Your people deserve that wall especially after what your people tried to do to the Jews after ww2

they had to pay the price for killing 20 million innocents russians. I bet you, when they lost the war, they were shitting their pants thinking stalin will kill them all.

@davidsradioroom9678 You lived in West Germany?

Yes, Wiesbaden and Kaiserslautern. You?@@crose7412

I was in stationed in Stuttgart at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It brought tears to my eyes.

Thank you so much! Please feel free to share it with anyone else you think might be interested.

Definitely agree. It's precisely the kind I've been looking for.

Just for curiosity, how was the feeling of roam inside this area ? Did you ever had the feeling like you could have been stuck inside on east Berlin for some reasons ? And once inside on the city , it was for you allow to normally talk to the people ? It was possible for you , to have a walk outside with the family members you were going to visit, or you had to stay inside the building were those persons lived at the period ? Another question : it was even possible for you guys, to bring some gift to these people, or it was strictly forbidden ?

@@stefanomazzarello4771 Not sure what you mean in your first sentence. No, we didn't feel like we'd be stuck. We went to Dresden and Leipzig but not Berlin. But it did take TWO HOURS to be approved to leave East Germany to go to Czechoslovakia, and we couldn't get out of our car. There were 2 parents, my friend, and her 2 little brothers. My last name was different. I'm sure I received extra attention. We went to town with no problem. Every day, the people we stayed with had to wait in long lines for some types of food -- such as strawberries. Also daily trips to the butcher. We went to a dept store, and WESTERN goods were ROPED OFF. They were something you'd see at Walmart -- nothing fancy. We brought fresh fruits and vegetables to them from the West. When a neighbor knocked on the door, they HID them! They said they didn't want to share. We went to a restaurant. It would open at 12 noon and close at 1 pm sharp. Everyone sat where they were told at picnic tables, even with strangers, and there was no decor. Just plain walls, floors, and tables. The employees were not friendly The food was simple. Everyone usually ate only pork, potatoes, and sauerkraut (at home as well). Individuals didn't own businesses, of course, the gov't did. There was no reason to be better than any other restaurant. They used to wash glasses by simply dipping them in water quickly. :( Employees didn't try to do a good job; if they didn't do well at that one, they would be assigned another one. We did go to what seemed like a secret bar. No signs on the outside whatsoever. I think it was run by a resident, and I guess the government just ignored it. There was no color of advertising ANYWHERE on the streets. The most colorful and ONLY sign was for a Russian politician. Being in East Germany was like being in a black-and-white movie. Cars were all very old -- from the 1940's and 1950's, I believe. Again, it felt like an old black-and-white movie...with bad air pollution. I remember visiting my friend's cousin and her husband in their apartment over a garage. They were a young couple, just starting out. It was one room. They were so proud as they showed it off. I sat on their bed and cried like a baby; I felt they deserved MUCH MORE than what they had. I didn't speak German, and they didn't speak English. They could not understand why I kept crying, and of course, my friend didn't want to tell them. My friend and I left East Germany by ourselves (we were teens) and took a train to Prague, Czechoslovakia. A Communist soldier flirted with me while we were on the train. (Neither of us spoke the other's language, but we both knew it was still flirting.) I drew his picture. :) When we were at the airport, there was a soldier with a huge assault rifle only feet away from us as we handed over our luggage. I shook with fear, afraid to act in any way he might deem suspicious. It was horrible. We took a small jet to Frankfurt, and there were more airline employees than passengers....just my friend, me, and two other people as I recall. When we returned to West Germany, we went to a grocery store, and after what we'd experienced, it was like going to Disneyland. SO MANY COLORS! SO MUCH FOOD! It was heaven! Then we took the train to Amsterdam for another adventure. :) I hear few stories about life in East Germany. It was truly horrible.

@@lorilynbailey4165 sorry for my first sentence, my English is not that good, i meant "roam" as exploring, how was the feeling... But since you answered more than detailed my questions, i think you perfectly understood what i meant. Thank you for shared that with me, and honestly i was kinda amazed by some part of your tale, like for example, that you were free to move through the people of those places, i thought most of the folk life , was kinda isolated from any contact with foreigners from the west Europe. Trust me, i had from you, more satisfying answer than from any other video i saw here on youtube. 👍

@@stefanomazzarello4771 Yes, I understood what you meant, and you're welcome! So few people know what life was like there at that time. When I think back on it, it seems surreal.

