Hello Radio GDR listeners! I am so pleased to bring you the first episode of two with my new friend Herta Peter. My favorite thing about doing this podcast is hearing stories from those of you who lived in the GDR. Your stories are always extremely compelling, and we welcome them with open arms. History deserves to be preserved, and Radio GDR has been here to do it.   Herta was born in Halle in 1981. While she was only 8 when the wall fell, her memories of her childhood in the GDR to two parents who lived during the country's entire existence are simply amazing. Having family in West Germ ..read more

Hello everyone! Season 4 is coming! We also have a new domain this season - radiogdrpodcast.com. Please do visit us soon to tell us your GDR story! I'll be updating show notes across old episodes so you can the same great content at our new website. Season 4 is coming! Look forward to announcing more details soon. Our ability to bring you stories from behind the Berlin Wall is dependent on monthly donors like you. Visit us at https://www.radiogdrpodcast.com/p/support-the-podcast/ to contribute. For the price of a Berliner Pilsner, you can feel good you are contributing to preserve one of ..read more

In this episode John Paul Kleiner (GDR Objectified blog) speaks with Attila the Stockbroker, an English poet, musician and songwriter with roots in the punk movement and socialist politics. During his forty year career as independent artist, Attila has produced numerous albums and books and performed more than 3,800 shows including many in the GDR and, after unification, eastern Germany. In this conversation, Attila vividly recalls his visits to the East, the people whom he met there and aspects of the Workers and Peasants State which were an inspiration and other which left him disgusted. Fin ..read more

In 1952, a 24-year old American soldier defected to the Eastern Bloc in order to avoid a US Army disciplinary hearing and what he feared would be draconian punishment for his involvement in socialist and communist politics in the United States. This decision put his life on an entirely new trajectory, one that left him with a new name, Victor Grossman, and left him in the then young German Democratic Republic, a country that became his home for the remaining 37+ years of his existence. A committed socialist, Grossman identified closely with the aims of the East German state, but always maintai ..read more

I am truly honored to be joined today by author and illustrator Vesper Stamper who in 2022 published Berliners, a historical fiction about two twin brothers, Rudi and Peter, who end up divided by their views of the GDR and then, quite literally, by the Berlin Wall. This is a must read, guys. Listen as we talk to Vesper about how the theme of "history rhymes" inspired this book, how the characters reckon with Judaism, race and their Nazi pasts and how each twin develops opposing views of the GDR that have lasting consequences. Keep your eye out for the Stasi in this one too, guys, and look out ..read more

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another incredible episode of Radio GDR. We are on episode 3 of 3 of our listener interviews to round out season 3. I hope you have enjoyed hearing about fellow listeners' interest in the GDR as much as I have. In our final listener interview, I have the honor of speaking to Kris Hinz of Australia, who was adopted from Sri Lanka to a German dad who visited the GDR often to see family. Kris' memories of his father's trips and how they influenced his father's perceptions of the GDR color his own opinions of what the country's legacy is today. Here how Kris refl ..read more

We are interviewing some of our most special listeners this season in gratitude for your amazing contributions to make season 3 of this podcast so special. We are especially grateful to the listeners who financially contributed to this season via our Patreon. One of our contributors, Fred Esposito, has gone above and beyond this season as our lone Interflug member at $35 a month. Thank you so much for your generosity, Fred, as you really made the behind the scenes work for the podcast that much easier. For Fred's kindness, we sat down and talked about what fascinates him about the GDR. Fred an ..read more

I have said this often, but I am so grateful to you all for your continued loyalty to the podcast this season. Most of you all don't know this, but I got this amazing gig when Shane Whaley interviewed me as a listener of the show back in 2020. I love the concept of interviewing our listeners so much that, to color the back half of season 3, I have interviewed 3 of you, the listeners, on why more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the GDR still fascinates you.   Many of you have personal connections to the GDR, some of which have been formed in this modern era. My new friend M ..read more

There is no shortage of recent articles regarding the too long overlooked subject of female directors. While many of these articles are specific to the women directing films today (Patty Jenkins, Kelly Reichardt, Kathryn Bigelow, etc.), there are many more that claim to be comprehensive overviews of the contributions made by women to the art of cinema. These articles are careful to remember female directors from the distant past (Lotte Reiniger, Alice Guy-Blaché) and the ones who boldly made films in Hollywood when women weren’t even considered for jobs as directors (Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino ..read more

We Radio GDR hosts all agree on this simple truth - our favorite interviews are of you the listeners and members of the Facebook group. Jeff Myers joined the group in January of 2022 and has proceeded to post some of the most captivating photos of his trip to the GDR in 1987. From pictures of old East Berlin to Trabants to an eerie "teaching assistant" Stasi officer observing a class, Jeff's pictures tell a story of a trip he's never forgotten. Today an Associate professor at Wake Tech Community College and host of the Let's Talk Wake Tech Travel podcast, Jeff went to the GDR in 1987 as a stud ..read more