Two Stroke Cars: Got the Trabi home/first impressions

Friday, October 8, 2010

Got the Trabi home/first impressions

Well, It's been a busy few days!
Flew with my son to East Midlands Airport on Tuesday last, where the Trabi awaited us, courtesy of it's previous owner who was kind enough to drive it there.
We got there about 10 am.
We then had to drive approx 170 miles to Holyhead, Wales, to get the boat back to Ireland and the car never missed a beat. We arrived in plenty of time for our crossing and had a lot of fun too.
We took our time, drove about 90 miles and stopped for coffee and a sandwich.
Then we made our way to Holyhead and got to have a nice stroll around the harbour and do a bit of shopping as we had about 3.5 hours to kill before boarding our ferry.
We bought some lovely fish and chips and ate them overlooking the Irish sea.

I'd never driven a Trabant before and was surprised at how good they are to drive.
The Trabant has had much criticism over it's long lifespan, from Western critics, but I can now say those critics have been wrong and their criticism unjustified.
The steering is tight, accurate, responsive and the turning circle is fantastic.
My car had recent new brake shoes fitted all round and the car stops up pretty sharp and in a straight line.
What surprised me most was how good the little car handles as negative criticism seems to attack that characteristic more than anything else. You can really chuck the little car around and its tyres stick to the road admirably. I can now understand how the Trabant won so many rallies in the sixties and early seventies.

My car is a November 1989 model and has the rear coil spring suspension set-up and electronic ignition.
November '89, of course is the same year and month that the Berlin Wall opened and this car is one of the last two stroke models produced, before the 'Sachsenring' factory switched to a Volkswagen derived, 4 -stroke engine in a failed bid to make the Trabi attractive to home-grown buyers. ( who could now buy cars cheaply from the West)
My car has only covered 62000 kilometres, just under 40k miles, so the tightness of the drive, like all cars is somewhat due largely to it's relative freshness.

Most surprising thing is the fuel economy I've gotten.
When I picked the car up, it had 22 litres of fuel in the tank.
I later topped it up with 12 litres, to fill it. That's 34 litres.
I've done 438km(270 miles approx) since I got the car and it still has 11 litres of fuel in the tank.
So, the car has done 270 miles on 23 litres of fuel, which roughly equates to 54 mpg.
I drove the car at 80-85 kmph according to the speedo on the motorway and obviously mixed speeds on lesser roads. I would say that the motorway miles I've done would be no more than 180.

The paintwork on the car, like most Trabis I've seen is pretty flat and there is small surface rust here and there on the steel bits. Might try a T-cut and see if it does anything for the paintwork.

More to follow:

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List & reviews of Ddr related films and books.

A Dangerous Devotion (Paperback) This is an unusual story of how one man persisted for 12 years to fulfill his quest to marry a girl he'd only seen a couple of times when he was on the run in WWII as an escaped prisoner of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. He'd been captured in 1944 during the Normandy landings and was a prisoner slaving in the coal mines of Silesia for a time. He escaped the German's 3 times and was always recaptured. He was captivated by a teenage girl he met on one of his escapes, whose family fed him and an accomplice. It tells of all the heartbreaking Communist red tape he and his girl had to go through and the continuous suspicion the Communist powers that be had for any Westerners, as they assumed they were all spies. To spy on what? Food and clothing shortages? Poor, repressed and beaten people? Endless queues to buy meat and other staples? Cold War my foot! Most people would have given up, but the Author doggedly persists in successfully breaching Communist borders to meet his girl, and gets caught and expelled in the process from both Czechoslovakia and the Gdr( whom he describes as the most hateful as all the Communist regimes). Eventually in 1957, Anna the girl is thrown out of Czechoslovakia and her citizenship is renounced due to negative publicity the Czech government was receiving from British quarters, instigated by the Author. This paved the way for them to be together and she moved to the Uk. What's not clear is how happy they were together afterwards. They stayed together and had 2 children , which is some indication I suppose, but the Author says very little regarding this which I find odd. Also in the 50's and 60's couples tended to stick with it for the long haul, irrespective of anything else. He also says that he enjoyed solitary holidays abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe throughout their marriage, which suggests to me that the Author craved excitement all his life which continued after his marriage. He briefly alludes to the fact that part of Anna's attraction for him was the fact that she seemed so unattainable for so long. I think possibly after the War and particularly the experiences he had rendered him unsuitable for an ordinary life in peacetime Britain, and he needed an outlet for this restlessness that his quest for this girl provided. He was also obviously well off or he could never have funded such long trips and pay for all the travel, hotels and journeys that took weeks on end through all of the 12 years it took for them to finally get together. A man of more modest means and regular job responsibilities could never have done this as he couldn't have afforded it, nor got the necessary time off work to do it. A very good read, just let down at the end by the scant details of their life together after they were married.