Definitely .

This and the comic version of "The Road To Serfdom"

Videos like this should mandatory in schools. Every child should be told to write an essay on how capitalism raises living standards and lifts people out of poverty. A market based economy is far superior to a planned socialist economy. Too many kids these days think socialism is better than capitalism based on some whatever "first world" problems they have. Little do they know that people living in the DDR had no food, often went to bed hungry, lived squalid conditions with no toilets, could not buy car, television, or telephone. A workers' paradise it was not.

Completely agree, my opa fled got to Australia in 54. Though as a descendant of East Germany I have always been frustrated that it's super hard to get this information. When in reality the people of East Germany were stripped of heritage and culture. Absolutely devastating.

Yes, but also must not be forgotten what germans did in WWII. So when the kids get taught about the tough conditions of DDR, they should also be informed at least how germans destroyed european part of the Soviet Union. And its people. Maybe kids learn that every action has a reaction.

I agree 100%

Funny why this didn;t happen in Austria ?

@@jrobertsoneff yep they were also responsible for murdering millions of people in ww2 and starting ww2

@@jrobertsoneffBecause the Allies convinced Stalin to withdraw from Austria. Good question.

😔😔

And (per some below) the failure was caused by western governments, not supporting the socialists who desired only to dismantle them!

Was not ""real socialism"" and "especially in Berlin" What? 😂 🤣 I grew in and around Berlin the only People who say such bs are the Lefties who never faced it mostly westerner or foreigners. Also. You may check who voted for "the Left" before AfD all around East Germany.

@@sunrae3971 Well denying the fact that berlin itself is full of leftist is gonna be hard. Over 50 % of people there voted for left parties there 2021 (Die Linke, Grüne & SPD combined). For some districts its even worse. For sure not all people there want socialism but i think berlin is however the city with the most people positive about socialism, and saying that socialism xy didnt work because it wasnt real is a common saying from such people so yeah, even its a bit based of stereotypes i hope you understand my thinking. Best regards!

​@@arne1817 Well People who say "capitalism works" are as much bonkers as these socialist who say "this was not the real socialism", in my opinion. Socialism for the rich and bailouts but if people decide their living it all becomes evil "socialism"? Look how much Google or Amazon Cartel cares about a "free market" . Most of the todays Housing Crisis is not a bug of the free market but a feature. So they can demand whatever they want, they are not interested in investing if you can milk the cow. And surprise now the state should invest tax money.

You mean Hitler’s Goverment? It was a far right dictatorship not socialism. Socialism is far left, Nazism is far right. Think of the American Republican Party but further to the right.

Le socialiste réel est bien meilleur que l'économie de marché

Hier in Grossbritannien haben wir unsere Stasi, die 77th Brigade der Armee...es hat sich in den letzten Wochen herausgestellt, dass diese Einheit die Buerger, vor allem Journalisten und Politiker, via Social Media spionieren. Ohne Scheisse.

And yet you and those of your sociopolitical persuasion want the very thing that my family opposed as military men from both sides of the Pond... the very thing my family legally emigrated to the Capitalist United States of America, to get away from! It was because of you and your people, that the Vietnam War was only a tactical win. Men like my uncle were doing their part to defend a nation that asked for our help, against the onslaught of a murderous Socialist regime, and by extension, protect my nation. It is to my regret, that when I was younger, like so many folks of my generation, I was in agreement or sympathetic to, at least in part with the poisonous, anti-American, anti-family, and anti-white ideologies that you people have all but successfully passed on unto us, as a dark torch to carry on. May we turn back to God and turn back to the good ways of the past, whilst ever striving towards perfecting this Great Experiment.

