X-Nico

unusual facts about East German



Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's shot put

The East German throwers were expected to pose a big challenge in these games, as well as the throwers from Poland.

Call for the Dead

"Blondie" is soon identified by fellow Circus agent Peter Guillam as Hans-Dieter Mundt, an East German agent under diplomatic cover working for Dieter Frey, a German spy of Smiley's during World War II who has since become an important East German agent.

Carola Weißenberg

Carola Weißenberg (married name Fleischhauer) (born 24 December 1962 in Hohenschönhausen, Germany) is a former East German figure skater and a three-time national medalist.

Dietmar Schauerhammer

Dietmar Schauerhammer (born 12 August 1955; Neustadt an der Orla, Thuringia) is an East German two-time Winter Olympic champion, pentathlete, decathlete and bob pusher for six-time World champion, two-time Olympic champion, four-time European champion, two-time German champion and five-time GDR champion Wolfgang Hoppe who competed during the 1980s.

Ellen Streidt

Ellen Streidt, née Stropahl (born July 27, 1952 in Wittstock, Brandenburg) is a retired East German sprinter who specialized in the 400 metres.

Erika Bergmann

Bergmann soon moved on to the Oederan subcamp of Flossenbürg where she served out the rest of the war, after which an East German court found her guilty of murder and sentenced her to life imprisonment.

Erika Zuchold

Erica Zuchold (née Barth; born 19 March 1947 in Lucka) is a former East German gymnast who competed at the European, World, and Olympic level from the mid-1960s to early 1970s.

Eva-Maria Wernicke

Eva-Maria Wernicke (born 30 September 1953 in Beierfeld) is an East German luger who competed during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Evelyn Kaufer

Evelyn Schmuck, née Kaufer (born 22 February 1953 in Sohland an der Spree) is a retired East German sprinter, who specialized in the 100 metres.

Gabriele Günz

Gabriele Günz, née Niebling (born 8 September 1961 in Eisenach) is a retired East German high jumper.

Gleiwitz incident

Der Fall Gleiwitz, direction: Gerhard Klein (1961), DEFA studios (The Gleiwitz Case; English subtitles), is an East German film that reconstructs the events.

Hannes Hegen

Hannes Hegen (real name Johannes Eduard Hegenbarth, born 16 May 1925 in Böhmisch Kamnitz, now Česká Kamenice) is a German illustrator and caricaturist and is most famous for creating the East German comic book Mosaik and its original protagonists, the Digedags.

Heinz-Josef Große

Heinz-Josef Große was a 34-year-old East German (GDR) construction worker who was shot and killed on 29 March 1982 by GDR border guards on the Inner German border at Schifflersgrund, near Bad Sooden-Allendorf.

Helga Seidler

Helga Seidler (née Fischer born August 5, 1949 in Oberneuschönberg) is a former East German athlete who mainly competed in the women's 400 metres event.

Horst Jankhöfer

Horst Jankhöfer (born January 26, 1942 in Sandersdorf, Sachsen-Anhalt) is a former East German handball player who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Ingrid Lotz

Ingrid Lotz (born March 11, 1934 in Malliß near Ludwigslust) is an East German athlete who competed mainly in the discus throw event.

Jochen Sachse

Jochen Sachse (born 2 October 1948 in Frankenberg, Saxony) is an East German former athlete who competed mainly in the hammer throw.

Karl-Heinz Kurras

Karl-Heinz Kurras (born December 1, 1927 in Barten, East Prussia) is a former German police officer who served in the police force of West Berlin, and a former agent of the East German secret service Stasi.

Klaus-Dieter Kurrat

Klaus-Dieter Kurrat (born January 16, 1955 in Nauen, Brandenburg) was an East German athlete who competed mainly in the 100 metres.

Malá Strana

In 1989, the "Prague Embassy" of West Germany, located in the Palais Lobkowicz, was the site of a drama involving thousands of East German refugees.

Manfred Kokot

Manfred Kokot (born January 3, 1948 in Templin, Brandenburg) was an East German athlete, who won the silver medal in the 4x100m relay at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada.