GDR-Guide: Everyday life in a long gone state in 22 chapters (Paperback) I bought this book in the DDR Museum in Alexanderplatz, Berlin. Not wanting to detract from the fine museum, the book is far better and gives a surprisingly broad insight into the whole Gdr from its inception in 1949 and its demise in 1989. Along the way it gives useful information about what life was like for ordinary people who grew up, worked and lived their lives in the Gdr. The book is well written, in an informal, easy to read style and its designed that you can read it through from the beginning, or skip to each chapter written in a 'stand alone' format. You can read about how family holidays were taken in East Germany or other Socialist states and how nudist camps were a feature of the Gdr! Read about how the Trabant became the people's car for many years, equally loved and hated by the population. It describes how the Train network was old and decrepit and transportation in general was rarely invested in by the Government. The 'Stasi' secret Police are covered, as is all the political wrangling and Cold War machinations. The Berlin Wall is of course covered in depth too. All in all, a very good read about what life was like in the Communist hideaway that was the Gdr, or the 'Workers Paradise' as their Government liked to view it.
This review is from: 1989 The Berlin Wall: My Part in Its Downfall (Paperback) Very good read indeed, well written in ordinary language and interesting throughout. Millar was a reporter for the news agency Reuters when posted to the Gdr in the early eighties. He quickly learnt to speak German and so was able to assimilate into the Berlin culture and earn the friendship of ordinary working people ( not easy to do in a totalitarian state like the Gdr). His friends included, publican's, a gravedigger, a hippy, a script writer, and eventually even a border guard! He tells of the apartment next door to his that was rumoured to be occupied by a Policeman, that no-one ever seen! He guessed rightly at the time it was a room used by the Stasi for the bugging and monitoring of his apartment. He was able to confirm this later when he obtained his stasi file, after the Wall fell. He writes of the seduction attempts by his 'offical' cleaner, dubbed by the Author 'Helga the Honeypot', who let it be known in no uncertain terms, her charms were his for the taking if he so desired. He probably rightly guessed that flattering as her advances were, she was trying to seduce him for Stasi purposes, whether they wanted to later blackmail him or simply obtain information, who knows? So he declined and shortly after his wife joined him in East Berlin, the 'Honeypot' was transferred someplace unknown and replaced by an elderly woman! Millar later left Reuters and worked for The Telegraph and later for the Sunday Times, always covering the unfolding events and changes in East Europe over the late eighties and early nineties. He covered the changes in the Ussr, Poland and to a lesser extent Romania. The book as the title suggests, covers mostly East Germany and is a most interesting look and insight into perhaps the most interesting of the former Communist states. It gives lots of poignant stories of ordinary Berliner's and their sometimes heartbreaking stories of personal loss, imprisonment and deprivation. It tells how the 'Wall' tore families apart, living only streets away, yet separated for years on either side of the divide. Definitely one of the better books on East Germany and ranks with 'Stasiland' by Anna Funder as a cracking read.
This review is from: Wolf Among Wolves (Paperback)By Hans Fallada: If you've read any of Fallada's other books you'll like this one too. It's longer, at almost 800 pages and much slower moving than is typical of the Author, but the quality of his prose never wavers and his brilliance is on every page. Set in 1923, in a Germany whose economy has collapsed and poverty and crime are rampant everywhere. As are thieves, corruption and massive daily inflation. There's rioting in the streets and soldiers living rough and foraging in the forests. The book is subtle in its criticism of the Nazi's that were coming into power and becoming a monster with momentum, yet it is obvious enough to see it. Published in 1938, it's easy to see how Fallada feared this book would cause him death by Nazi retribution. Perhaps this is why previous versions of this book were heavily edited, with chapters missing. This is the whole and complete unabridged version and it's a cracking novel.