@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 Oh, ye of little actual knowledge. I honestly don't even know where to begin with this parade of ignorance and far-right, white power nonsense. I, too, come from a "military family" that fought for America in every war since they came here, like a great many other German Catholics who responded to the proto-Nazi Prussians crushing the social-democratic revolutions of 1848 and summarily instituting their militaristic version of Lutheranism as the new state religion by selling everything they owned and setting sail for America, the Land of the Free & Brave. Just try to imagine their shock and dismay at discovering the horrors of the ongoing genocide of our original inhabitants and of American chattel slavery, the most vicious and cruel of all the varieties of slavery that we have been inflicting upon one another these past 6,000 years! I have a letter that my great-great-grandfather's brother wrote to his cousin back in the old country urging him to come to America to help him fight the good fight against these perversions of our proud "all men are created equal" Declaration of Independence. I realize from what you have written that you have very little knowledge of history, but did you know that Jefferson (himself a slaveholder) and Thomas Paine, the true father of American democracy both said that the highest duty of an American patriot was to constantly strive to make a "more perfect union," the seminal phrase in Lincoln's epic Gettysburg Address? This is the exact opposite of your blind obedience, "love it or leave it" America. Fast forward 150 years from those American Revolution days, and you had Progressives and union organizers who fought and died for literally everything you take for granted today. Like weekends, sick days, child labor laws, old age pensions and overtime pay. Etc, fookin' etc. And all of this was pure "socialism," which the Robber Barons resisted tooth and claw, just like the modern Republican party and its history-illiterate followers. And stepping into our time machine once again, did you know that MacArthur and all of our WWII military establishment had promised our wartime Vietnamese allies against the evil Imperial Japanese full independence, sovereignty and protection, regardless of what form of self-government they chose, at war's end, in keeping with the principles of democracy and freedom we had expounded in the landmark Atlantic Charter in 1941, just 4 months before Pearl Harbor? (And, dude, if you look up nothing else, please check out the 8 simple precepts of that Atlantic Charter.) I have no doubt that you know nothing about any of what I've just told you, my poor, persecuted, fellow white man, but them's the facts, Jack. And what did we do in Vietnam once the war was won, my typically ignorant right-wing friend? Why, of course, we immediately betrayed all of our solemn promises to our wartime allies in the Pacific. Before the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we had already begun to help the British, French and Dutch to regain their cruel, prewar colonies, betraying everything that America supposedly stood for. I mean, after all, those weren't white people we had made those promises to, right? Did you also know, Einstein, that we then proceeded to drop more ordnance on tiny, Stone Age Vietnam--our allies--than all sides did in the entirety of WWII? Of course you didn't. Your claim that Vietnam had begged us to help fend off the commie invaders is such a stupid, counterfactual piece of sh*t that I won't even dignify it with an answer. WE INVADED VIETNAM! Not only was our undeclared war a war crime by definition, but we, the richest and most powerful country in all of history, murdered 3 million of the 17 million Vietnamese...and the vast majority of our victims were wholly innocent and defenceless civilians, most of whom were women, children and the elderly. And please do not bore me with the story of your heroic ancestors escaping the "evils of socialism" in Eastern Europe after WWII. My wife grew up in a Khrushchev building in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. I actually lived with her and our young baby in that apartment for 4 months after 9/11. I have many Polish, Ukrainian and Russian friends. You very obviously have zero historical perspective. Instead, you rely solely upon the self-serving stories your parents told you and far-right propagandists for your idiotic worldview. Here's a newsflash, Bubba--the noble "white race" is not endangered in America. No way that you can be any "whiter" than I am. Far more stupid, sure, but not any whiter. And do you know what my friends who either enlisted or were drafted to go to Vietnam have told me over the years? That the "primitive" Vietnamese were far, far braver and infinitely more resourceful than our boys. Similarly, these Vietnam vets have a huge admiration for the weak, cowardly hippies who opposed that uniquely unjust war. Read a fookin' book, ya ignorant nimrod. Listen to Steppenwolf's "Draft Resister." I don't know why I even bothered responding to your very apparent stupidity. You will assuredly not avail yourself of the opportunity to expand your tiny mind. But let's just call it a public service, shall we, Buford? Dah-yup, dah-yup.

Damn … what an interesting and bizarre journey … you my friend have a set of big balls 😂

How was the truck driver? Did they end up interrogating him too?

I grew up in the east and would never change it for anything else. Had the best childhood ever. I grew up in the countryside so surely a lot different to the city life as described in this video

Freedom? The Germans went from country to country raping lands/people and leveling entire cities and what they did the Jews was unforgivable. They were responsible for the deaths of 3 or 5 million Russians. So you will have to excuse the Russians, who didn't think Germans should get to live like they did nothing wrong, like they did in West Germany by the US, UK and French. Actually, I would bet if it were up to the French, they also would have kept the Germans down just like the Soviets.🙄🙄

I'am with the age of 8, born in Berlin-Mitte, ca. 200 meters from the Wall. Today's a German Bundeswehr Hospital.

