East Germany’s old social values given the elbow

The Trabant, meaning ‘fellow traveller’, was the most common vehicle in East Germany. There is much to miss about the former communist country, writes Bruni de la Motte. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Matthew Engel, in his article on Northern Ireland (An uncertain peace, 21 January), writes that on a Radio Ulster phone-in he “heard elderly listeners exhibiting a version of East German östalgie [sic], improbable nostalgia for a dreadful past”.

While I can’t speak for Northern Ireland, I can as one who was born and grew up in East Germany, in saying that it is not a rosy-tinged Ostalgie that colours my feelings but a genuine sadness at the loss of a society in which social values and solidarity have been replaced by the imposition of a monetary ethos and an individualistic “elbow mentality”.

In my book, Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?, I explain this more fully.
Bruni de la Motte
London

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