This review is from: The File (Paperback)by Timothy Garton Ash. The Author studied and lived in East and West Berlin during the whole Cold War debacle. He discovers that the 'Stasi' secret Police kept a file on him during this time, with the code name 'Romeo', due to his Alfa Romeo car. ( not due to his stunning good looks or way with women) :) After Reunification, Garton Ash goes back and reads his file and then investigates and interviews those who informed and kept him under surveillance. It's a good story and one worthy of writing and telling, but Garton Ash is an academic and unable to tell the story with the emotion and raw simplicity that would make such a story utterly compelling. He frequently mentions a name, briefly, then many pages later will refer to that person and expect the reader to know and follow the story as he can, which is impossible as it's his story! This happens many times in the book, with characters barely described, who keep popping up here and there and the reader cannot remember them as they've been barely described or described in a totally unmemorable way. Many times, you'll come across an interesting passage and think the book is picking up, then he rambles again or goes another direction and interest wanes. For anyone, not familiar with the Stasi and their methods of operation, it's ok and it will inform the reader somewhat, but a much better book for all levels of understanding is Anna Funders 'Stasiland' which I have reviewed on this site also. I thought this book could've and would've been much better.
Man without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism's Greatest Spymaster (Paperback) by Markus Wolf. I enjoyed this book, even though some details are sketchy and I feel the Author avoids certain issues. He's very quick to distance himself from the more distasteful aspects of the 'Stasi' policy and the awful treatment they subjected their own people to, such as torture and emotional blackmail. Is he being honest? Who knows? Herr Wolf is though a man of high intelligence and this shines through the book time and time again. We also get from him an idea that life in the Gdr wasn't as grim and dour as it was often portrayed by the West. There are many references to the 'sleepy pace of life' that existed in the Gdr. A man of principle, he resolutely refused to computerise his files and classified information regarding his spies and contacts. He admits to being distrustful of computers. The Gdr slowly died due mainly to bankruptcy and it's an awful shame to read how absolute fortunes were spent by all sides during the Cold War to maintain spy rings and constantly strive to get one over on each other. Wolf had a very successful career and was one of the chief men in the 'Stasi', who answered only and directly to Mielke. ( whom he clearly despised) All in all, its a good read and a historical reminder of what a fruitless farce the whole Cold War debacle was from beginning to end.
TRABANT Ein Auto fur eine Mark! ( A CAR FOR A DOLLAR) DVD.: THIS EXCELLENT DVD IS A MUST FOR ALL TRABI FANS. ALMOST ONE HOUR LONG IT TELLS THE WHOLE STORY OF THE TRABANT FROM IT'S INCEPTION, THROUGH TO ITS DEMISE. IT ALSO TELLS HOW THE CAR WAS BUILT WITH MUCH HUMAN LABOUR, AFTER THE RUSSIANS PILLAGED THE FACTORY AFTER WORLD WAR II AND SENT MOST OF THE MACHINERY AND TOOLING TO RUSSIA. AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW THE TRABANT WAS MADE FROM 'DUROPLAST', WHICH WAS A MIXTURE OF PLASTIC RESIN, STRENGTHENED WITH A BY PRODUCT OF COTTON WASTE. MANUFACTURER 'SACHSENRING' INVENTED THIS NEW MATERIAL OUT OF NECESSITY AS STEE2C UNITARY CONSTRUCTION AND WAS THE FIRST CAR EVER MADE FROM RECYCLABLE MATERIALS. THE MAJORITY OF WESTERN MANUFACTURERS HAD SWITCHED TO CLEANER BURNING FOUR STROKE ENGINES, SO TWO STROKE ENGINES, LIKE THE TRABANT WERE SEEN AS OUTDATED AND UNFASHIONABLE. THE TRABANT THOUGH WAS VERY ECONOMICAL AND GAVE REASONABLE PERFORMANCE, RELATIVE TO THE TIME IT WAS BUILT AND THE 600 CC ENGINE WOULD HAVE BEEN ON PAR WITH MOST WESTERN FOUR STROKERS, UP TO 1000CC. THIS IS PROVED BY THE REMARKABLE SUCCESSES THE CAR HAD ON THE RALLY CIRCUIT, WHERE THEY REGULARLY BEAT BMW AMONGST OTHERS. INTERESTINGLY ONE OF THE PROTOTYPES THE 603, LOOKS REMARKABLY LIKE THE VOLKSWAGEN GOLF WHICH APPEARED ABOUT 3 YEARS AFTER THE COMPANY WERE REFUSED PERMISSION TO BUILD THE CAR. THE AUTHORITIES NOT ONLY REFUSED THEM, BUT CONFISCATED ALL PAPERWORK AND FILES. STAFF AT SACHSENRING BELIEVE THAT THE GOVERNMENT SOLD THEIR PLANS TO VOLKSWAGEN, WHO IN TURN