Your people brought that wall on themselves after starting ww2

Me, too

i had a similar experience when i was in the army in babenhausen and we went to berlin , standing on the veiwing platforms look to the east it was awful ,look to the west it was wonderful , that was when i knew for sure that socialism was a bad idea, that was in 1975 , sad to think today here in america almost half of the young people would disagree with me , the frankfurt school of thought invaded our univercities and brainwashed our children, is how it happened ,sad

You are a good person

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, designed China to be the pilot program for the one child policy and the US will be the final exam. I learned this in War Againdt The Weak by Edwin Black.

I had same experience as a boy. They doors of the train were locked in the East and guards with machine guns checked your passport. It was frightening to see at 13. Stasi everywhere in the East watching. My Mother went to talk to a elderly women on a bench in W. Berlin. The women wouldn't speak. Across the way, was a man in long black leather coat watching, Stasi.

Hi! Shalom to us only in Christ Yeshua returning soon to reign over the world from Jerusalem!

1974 - 1975 16 dpu . nellingen barracks

I was there in '91/'92 for Operation Silent Echo. I still carry my challenge coin in my pocket every day.

Gary Mathena 40th Armor and 2/6 Inf 1979-81. Amen Brother

No, i drove to east berlin,. went there at least 5 times took my family once.

@@juanmurillo3914 There was no way I was able to afford to buy a car, not on a E3 and later a E4 salary. I heard that Her Majesty's Army had a troop train that went to Berlin during the day and you were able to be in civvies rather than have to wear a Class A uniform like on the US troop train but I don't remember if you had to buy a ticket and what train station the train departed from.

Yes, all the glory goes to Charlie, nothing for Alpha and Beavo! The House at Checkpoimnt Charlie contnes to tell the story, but on my most recent post-fall visit some yuong women were using the wall remnant to strike languid poses, like they were trying to sell a new sports car or bathing suits. That seemed to me to an insult to those who had lived with the real thing. I worked in East Berlin 1982-84, and I got my Stasi file through the German Freedom of Information process. It tells more about them than it does about me, and has some puzzling gaps. The stereotype of German precison takes a hit, but they were seadfast in their efforts they did follow orders. My contribution to Cold War Victory was to keep some clerks and staff busy. At the end of the video the question, "Would you have tried to escape East Germany?" was asked. A better question would have been, "If you had lived in East Germany would you have cooperated wth the Stasi for your own protection and to get a beter apartment and educational opportunities for your family?" An unanswered question from the time is the absence of revenge taken aginst Stasi infomers in the EstGrman workplaces, classrooms and family circles. Has nobody taken revenge in calibers 9mm or .45 ? Thre explanations suface: - "Germans are non-violent , don't carry grudges, and also have short memories." -Gemans are all-forgiving, Let bygones be bygones, don't pick the scab, let it heal. -A spirit of "Everybody was doing it" pevails and there is a reluctance to cast the fist stone. "Go along to get along." "Render unto Caesar." (In German "Give the King what is his") "Go with the stream." Any insights out there? What have I missed.

Glad that you enjoyed!

Und du bist in der DDR aufgewachsen um das zu beurteilen? Oder woher hast du dein Wissen?

Ich selber bin nicht alt genug um dort aufgewachsen zu sein. Auch wurde ich nicht in Ostdeutschland geboren oder bin dort aufgewachsen. Allerdings kommt ein großer Teil meiner Familie aus der DDR und ich habe Eltern, Großeltern und Urgroßeltern als Zeitzeugen welche mir ein eindeutiges Bild der damaligen Zeit vermittelt haben. Ich möchte auch nicht keinesfalls bestreiten dass Sie persönlich damals nicht glücklich gewesen sind oder das alle anderen Menschen jeden Tag unglücklich waren. Allerdings gibt es Zahlen und Fakten die Belegen, dass die Menschen im Osten mit deutlich grundlegenderen Problemen zu kämpfen hatten und die Versorgung mit Lebensmitteln und Konsumgütern bei weitem nicht so ausgiebig war wie im Westen. Des Weiteren glaube ich, dass das persönliche Wohlbefinden der Menschen auch start von deren politischen Einstellung abging. So hatte man Nachteile im Beruf und Somit auch im Alltag wenn man nicht in der Partei war oder diese Unterstützte. Das sind nur einige wenige Dinge die neben den im Film gezeigten für mich ein Bild vermitteln, dass wenn ich damals hätte wählen müssen, lieber immer Westen aufgewachsen wäre. Das ich mit diese Meinung nicht alleine Dastehe zeigen denke ich die Zahl der Menschen die die DDR verlassen haben/wollten im Vergleich zu denen die aus dem Westen in die DDR gekommen sind.

