After the wall fell, it was the personal upheavals that affected me more than the money. I never had the sense that I lacked anything. That was acquired of course. For example a colour TV cost 6000 Marks which was unaffordable. That was just how it was; I didn’t give it any more thought. We had a Robotron TV (the biggest electronics manufacturer in East Germany) and that was enough.
Another matter is what one thought on the 9th of November, but even then, I was not afraid the world was going to end. I took part in campaigns that sought to maintain our independence. It always had to do with the Party, which I actually never quit. It made sense then, for those who wanted democracy and socialism, to stay in the Party.
In 1989, it was my third year working, on Leipziger Straße funnily enough – I originally come from Leipzig – at the House of Ministries. We were late to collect our Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money). We simply didn’t have any time. We had to work, cope with a revolution and run to demonstrations. Then we found out that banks in the service economy of the “independent political entity”, West-Berlin, were only open till 3 p.m. So this excluded the ordinary East German with his regular workday of 8 hours and 45 minutes.
On one day in December my family picked me up and the four of us crossed over at Checkpoint Charlie. That was the shortest way to the postal giro office on Gitschiner Strasse which was open till 6 p.m.
At the weekend we bought anoraks for the kids at Hertie at Hallesches Tor – very colourful, with floral pattern, 80s style – and little Simba bears made of velour, with movable arms and legs. At some point we bought two Walkmans – they cost 20 Marks in the West and 500 in the GDR. Technology was a luxury item.
Before the reunification we never had money from the West. I once illegally got ten Marks from a Frenchman at Ostbahnhof with an exchange rate of 1:3. Later I went to the Intershop (East German government-run chain of retail stores for expensive, high-quality foreign goods) and found that 10 Marks was not a lot of money.