PRODUCED THE GOLF. THIS 603 PROTOTYPE IF PRODUCED WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST HATCHBACK CAR EVER AND WOULD HAVE APPEARED 3 YEARS BEFORE THE RENAULT 5 (WHICH WAS THE 1ST). IT'S A GREAT DVD AND TELLS THE COMPLETE STORY. IT ALSO SHOWS THE TREMENDOUS POPULARITY 'TRABIS' NOW ENJOY ALL OVER THE WORLD AND THE CLUBS, ASSOCIATIONS AND EVENTS DEVOTED TO THEM. HARD TO BELIEVE THAT WHEN THE WALL CAME DOWN IN 1989, TRABANTS COULD BE BOUGHT FOR AS LITTLE AS A DOLLAR. THEIR OWNERS SO HAPPY TO ESCAPE TO THE WEST, SAW THE TRABANT AS A REMINDER OF THEIR OPPRESSIVE PAST. ALSO THEY WANTED WESTERN CARS AS THEY WERE LARGELY DENIED THEM ALL THEIR LIVES IN EAST GERMANY. THE DVD IS IN GERMAN, BUT THERE IS SOME ENGLISH AUDIO AND SUBTITLES. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
TRABANT TREK (Crossing the world in a plastic car) BY DAN MURDOCH: I've just started reading the above book, well am about 30% through it to be exact and just thought I'd mention first impressions. The word 'crap' comes to mind, but to be fair will hold off my final appraisal until I read all of it. So far, eight people have set off from Germany, east across Europe, across Asia, through twenty one countries, before ending up at their final destination,Cambodia, where they plan to give money they raised to a children's charity, some of them had visited five years previously. The convoy consists of three, Trabants, ( 2 x 601 saloons, 1 x 601 combi) in very poor condition and a Mercedes estate.( to carry supplies and back-up equipment) The journey will consist of 15,000 miles, covering all types of terrain and many bleak and barren landscapes. You would think for such a journey of epic proportions, they would have spent wisely and bought pretty good cars, Wouldn't you? Wrong! The Trabbis they bought cost between, $150 and $350. They paid $1500 for the Mercedes, then realised thousands of miles later, after a blow out, that they didn't have a wheel brace to change the spare wheel! Much comment, thus far to date, has been on the many minor problems and breakdowns that the Trabbis had. Is it any wonder, when they bought cars in crap condition? They didn't even put new batteries in them before setting off, then write about them having battery failure. They did, however, think it wise to spend $250( on each car, except the Mercedes), having a metal plate fitted underneath each Trabbi engine, to protect the engines from stones and debris. The Mercedes was the only car with a sump and a steel plate under it WOULD HAVE made sense, due to the rough terrain and desert they would have to cross. Oh yes, almost forgot, they set off on this expedition with no maps. They left them behind! Three times, the trekkers managed to crack the sump on the Mercedes. This may have been, at least partly to do with the fact that the rear hydraulic suspension failed, within a short time into the trip. This suspension, similar to that used by many Citroen's, is great when working well and enables huge loads to be carried with an evenness of distribution, unknown with conventional suspensions. But hydraulic suspension has always been problematic, especially on older vehicles. Very, very few Mercedes models were fitted with this suspension. The fact that these people bought a car with such, was really bad judgement on their part, as hydraulics are difficult to fix and their pipes which carry the fluid are prone to rusting and springing leaks. One of the group, Tony, was in charge of mechanical repairs as he 'allegedly' had done two years of a motor mechanic apprenticeship. Eventually the Merc deteriorated further to the point, that they abandoned it after ten thousand kilometres. This meant that they had to dump much of the cargo of spare parts that had been carried in the Merc, as the 3 Trabbis were being further burdened by two extra people, let alone carry the cargo as well. There were plenty of mechanical problems with the Trabbis, but as the cars were heaps of junk when they were bought, this was hardly surprising. A couple of clutches failed, a left control arm broke and attempts to weld it would only last a few hundred km before it would break again. ( they had no spare ones) They seemed to have a lot of problems with battery failure in all the cars. I wonder if the cars had 6volt electrics, which would account for this. A gearbox broke on one of the cars, a clutch plate sheared in half, a leaf spring snapped which was also unsuccessfully welded many times( a spare one of these would also have been