A little history

Hey again everyone, I have just recently biked a nice little section of road (maybe at least 10 k) to come from my little village or 'dorf' of Frohnsdorf. It's hot too! With biking up ... and down.. it makes on sweat. Right now I am in Altenburg in Thuringa. I just uploaded a map of Germany so you can all have an idea of where I am over the Ocean. First I was near the top in 'Mecklenburg' and now I am in Thuringen! My trip is so broad in experience and deep in culture... musically, historically, architecturally! Well, I guess what I should do is give you an overview... or shall we say the highlights and the re-plays.

The part of Germany that I am in right now and have been in for almost all of my trip so far is the former German Democratic Republic... don't let the name fool you though, it wasn't much of a democratic republic. It was the former east Germany, behind the iron curtain! I recommend scanning a wikipedia article if you're not familiar with the history. But from 1949 'til the reunification of east and west Germany you had East Germany. In order to keep all their citizens in the East German Government had to build fortifications such as barbed wire, mines... etc... on their border... a rather large cow pasture with greener grass on the other side of the fence. If you take a look at the map, the provinces of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sachson Anhalt, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Thuringen, and part of Berlin were all East Germany. In Berlin there was actually a part that belonged to west Germany and thus you had the Berlin wall. Picture an island of land behind the iron curtain! The east Germans were spied on, their mail was opened, some of their telephone calls were recorded, and some dissenters were imprisoned, while some people were shot while trying to escape. It is very amusing that the GDR told their people that the wall, (or the border fortifications) were to keep the west Germans out. The goal was socialism and the result was collapse. The government played God, and you had to wait many years just to receive a car! But most wonderfully enough people had had enough and events took place that In 1989 east and west shook hands and now they are together. However, some of the scars still remain. In some places are abandoned factories, houses, and buildings in need of repair. I have been a few of these buildings. As I understand it there are a few factors; people moved to the west leaving houses behind, factories couldn't keep up with the west, in the East people were forced to charge very low rent and so they couldn't afford to keep buildings up and I've also heard that factories would come to the west and buy up the cheap factories to cut out the competition. Unemployment is also very high in the former East. Anyway, It is very wonderful that things are back together and more freedom has prevailed. Living in the east many people had the same consumer goods as the guy next store, such as the cars (when you got one). You lacked the diversity that we have in a more free market, and I was told beautiful things were rare. Adding to the problems, was that the church also suffered under the Government. It must have been so exciting to escape from the east to the west!!! In one case 3 brothers all at three different times made it over! The last one being picked up by his brother in a very small airplane painted with Russian decals on the wings!