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This is What Life was Like in Communist East Germany

Tim Flight December 18, 2019 25 min

Berlin Wall - Checkpoint Charlie — A man peers over the newly-built Berlin Wall in August 1961. The Guardian

38. Soviet indoctrination started at kindergarten

Children celebrate International Children’s Day in East Berlin, 1978. East Germany Images

To create the next generation of compliant citizens, children learned about communist ideology at a bewilderingly young age. Even at kindergarten, teachers discouraged individualism and creativity and encouraged group thinking. Rather than drawing animals, GDR children drew armed border guards. They didn’t sing nursery rhymes, they sang songs like ‘I Want to be a Volkspolizist (GDR policeman)’. Teachers punished disobedience harshly, to ensure lifelong respect for authority: punishments included not having any lunch. Kindergartens aimed to develop a ‘socialist personality’ in all children. However, on the plus side, GDR kindergartens didn’t cost parents anything, and provided free meals for children.

Written by

Tim Flight

I am a freelance historical and literary writer based in West Yorkshire, UK. I read for a funded PhD in English at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and graduated in 2016. I am a former lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. My publications include peer-reviewed articles in academic publications, and pieces in mainstream magazines such as History Today and Fortean Times. For more information, please see www.drflight.co.uk