handy). The engine on one of the car's seized and had to be replaced. The Author doesn't say why this happened and I doubt he knew why, but a two stroke engine seizing is often due to insufficient oil being present in the fuel, which if this is the case, is down to the ineptness of the group and nothing else. There were other engine changes also towards the end of the trip. This may seem like a huge obstacle but Trabbi engines only weigh about forty kilos and can be changed in thirty minutes by a mechanic who knows what he's doing. Trabants were made to be simply and easily fixed, not only for mechanics but with their owners in mind, for easy maintenance. Many times throughout the book, he would say one of the cars broke down, without saying what the problem was, nor say how it was fixed. It is obvious that he had little mechanical knowledge, if any. The group made it 350km into China when the cars more or less gave up and packed in. So, the cars were freighted 3500 km across China to Laos, where they managed to repair them enough to continue. Shortly afterwards they had to abandon one of the cars in Northern Laos and continue with two cars to Thailand and then finally Cambodia. They visited two main orphanages there and donated the ten thousand dollars sponsorship their journey had raised. This, of course, was the best and most worthwhile part of the whole exercise. The group are to be commended also, for doing the trip on their own funds, not dipping into the sponsorship pool to fund their expenses getting to Cambodia. How this group managed to drive about eleven thousand miles (by my reckoning), across mountains, and two major deserts is beyond me. They seemed to be appalling drivers, almost without exception and many of the breakdowns were acknowledged to be of their own doing, by the Author. Bad drivers, bad cars and constantly bickering amongst each other throughout. Much effort is made by the Author to rubbish the cars at every opportunity, which I feel is unjust. The three Trabants combined cost approximately eight hundred dollars and were poor cars to begin with. That said, the Mercedes they bought cost $1500 and didn't perform as well as the Trabants, due partly to the fact that the Trabants are much easier to fix, work on, and replace vital components quickly and with relative ease. The author at times, seemed to jeer the fact that the Trabants were archaic, slow and dated. If the Trabants were not so simple, mechanically, this group would never have made the journey as far as they did. More complex cars would simply have broken down and none of the group would have had the skills necessary to repair them. I feel that the Author has attempted to make their journey seem much more of an accomplishment due to the fact it was done in Trabants, instead of admitting the simplicity of the Trabant is the real reason they were able to have any degree of success. Even the book title ' Trabant Trek' Crossing the world in a plastic car' is derogatory and attempts to sound sensationalist. Trabants were made from a man-made material called 'Duroplast' which was plastic resin mixed with a by product of Cotton waste. These materials combined together produced a body that proved more durable in independent crash tests, than many Western cars made from steel, of the same era. The reason Duroplast was invented was due to the fact that there was a chronic steel shortage in Eastern Europe in the late fifties, early sixties. These are well documented facts. The book is at times interesting and also boring at times. The Author tries hard, too hard in my view, to be funny. Each chapter begins with a stupid 'Trabant' joke, which is unnecessary. More about the individual countries should have been written, mainly costs and about the people they met. There's a sort of yuppie smugness that comes across from the Author and some of the group, that is irritating at times. They appear at every area of their privacy. The cast are all superb, especially the stasi agent played by Ulrich Muhe. It's a tragic lovestory set in East Berlin and every detail was made as authentic as could be to make the film as realistic and believable as possible. It also shows the levels of corruption that were prevalent in the Ddr and ruthlessly exploited time and time again by those in power. From a classic car viewpoint, there are numerous Trabants, Wartburgs, Barkas and at least one Robur truck to be seen. The dull streets of East Berlin provide an appropriate backdrop to this story of love and oppression.