PS: wenn Sie Quellen haben die das Gegenteil belegen von der Darstellung dieses Videos, dann können sie mir diese gerne zukommen lassen. Denn diese wird es wohl geben wenn es denn nicht so wie gezeigt gewesen wäre.

@@nicolahorst8529 mittlerweile kann man sagen das man in der DDR freier war als im heutigen Ampel Regime. Wer nicht treu nach Linie ist wird als Nazi diffamiert. Sicher gab es weniger Konsum Quatsch. Aber braucht man das alles? Wofür brauche ich 1000 Joghurt Sorten die allesamt nur eine Chemiebrühe sind. Wofür brauche ich das ganze Jahr Bananen usw. Das ist richtig Umwelt und Klima schädigend. Und gehungert hat niemand in der DDR. Jetzt kann man alles kaufen ja wenn man das nötige Kleingeld hat. Jetzt ist noch nicht mal die Rente sicher falls man die überhaupt erleben sollte. Warum muss man eine politische Einstellung in der DDR haben? Als DDR Bürger wurde ich oft herablassend als Ossi hier im Westen bezeichnet. Aber die Wessis sterben sowieso langsam aus. Die Massenhafte Einwanderung macht es möglich.

@@nicolahorst8529 ja Quellen habe ich. Vergleiche mal meine Geburtsstadt Eisenhüttenstadt mit früher und heute. Damals das blühende Leben überall Kinderwagen 53000 Einwohner. Heute 23000 alte Menschen und Hartzer.

No heating no telephone? Try being poor, you can't always afford heating nor telephone services and especially since the bills have skyrocketed as of late.

I have the sympathy for people in East Berlin, not because of their poverty, but because the West came and looked at them like residents a zoo. I got the feeling because I grew up in Vietnam, when it was so poor. I remember the producer of the French movie "The Lover" made a comment on our poverty.

Glad you enjoyed!

are u sure the cold war ended

@@JohnSmith-vc4tz Yes because the Cold War was more a conflict between ideologies than it was about conquest. No one is trying to spread Communism today.

If you revisit after all these years you will find yourself in a very different country. Germany is now a modern, efficient country. However the population demographic will quite probably come as a shock and may sadden you.

Go back to Germany

Wow. You need to write down your experiences and share it. Amazing.

The freedom to buy expensive yankee gas.

Big mistake… an opportunity for a life time to remember….

Your dad is how East Germany behaved. And how capitalists now behave,

Wait until you see the abomination coming to the entire west.

America was also a welfare state at the time of that election with strong New Deal protections for workers.

The US of ZOG is most definitely a welfare state by design and it's getting worse. McCarthy was right! WE MUST OUST THESE COMMUNISTS!

Erhard meant with the „social“ market never a big welfare state. He said that the market itself is social because it creates wealth for everyone.

@@tomkastendiek4196 It's not that simple. I can see I went much too far by ascribing the notion of welfare state to Erhard, but I think the word "social" has always meant more than a belief in trickle-down. Admittedly there has been a lot of variation in the interpretation of the word over the decades! I certainly don't think the post-war German electorate has ever subscribed to American-style capitalism and from my long experience of Germany, I know that Germans in general like government and place a high value on social solidarity.

The Berlin wall is becoming a blip in history. I grew up thinking it was going to be a forever thing and didn’t expect it to suddenly come down, or the collapse of the USSR. But more years have passed from its ending than the wall stood. For most Germans a united Germany is normal and two Germanys is a fading memory even amongst those who were alive then. East Germany is a historic relic, like the 100 years war, or the Weimar Republic. What once seemed so permanent and important is seems less so compared to other historical events and what has transpired since. It seems odd a me a 50something year old that the Wall is now a tourist curiosity in Berlin and not the imposing absurdity built by a communist regime that it really was.

As I recall, the first person shot & killed for trying to escape East Berlin was a 19-year-old "post office policeman" in 1961. Making war on teenagers while 'building the bright, prosperous socialist paradise for the people.'

I've always wondered how there just happened to be someone there to film it ...

