US capitalists built the Soviet industrial base to begin with. There were few things the Soviets could do industrially for themselves, they were extraordinarily incompetent. http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-helped-build-soviet-machine http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-helped-b...

quakeguy 9y ago

Another example is Stralsund at the baltic sea, it looked unreal with all the decay and soot-tinted houses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPf7Y903fw

odiroot 9y ago
Stralsund is one of the prettier cities I have visited in Germany. Even plattenbau there is not so bad. I'd take it any day over most parts of West Berlin.

novalis78 9y ago

That's communism for you right there. Did not someone once project the Eastern Bloc would collapse x-years in the future when communism had eaten up all communal resources and the buildings themselves would not get repaired anymore. Looks like that was the end.

majewsky 9y ago

> Western Germany started with the same handicap It depends. Some counter-points: - Western Germany had all (or at least nearly all) of Germany's supply of black coal, the energy source that powered nearly all of Germany back in the day. East Germany only had brown coal, which has a worse energy density and is more complicated to mine and use e.g. because of the water contained in it. Over the lifespan of the GDR, about 40% of all investments in industry went into the energy sector as they tried to make brown coal more efficient and build nuclear reactors. - While the Western allies realized fairly early on that it makes more sense for them to integrate West Germany into their political and economical networks, East Germany had to pay huge amounts of reparations to the Soviets. Entire factories and hundreds of kilometers of rail tracks were disassembled and shipped to Russia. [1] That also took decades to recover from. [1] While motivated by an understandable desire for a payback on the part of the Soviets (who suffered millions of casualties during the war), this was an incredibly stupid move for the Soviets: A lot of those reparations got lost to their "brother countries" through which stuff was shipped to the Soviet Union, and when machines managed to arrive in the Soviet Union, they often lacked qualified personnel to operate them. And, of course, it also reduced competitiveness of the GDR (and, therefore, of the Communist bloc as a whole).

Sharlin 9y ago
Wow. Finland (which didn’t get occupied and remained nominally neutral) also had to pay hefty war reparations (mostly in the form of heavy machinery) but that had an almost opposite effect: they kickstarted rapid industrialization and economic growth in the hitherto poor, largely agrarian country.
- refurb 9y ago
  Nominally neutral? They fought the Soviets in alliance with the Nazis! It wasn't until the end of the Winter war they switched sides.
  - danielvf 9y ago
    Finland was neutral before, and only worked with Germany after a massive, unprovoked military invasion by Russia and essentially no help from the allies during the entire Winter War.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    They did not have much choice, it was either ally with the germans and receive aid, or get taken over by the USSR.
  - fleitz 9y ago
    Two sides of the same socialist coin.
  - Sharlin 9y ago
    Nominally neutral in peacetime I meant. Meaning, didn’t become a Soviet vassal, remained a democratic market economy open to the West. In practice we had to make some concessions to the East. Also, in the Winter War Finland fought alone against the Soviets. During the Continuation War we made an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of pact with the Germans and, in 1944, wiggled out of that agreement and sued for a separate peace treaty with the USSR (as it was becoming clear that the alternative was being run over). The terms of the treaty dictated that we had to drive remaining German forces out of the country, leading to the Lapland War as the understandably pissed Germans used scorched earth tactics as they retreated from Finnish Lapland to Norway, at the time under Nazi occupation.

paganel 9y ago

Thanks for the link (am Eastern European who grew up in communist Romania in the '80s). It's interesting that the East Germans propaganda songs were pretty similar to Romanian propaganda songs which used to glorify the Communist Party and especially the Ceausescu couple (the most famous propaganda song is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOMDUyMlPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOMDUyMlPE).

jacobush 9y ago

Western Germany got a lot of money from the US to rebuild. I guess you could give capitalism credit for that, but it certainly helped that the US didn't have more than 1000 cities destroyed like the Soviet Union had.

adventured 9y ago
What's the difference? US capitalists built the Soviet industrial base to begin with. There were few things the Soviets could do industrially for themselves, they were extraordinarily incompetent. http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-helped-build-soviet-machine http://www.americanheritage.com/content/how-america-helped-b...