WARTBURG 311/312/353: 1955-1991 BY HORST IHLING: THIS BOOK COVERS THE WARTBURG MODELS 311,312 AND 353 IN ALL THE DIFFERENT MODELS AND VARIANTS AVAILABLE DURING THE PRODUCTION YEARS 1955-1991. VERY RARELY SEEN NOWADAYS, WARTBURGS MAKE A BRILLIANT AND RARE CHOICE OF CLASSIC CAR, NOT LEAST BECAUSE THEY ARE THE LAST MANUFACTURER TO USE 2-STROKE ENGINES. THIS TECHNOLOGY WHILST OBVIOUSLY DATED NOWADAYS HAD SUPERB RELIABILITY AND ONLY REQUIRED MINIMAL SERVICING EVERY 30,000 MILES! (JUST PLUGS AND POINTS USUALLY). I RECENTLY BOUGHT A WARTBURG 353(1988) AND AM DELIGHTED WITH IT, WENT TO A RECENT SHOW AND WAS AMAZED AT THE INTEREST AND RESPONSE FROM THE PUBLIC, THE CAR GENERATED. THIS BOOK WHILST MAINLY WRITTEN IN GERMAN( IT DOES HAVE A FEW ENGLISH PASSAGES) IS A VISUAL FEAST AND CELEBRATION OF A LARGELY FORGOTTEN GERMAN CAR MANUFACTURER.
THE DRINKER: BY HANS FALLADA: I think this is probably Fallada's greatest book. The psychological insights that this author possesses are remarkable. His portrayal and fascination with seedy characters and the low moral standards of the criminal classes is astounding. Good writing like this is timeless, this book could have been written today,as much as 1944, when it was written. The book shows how quickly, in this case, alcoholism takes hold of, shapes and distorts one's personality, from a respectable businessman to the lowest gutter of society. Fallada was no stranger to Mental Hospitals himself, having had numerous stays in different establishments and he wrote this book in two weeks, whilst sojourned in one such establishment. There are few Authors in the history of books, that can write so eloquently about the foibles and intricacies of deviant personality. I won't spoil the ending here, but there is one hell of a twist in this tale at the end. "Alone in Berlin" is also another cracking book by Fallada, but I think that this book, even surpasses it in it's sheer quality and brilliance.
ALONE IN BERLIN, BY HANS FALLADA: This is a super book that loses nothing of it's quality through translation from German to English. There are not many characters in the book, but each one is vividly brought to life and plays an important role in the context of the story. The Author seems to have an uncanny knowledge of human nature and the psyche, more than I've ever experienced before. Perhaps, this is due to the fact that the Author himself battled many personal demons in his own life, including drug and alcohol addiction. He also had many sojourns in Psychiatric hospitals throughout his life and also tried to commit suicide as a teenager. The scene is 1940-45, in the German dictatorship led by Hitler. Otto and wife, Anna Quangel lose their son, killed in action in the War. This prompts them to avenge their sons death by striking back at the regime in some small way. This they do, by distributing anonymous postcards, with anti-hitler and anti-regime slogans and propaganda written on them. The Gestapo soon get wind of this and launch an investigation and man-hunt which eventually bears fruit, although it takes them two years to catch them. They are imprisoned and eventually put to death, but their stoicism and strength of mind is a joy to read about, as they refuse to yield to the will of their captors. This is a great book, that I cannot recommend highly enough. It captures the German psyche like no other novel has before, or since. Although the book is set in 1940-45, the similarities between this novel and the Communist regime that replaced them after the war, up to 1989 are eerily duplicates of one another. People are living in fear, snitches and informants are everywhere. People are locked up and sent to concentration camps on the whim or word of another, in a hostile, Police state.
THE BERLIN WALL, BY FREDERICK TAYLOR:This book covers all angles of the whole Berlin Wall saga. It covers all the political machinations from start to finish, and shows at all times what both sides, East and West were thinking and doing at every step. The best thing about the book ( for me anyway), is the human side of it. The ordinary people who lived and worked in the GDR and who attempted to escape its clutches by escaping or attempting to escape over the wall, under the sewers, across its rivers and many other, sometimes ingenious freedom attempts, is what makes the book tick and keeps it fresh and interesting. These true accounts, of escape, imprisonment, sometimes death are enthralling as no fiction can ever be. Overall, a good read on fascinating subject.