@@GrimenoughtomaketherobotcryHe was 19 and stationed to guard the border. Things he witnessed led him to question if he wanted to be part of a country or system that was imprisoning people for being on the wrong side of a border suddenly. He laid a board across the barbed wire without being observed by his colleagues. A West Berliner noticed and approached. He told them to back away and he was going to flee. The citizen alerted West Berlin police who tipped off a couple of journalists this might happen. A photographer and cameraman waited at that spot. Once he crossed over the wire he immediately drops his rifle and the waiting police quickly load him into a vehicle and depart the area. He did commit suicide in 1998. He visited family in the east after reunification but they rejected him because they felt he abandoned them. It caused him great depression and led to his death.

@@corn1971 Thank you.

I have a 1988 Trabi P 601 Kombi. If you mix the oil correctly and use decent oil, they hardly smoke at all. Early Trabis needed a higher oil mix, and I guess decent oil wasn't always available.

@@neilfoster814 First thing in the morning when they hadn’t warmed up it was quite a plume of blue smoke.

...and light up a cigarette after breakfast on your way to work!🤣

​@@neilfoster814 are you seriously lecturing experienced people how fantastic or misunderstood a crappy invention as the Trabi is?? I drove a lot in that shitty cardboard box, and anyone voluntarily buying such piece of shit in our time of freedom, is either completely technological illiterate or heavily ideological blinded! 🤡🤷🏼😴

Did you experience the open fire placed at street corners, to help people navigate through the dense industrial smog? Simply unbelievable such happened

They didn’t have as easy access to exotic fruits or foods but they ate well and most of the same German foods as those in the west are. Lots of sausages, meats, vegetables. East Germany was the high standard for living in the eastern bloc, even compared to the USSR. They weren’t close to the West’s standards but they weren’t dirt poor struggling either.

@@corn1971 given the ostmark was weak in value, that might’ve contributed to the states ability to acquire certain foods. They had few options for coffee like they had Cuba, Vietnam, I think Ethiopia too and the cost of shipping after the oil crisis and there was the East German coffee crisis in the late ‘70s.

Yes. I know several people who grew up in east Germany, east Berlin, or Eastern Europe in general, and none of them thought their lives were dreadful, thank you very much.

@@lornarettig3215 Obviously, if you are isolated and not allowed to travel to see what life is like elsewhere, you are satisfied with whatever you have and if you are not, you are thrown in jail, that's why the Wall was built and that's why 70/80% of Russians never revolted or protested and apart from seriously being satisfied with communism because it was their invention.

Gladly Poland is a great bulwark against it. But many European youths love socialism and authoritarianism.

А ты где сейчас? Нам либералы не нужны.

I know. UK is becoming like the GDR more and more by the day. It's come out that 77th Brigade spy on citizens via social media. Our councils have announced that we will be locked down in 15 minute zones which we can only leave a limited amount of times.

That part of the video is showing WWII’s global devastation through shots of various locations - the narration literally says _”…at the end of WWII, a GLOBAL war that was the deadliest conflict in human history”_ over that particular image.

With that poison water coming out of the taps in government-provided apartment houses

Yeah, only needs another try by some who knows much better 🤔🙄🤡🤷🏼

Most of them never had lived under this tyrannies...

@@CirugiadeManoexactly!!!

@@OmmerSyssellook at north Korea smh

I thought West Belin was governed by West Germany.

@@normanboley1806 Not so! It's easy to check. Interesting fact Germany didn't regain full sovereignity until 1991.

If Germans weren't in charge of the West, who was?

@@normanboley1806 The governing body was the Berlin Senate which derived its authority from the Allied Occupation Council minus the Russians who had withdrawn after the creation of the DDR. Berlin was de facto and de jure an occupied zone until Unification.

I was stationed at Tempelhof for 4 years. It was technically occupied by the US Army but I think Bonn was in full control of the day to day operation of the city.

A friend of ours who was a teen in East Germany when the wall came down, their family finally got a Trabant car shortly before then and the father complained about their luck getting approval for and buying the car just before all the western cars became available. 😅

Eh can you blame them? The Germans went from country to country raping lands/people and leveling entire cities and what they did the Jews was unforgivable. They were responsible for the deaths of 3 or 5 million Russians. So you will have to excuse the Russians, who didn't think Germans should get to live like they did nothing wrong, like they did in West Germany by the US, UK and French. Actually, I would bet if it were up to the French, they also would have kept the Germans down just like the Soviets.🙄🙄

Thank you for sharing your story