Matthew H. Gore

He is best known for his book The History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky to 1988 (2000), but has published on a variety of topics as diverse as The Origin of Marvelman (a British superhero of the 1950s and 1960s), the relative scarcity of East German philatelics, and the biography of British pulp artist, Denis McLoughlin.

Munsinger Affair

It focused on Gerda Munsinger, an alleged East German prostitute and Soviet spy living in Ottawa who had slept with a number of cabinet ministers in John Diefenbaker's government.

Neo-Medieval music

1989 saw the formation of the German band Corvus Corax, two members of which were on the run from the disintegrating East German regime.

Oberschöneweide

Its urban park is the Wuhlheide, in which is located the to ridable miniature railway Berliner Parkeisenbahn (BPE), used during the East German period by the Young Pioneer Organisation.

Pentax

The name "Pentax" was originally a registered trademark of the East German VEB Zeiss Ikon (from "Pentaprism" and "Contax") but, as all Germans patents were annulled with the country's defeat, the name "Pentax" was taken by the Asahi Optical company in 1957.

Petra Rohrmann

Petra Rohrmann (born 30 July 1962 in Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia) was an East German cross country skier who competed from 1983 to 1984.

Pikku Kakkonen

It finished with a bedtime story read by Lasse Pöysti and an East German Sandman animation, setting the format for hundreds of later episodes.

Reinhard Eiben

Reinhard Eiben (born 4 December 1951 in Crossen, Zwickau) is a former East German slalom canoeist who competed in the 1970s.

René Friedl

René Friedl (born July 17, 1967 in Friedrichroda) is an East German-German luger who has competed during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Roland Wieser

Roland Wieser (born 6 May 1956, in Zschopau) is an East German racewalker who won the bronze medal in the 20 kilometer walk during the 1980 Summer Olympics with a time of 1:25:59 hours.

Roy Gutman

While European Bureau Chief, from late 1989 to 1994, he reported on the downfall of the Polish, East German, and Czechoslovak regimes, the opening of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the first democratic elections in the former Eastern Bloc, and the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia.

SG Mickten

They were a Stasi sponsored team like most Dresdner teams back then and East German teams.

Simone Opitz

Simone Opitz (born July 3, 1963 in Sonneberg, Thuringia) was an East German-German cross country skier who competed from 1985 to 1993.

Staatsbank

These were a chain of special shops that offered high quality East German goods (that were otherwise difficult to obtain without joining a long waiting list) at reasonable prices and otherwise unobtainable Western consumer goods (usually at near Duty free price levels) – they were accessible only to foreign tourists with hard currency and East German citizens with Forum checks.

Stefan Stannarius

Stefan Stannarius (born 20 October 1961 in Gräfenthal, Thuringia) was an East German ski jumper who competed from 1982 to 1984.

Steffi Martin

Steffi Martin (later as Steffi Walter, born 17 September 1962, Bad Schlema, Saxony) is an East German luger who competed during the 1980s.

Störtebeker Festival

Originally founded in 1959 as part of an East German culture initiative, it has become Germany's most successful open air theatre event, and is broadcast by public television network NDR.

Strausberg–Strausberg Nord railway

The headquarters of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (the militarised unit of the East German police, which was transformed in 1956 into the National People's Army) was moved in June 1954 from Berlin-Adlershof to Strausberg, because Berlin had been declared a demilitarised zone by the four occupying powers.

The Czar and the Carpenter

The Czar and the Carpenter (German title:Zar und Zimmermann) is a 1956 East German musical comedy film directed by Hans Müller and starring Willy A. Kleinau, Bert Fortell and Lore Frisch.

The Free Market Cure

The Lemon draws parallels between collectivized healthcare systems and the East German Trabant, a noisy, inefficient, underpowered automobile that remained a symbol of communist inefficiency and lack of ingenuity, mostly unchanged for nearly thirty years.

Trabbi Goes to Hollywood

The film's main protagonist is the young and eccentric inventor Gunther Schmidt, who (like many others) attempts to flee across the East German borderline to the West using his inventions, but constantly meets with failure.

Verwaltung des ehemaligen Reichsbahnvermögens

The Verwaltung des ehemaligen Reichsbahnvermögens (VdeR) was a body created in 1953 to take ownership of assets and properties of the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn in the western sectors of Berlin.