STASILAND (STORIES FROM BEHIND THE BERLIN WALL) BY ANNA FUNDER: :This is a remarkable book and piece of writing. Anna Funder tells the history and modus operandi of the Stasi secret police from it's inception in 1949, through to the end and fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Not only does she tell the story of the Stasi but also that of the whole regime of the DDR. She does this, NOT, by spewing boring historical data, but by telling the stories of real German's in the third person, whose lifes were directly or indirectly affected by the Stasi. These interviews with the Author were all conducted shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall. We meet numerous ex-stasi men, some who have moved with the times and the'New' Germany, some who cannot and in their minds will always hanker for their old life in the DDR. We meet a woman whose baby son needed specialist care in the Western side of Berlin and as a result, after a failed escape attempt spent years apart from her and came back to her a stranger , five years later after he recovered. This woman also served time in the dreaded Hohenschönhausen prison and now is on the preservation committee of the same institution. We meet the Stasi man who drew the line for the laying of the Berlin Wall, over 100 miles worth, who now acts as a tourist guide. We meet Herr Scnitznel who was the television face of DDR propaganda for years, still spewing hatred against the capitalist western world. We meet Julia, whose life was ruined before it began, due to the fact she had an Italian boyfriend that she wouldn't ditch upon Stasi request. They made sure she could not gain employment in ANY of the jobs she applied for, despite the fact she was a graduate who spoke four languages. Later she threatens to complain directly to Honecker(secretary of state) and her persecution ends (she had ditched the boyfriend by this time of her own volition). Julia later ended up a victim of rape and had to undergo a physical from a male member of the Stasi, despite the fact there was a female officer available! We meet Klaus a member of one of the biggest Rock bands to come from East Germany, whose group were told one day, 'they no longer existed', all their records disappeared from sale and no-one would hire them to play, effective overnight. Later they reformed and are now as popular as ever again. Perhaps the best story in this book is that of Miriam, who was arrested at 16 for putting up anti-propaganda bill posters and later jailed when she unsuccessfully failed to cross the Berlin wall and was captured. When she was released and later married, her husband was arrested and imprisoned for applying to emigrate to the west. He died in captivity, the Stasi told her he hung himself, yet would not allow an autopsy on the body. We also meet the puzzle women, who work painstakingly day after day, re-putting together huge sacks of ripped and shredded documents that the Stasi tried to dispose of in 1989. The Stasi had files it seems on almost everyone, spouses informed on spouses, colleagues on each other etc until it bred such paranoia within itself that it imploded. I think possibly the Stasi were even more cruel than the Gestapo that preceded them. Some reviewers of this book criticize Funder for talking to much about her own observations and about herself. I feel this only adds to the book as her prose ebbs and flows beautifully throughout. She has taken a broad historical subject and made it into an engaging and thrillingly enjoyable narrative. The coverage and descriptions especially of Berlin read like a travelogue and I can wait to visit in a few weeks time myself. This is a great book. Buy it and read it for yourself. Berlin wall. We meet numerous ex-stasi men, some who have moved with the times and the'New' Germany, some who cannot and in their minds will always hanker for their old life in the DDR. We meet a woman whose baby son needed specialist care in the Western side of Berlin and as a result, after a failed escape attempt spent years apart from her and came back to her a stranger , five years later after he recovered. This woman also served time in the dreaded Hohenschönhausen prison and now is on the preservation committee of the same institution. We meet the Stasi man who drew the line for the laying of the Berlin Wall, over 100 miles worth, who now acts as a tourist guide. We meet Herr Scnitznel who was the television face of DDR propaganda for years, still spewing hatred against the capitalist western world. We meet Julia, whose life was ruined before it began, due to the fact she had an Italian boyfriend that she wouldn't ditch upon Stasi request. They made sure she could not gain employment in ANY of the jobs she applied for, despite the fact she was a graduate who spoke four languages. Later she threatens to complain directly to Honecker(secretary of state) and her persecution ends (she had ditched the boyfriend by this time of her own volition). Julia later ended up a victim of rape and had to undergo a physical from a male member of the Stasi, despite the fact there was a female officer available! We meet Klaus a member of one of the biggest Rock bands to come from East Germany, whose group were told one day, 'they no longer existed', all their records disappeared from sale and no-one would hire them to play, effective overnight. Later they reformed and are now as popular as ever again. Perhaps the best story in this book is that of Miriam, who was arrested at 16 for putting up anti-propaganda bill posters and later jailed when she unsuccessfully failed to cross the Berlin wall and was captured. When she was released and later married, her husband was arrested and imprisoned for applying to emigrate to the west. He died in captivity, the Stasi told her he hung himself, yet would not allow an autopsy on the body. We also meet the puzzle women, who work painstakingly day after day, re-putting together huge sacks of ripped and shredded documents that the Stasi tried to dispose of in 1989. The Stasi had files it seems on almost everyone, spouses informed on spouses, colleagues on each other etc until it bred such paranoia within itself that it imploded. I think possibly the Stasi were even more cruel than the Gestapo that preceded them. Some reviewers of this book criticize Funder for talking to much about her own observations and about herself. I feel this only adds to the book as her prose ebbs and flows beautifully throughout. She has taken a broad historical subject and made it into an engaging and thrillingly enjoyable narrative. The coverage and descriptions especially of Berlin read like a travelogue and I can wait to visit in a few weeks time myself. This is a great book. Buy it and read it for yourself.
