Free German Youth was the offical socialist youth movement of the German
Democrate Republic. It was meant for young males and females between the age of
14-25, and it was compromised about 75% of the youth population in East Germany.
The function of this group was to offer reliable assistant and fighting to reserve
the Socialist Unity Party. They wanted to influence every aspect of life of young
people and promote of communism behaivor. Although, the Free German Youth was
techincally voluntary there were consequences for not being a member. If you
weren't a member you didn't have access to organized holidays, plus your
chance of getting into a university dramatically decreased if not completely
disappeared. Generally the only reason for people not joining is because of religious
reasons.
The Soviet Union applied two laws regarding travel in East Germany. The first
stated: it is illegal to travel without a passport, if caught you could spend 1-3 years in
prison. The second stated: illegal defection to a non eastern bloc state and refusal to
return home was considered treason against the state. Due to these laws East
Germany had heavy border controls. The justification for these emigration
restrictions were that they were an "educational tax". During this time there was a
massive brain drain, where a majority of their professionals were leaving the East to
live in the West. In 1957 the new laws were meant to reduce overall refuges but it
actually increased the people leaving through West Berlin. If you wanted to leave
East Germany you techincally could but it was an extremely long process with little
success. You had to get numerous approvals and your request could be denied
without appeal. This continued until 1989 when surrounding countries opened their
borders for emigrants, this accelerated the demise of the East German Government.
On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall fell.
No comments:
Post a Comment