Hope

Summary

In 1989, hope of better times drove many GDR citizens out of the country or onto the streets. ‘We must be crazy with hope’, sang Wolf Biermann, who had been stripped of his GDR-citizenship in 1982. Politicians soon realized that people cannot live without hope. This chapter unearths how the more religious faith faded, the more important political promises became. 1919 marked the new era of democracy, 1933 the ‘national revolution’ with a leader who proclaimed himself ‘the last hope’. In 1949, the GDR promised its citizens peace and justice. The Federal Republic, in turn, offered freedom and economic growth. In 1990, Chancellor Helmut Kohl presented the East Germans with the prospect of ‘flourishing landscapes’. Yet those to whom much is promised should be prepared to be disappointed. These disappointments were much greater in the East than in the West. Among the 2.7 million people who turned their backs on the GDR before the Wall was built in 1961 was the philosopher Ernst Bloch. His book The Principle of Hope inspired those in the Federal Republic who committed themselves in 1968 to the vision of ‘real democracy’.