Dangerous Devotion by Christopher Portway: This is an unusual story of how one man persisted for 12 years to fulfill his quest to marry a girl he'd only seen a couple of times when he was on the run in WWII as an escaped prisoner of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. He'd been captured in 1944 during the Normandy landings and was a prisoner slaving in the coal mines of Silesia for a time. He escaped the German's 3 times and was always recaptured. He was captivated by a teenage girl he met on one of his escapes, whose family fed him and an accomplice. It tells of all the heartbreaking Communist red tape he and his girl had to go through and the continuous suspicion the Communist powers that be had for any Westerners, as they assumed they were all spies. To spy on what? Food and clothing shortages? Poor, repressed and beaten people? Endless queues to buy meat and other staples? Cold War my foot! Most people would have given up, but the Author doggedly persists in successfully breaching Communist borders to meet his girl, and gets caught and expelled in the process from both Czechoslovakia and the Gdr( whom he describes as the most hateful as all the Communist regimes). Eventually in 1957, Anna the girl is thrown out of Czechoslovakia and her citizenship is renounced due to negative publicity the Czech government was receiving from British quarters, instigated by the Author. This paved the way for them to be together and she moved to the Uk. What's not clear is how happy they were together afterwards. They stayed together and had 2 children , which is some indication I suppose, but the Author says very little regarding this which I find odd. Also in the 50's and 60's couples tended to stick with it for the long haul, irrespective of anything else. He also says that he enjoyed solitary holidays abroad, particularly in Eastern Europe throughout their marriage, which suggests to me that the Author craved excitement all his life which continued after his marriage. He briefly alludes to the fact that part of Anna's attraction for him was the fact that she seemed so unattainable for so long. I think possibly after the War and particularly the experiences he had rendered him unsuitable for an ordinary life in peacetime Britain, and he needed an outlet for this restlessness that his quest for this girl provided. He was also obviously well off or he could never have funded such long trips and pay for all the travel, hotels and journeys that took weeks on end through all of the 12 years it took for them to finally get together. A man of more modest means and regular job responsibilities could never have done this as he couldn't have afforded it, nor got the necessary time off work to do it. A very good read, just let down at the end by the scant details of their life together after they were married.
This review is from: Deutsche Autos - Alle Personenwagen und Nutzfahrzeuge der DDR: Mit allen Ostblock - Importfahrzeugen (Hardcover) :This books deals with all the East German makes of Cars, vans, trucks and buses. Wartburg, Trabant, Robur, Multicar, Framo, barkas, Melkus etc, they're all here, plus all other Communist cars imported into East Germany up until German unification. It gives statistics on all makes and models, numbers sold, along with technical data for each model. The book is beautifully illustrated with lots of colour photos, which lessens the blow somewhat that this book is only available in German text. Nonetheless, a decent book that is quite substantial in size. Recommended.
THE LIVES OF OTHERS:DVD: This brilliant dvd shows how the Stasi operated in great detail, destroying peoples lives and invading every area of their privacy. The cast are all superb, especially the stasi agent played by Ulrich Muhe. It's a tragic lovestory set in East Berlin and every detail was made as authentic as could be to make the film as realistic and believable as possible. It also shows the levels of corruption that were prevalent in the Ddr and ruthlessly exploited time and time again by those in power. From a classic car viewpoint, there are numerous Trabants, Wartburgs, Barkas and at least one Robur truck to be seen. The dull streets of East Berlin provide an appropriate backdrop to this story of love and oppression.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Got the Trabi home/first impressions

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