A Trabant For Your Thoughts

"Joe6pack" (joe6pack)
09/03/2016 at 17:10 • Filed to: None

I decided to clean the windows on the cars today and saw something that got me thinking. My 911's door tag says “MANUFACTURED BY Dr. Ing.h.c.F.Porsche AG WEST GERMANY ”. Many of you are probably too young to remember, but there was a time, not that long ago, when much of the world was imprisoned behind a wall - both literally and figuratively. And thanks to this wall, we were deprived of Ladas and Volgas and Zils and Trabants [tongue in cheek].

May we never go back there again. Stand up for freedom every chance you get.

DISCUSSION (9)

Viggen > Joe6pack
09/03/2016 at 17:16

Too young to have met the Cold War, but 20th Century history is my focus (unofficially, I’m not in school) so I know it well.

Actually come to think of it I own products of the German Empire, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, West Germany, and Czechoslovakia. I think maybe Yugoslavia too.

KnowsAboutCars > Joe6pack
09/03/2016 at 17:18

But western Europe actually got Ladas, Volgas, Zaporozets’ etc!

For Sweden > Joe6pack
09/03/2016 at 17:18

Thanks to the wall, we were deprived of space communism

Joe6pack > KnowsAboutCars
09/03/2016 at 17:33

I actually didn’t know that. I just assumed they were an Eastern Bloc thing.

NostalgicCarLife > Joe6pack
09/03/2016 at 17:41

Trabants and Wartburgs were exported to the west too before emissions laws became strict enough to exclude them. Heck, Wartburgs were even sold in the U.S.

Scott > Joe6pack
09/03/2016 at 18:15

You actually sort of got it right. So many people seem to thing that East Berlin was behind the wall (which is only right in that they were mostly not allowed to cross it) but actually it was West Berlin that was walled off from the rest of East Germany.

Something else people don’t seem to understand was that within Berlin NATO and the Soviet Union where Allies during the Cold War. It was not uncommon for Soviet Troops to use American Commissaries, as we were allies. At least within Berlin.

Svend > Scott
09/03/2016 at 19:27

I love looking up and finding interesting bits on Berlin during the Cold War, from tunnels, to espionage that was widely know on all sides but not talked about because it would then be known to the other side that they were also spying even though the other knew it. Amazing, funny but also tragic.

Joe6pack > Scott
09/04/2016 at 15:58

I can’t 100% dispute what you say because I don’t know first hand, but the conventional image is quite different. If this was the case, then why was it necessary for Reagan to call out Gorbachev. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

I really don’t think we were “allies” with the Soviets anytime past 1947.

Scott > Joe6pack
09/04/2016 at 17:55

The wall was put up in about ‘61 if I recall. Germany was occupied by the Soviets in the East and by NATO in the West, mostly England in the northwest and the US in the south West. However Berlin is in the heart of East Germany, and was also divided up. A French, English and American sector in the West of Berlin, and a Soviet Sector in the East. Up until the Wall was built those living in the soviet sector could just walk into the other parts of Berlin, and they were under a completely different regime.

The wall was initial barbed wire fence and checkpoints, but it literally ripped families apart. Anyone on the wrong side of the ‘Wall’ was locked off from those on the other side. Technically the Wall was built to keep East Germans and East Berliner’s from travelling into West Berlin, to escape from the East German Communist rule. However since West Berlin is in the heart of East German, the wall was around West Berlin. To leave West berlin you had to either fly over East German through a 20 mile wide air corridor, or transit by train or Car through East Germany. That meant going through check points to enter East Germany. The reason the Berlin Airlift had to occur was because of Soviets not allowing those in West Berlin to transit freely out of West Berlin.

The reason for Reagan to call upon Gorbachev to “tear down this Wall!” is that it symbolized the lack of freedom of those on the other side of the wall, those in Eastern Europe. By tearing down the wall it allowed those in the East to freely transit into the free world in the West. Even though in Berlin the free world was sort of the one walled in. That’s why I say he sort of got it right.

In Berlin we were most definitely allies with the Soviets. That’s not to say the Cold War was not very much at play, but we shared occupation of Germany’s Capital. It was not until 1994 that the Allies stopped occupation Of Berlin, and returned it to the Germans, which was after the end of the cold war. The Russian pulled out a week before the US and British forces left.

It’s kind of an odd situation because the troops are there officially under the treaties of the Allied forces from WWII, and yet obviously the Cold War is very prevalent, and in fact in many ways more so due to the unique situation. That’s not to suggest that we were working side by side, together in the same way American and English or French forces did. Just that Officially we were allies jointly occupying Berlin.