Walter Kempowski

In several more books he completed the story of his family from the early 20th century into the late 1950s, when he was released from an East German prison in Bautzen where, accused of spying for the US military forces in West Germany, he had been incarcerated for eight years.

Wolfgang Kieling

In films since childhood in his native Germany, Kieling appeared in a few American films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (1966), where he played an East German agent brutally slain by Paul Newman character, and had a small role in $ (aka, The Heist, 1971), starring Warren Beatty.

Wolfgang Lakenmacher

Wolfgang Lakenmacher (born October 8, 1943 in Neuenhofe, Sachsen-Anhalt) is a former East German handball player who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics.


see also

Anita Weiß

Anita Weiß (née Barkusky, later married Kehl and Marg; born 16 July 1955 in Burow) is a retired East German athlete who specialized in the 800 metres and later also 400 metres hurdles.

Arno von Lenski

After his retirement he joined several equestrian associations and was a member of the East German Olympic Committee and the executive board of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship and the East German Gymnastics and Sports Association.

Bernd Reichelt

In the 1990 East German elections, he was elected to the Volkskammer (parliament of the GDR) on behalf of the Green Party.

Bernd Schulz

This led to the referee, Bernd Stumpf, receiving a ban, a rarity in East German football.

Black Channel

Der schwarze Kanal ("The Black Channel"), a series of political propaganda programmes broadcast weekly between 1960 and 1989 by East German television

Christel

Christel Meinel (21st century), former East German cross country skier

D-EWOH

On 15 July 1987 Thomas Krüger stole it from the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik (an East German military youth organisation) and flew it from Schönhagen in East Germany to RAF Gatow (later General-Steinhoff Kaserne) in West Berlin in order to facilitate his defection to the West.

Daphne Berdahl

In 1999, she published Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland, an ethnographic account of her time spent in Kella, an East German border village between 1990 and 1992.

Dieter Fromm

Dieter Fromm (born 21 April 1948 in Bad Langensalza, Thuringia) is a retired East German middle distance runner who specialized in the 800 metres.

Doping in East Germany

At the trial of Manfred Ewald, leader of the East German sports program and president of his East Germany's Olympic committee and Manfred Hoeppner, East German medical director in Berlin in 2000, Krieger testified that the drugs he had been given had contributed to his transsexuality.

Ender

Kornelia Ender (born 1958), East German swimmer, multiple Olympic champion

EuroSpeedway Lausitz

The official EuroSpeedway anthem "Speed Kings" was recorded by the veteran East German band Puhdys in 2000.

Friedrich Schorlemmer

Schorlemmer joined the East German Social Democrats in the beginning of 1989.

Friese

Werner Friese (born 1946), a retired East German football player

Gordon Ackerman

Arrested by the East German secret police, the Stasi, Ackerman was released after convincing the police that he was a close friend of East German chief of state Erich Honecker.

Heinz Neukirchen

Heinz Neukirchen (* January 13, 1915 in Duisburg, Germany † December 8, 1986 in Rostock, Germany) was officer in the World War II Kriegsmarine, Vice Admiral in the People's Navy (Volksmarine) of the German Democratic Republic as well as President of the East German Directorate of Maritime and Port Industries.

Heißer Sommer

A 2001 video release promotes the film as "The East German Grease" although perhaps it is closer in concept to the 1963 British movie, "Summer Holiday" which starred Cliff Richard.

Helma Knorscheidt

Helma Knorscheidt (born 31 December 1956 in Nauendorf, Saxony-Anhalt) is an East German shot putter.

Hendrik Born

Hendrik Born (born 5 July 1944 in Loitz, Province of Pomerania, Germany) is a former Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) of the East German Navy (Volksmarine) and the last chief of the People's Navy and its youngest Vizeadmiral.

Hildegard Körner

Hildegard Körner, née Ullrich (born 20 December 1959 in Urnshausen) is a retired East German middle distance runner who specialized in the 800 metres.

International Mathematical Olympiad selection process

IMO team selection in Germany is based on the main national mathematical competitions: The Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik (BWM, the former west German olympiad), the Deutsche Mathematik-Olympiade (DeMO, the former east German olympiad), and Jugend forscht (a research competition).

Jakob Kaiser

In 1947 during the Ahlen conference – a joint conference of West and East German CDU leaders – Kaiser's plan of nationalisation of key industries and other moderate leftwing ideas were adopted by the party.

Jan Curik

In 1961, he went to the DEFA studios in East Germany to work with the East German director Gerhard Klein on The Gleiwitz Case.

Jurek Becker

After completing his national service in the East German army in the 1950s, during which time he became firm friends with the actor Manfred Krug, Becker studied philosophy in East Berlin but was expelled for expressing non-conformist views.

Kiefel

Josef Kiefel (1909-1988), anti-Nazi and East German counterintelligence chief

Klause

Gert-Dietmar Klause (born 1945), former East German cross-country skier

Liz Cohen

Cohen is most notable for her Bodywork project to transform an East German 1987 Trabant automobile into a 1973 Chevrolet El Camino using gears and hydraulics.

Luge at the 1968 Winter Olympics – Women's singles

After three runs, there were three East German racers Ortrun Enderlein, Anna-Maria Müller and Angela Knösel in the top 4, but were disqualified when the FIL determined that they had been heating their runners, a banned practice.

Manfred Krug

In 1976 the East German government (GDR) forbade Krug to work as an actor and singer because he participated in protests against the expulsion and stripping of GDR citizenship of Wolf Biermann.

Marita Koch

In 1991 German anti drug activists Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke were able to save several doctoral theses and other documents written by scientists, working for the East German drug research program.

Mercedes-Benz W108

When its tires were punctured by a trap, Bond famously drove the car along a railway track in pursuit of a train carrying Octopussy's circus across the West/East German border (although the scenes were actually filmed in Cambridgeshire, England), and just before reaching the border Bond managed to jump upon the train just before the car collided head-on with another train and was sent flying into a river.

ORWO

In 1953 the plant became the property of East Germany, and in a trade agreement settlement, the East German company, VEB Film- und Chemiefaserwerk Agfa Wolfen, was given the right to sell its products under the Agfa brand in Eastern Europe, while the newly re-established Agfa in West German Leverkusen had the right to the name in the rest of the world.

P29

P29, a patrol boat of the Armed Forces of Malta formerly the East German minesweeper Boltenhagen, now an artificial dive site.

Peter Huchel

After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Huchel came under attack from the East German authorities and the following year he was forced to resign the editorshop of Sinn und Form.

Professor Mamlock

Professor Mamlock (1961 film), an East German film based on the play, directed by Friedrich's son, Konrad Wolf.

Schwanitz

Wolfgang Schwanitz (born 1930), last head of the Stasi, the East German secret police

Sonnenallee

Winfried Glatzeder makes a brief cameo appearance, reprising his role as Paul from the East German film The Legend of Paul and Paula.

Sóstói Stadion

It took four years to finish the work, and the inaugural match took place on 30 September 1967, when VT Vasas hosted East German side FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt.

The Condemned Village

During 1952, the rejection of the Stalin Note by the Western Powers prompted the East German government to block and fortify the country's western borders - and to destroy several adjacent villages in the process.

Torsten Rasch

In Germany his first opera, Rotter, based on a play by East German dissident Thomas Brasch, was commissioned by Cologne Opera and received its world premiere in February 2008 in a production directed by Katherina Thalbach.

Treffpunkt Flughafen

The show follows the life and adventures of the crew of a IL-62 operated by the East-German airline Interflug.

Trübner

Michael Trübner, East German bobsledder who competed in the early 1980s

Ukradená bitva

Ukradená bitva (German title: Die gestohlene Stadt) is a 1972 East-German/Czechoslovak film based on the life of Christian Andreas Käsebier.

Walter Scheel

On 7 May 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after one of his aides, Günter Guillaume, was arrested as a spy for the East German state.

West Germany

Since the 1950s, Germany at the Olympics had been represented by a united team led by the pre-war German NOC officials as the IOC had denied East German demands for a separate team.

In 1973, official East German sources adopted it as a standard expression and other Eastern Bloc nations soon followed suit.

Winnigstedt

In the 1950s railway service to East German Heudeber discontinued, nevertheless the border station remained a rail hub between the Braunschweig-Schöningen line and the railway from Helmstedt to Holzminden.