Word: germanic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Everything should be discussed openly, with the exception of Socialism on German soil," the newspaper cautioned its readers...
...took the Breite family barely 24 hours to abandon everything they knew and bolt for a new life in the West. Though their discontent had been brewing for years, Olaf, 28, and Marlies, 26, had never seriously contemplated leaving their East German village of Schonermark, near Potsdam, until Sept. 11. That night, shortly after midnight, Hungary began permitting East German refugees to cross over en masse into Austria. The Breites watched West German television coverage of the Great Escape and realized that the Iron Curtain had parted, but that it could be drawn shut again at any moment. By lunchtime...
Crossing into Czechoslovakia was no problem. But entering Hungary required an East German exit permit they did not have. The Breites had to abandon the car and ford a river under cover of darkness. Sympathetic Czechs led them to a spot on the Ipoly, a shallow Danube tributary, where other East Germans were making the same trek. Olaf carried two children across; Marlies toted the third. On the Hungarian side, their luck held. Though it was 3:30 a.m., a bus happened by. "There were other refugees inside," Marlies recalls. "And we kept picking up people all along the route...
After a rail hop to Budapest and a $76 cab ride across the Austrian border, they reached Vienna, where they sent relatives a postcard explaining what they had done. From Vienna, the West German embassy sent them to a transit camp near Munster in the Federal Republic, where Olaf was quickly offered a roofing job in nearby Ochtrup. He finds the money much better than his old pay -- 18 West German marks ($9.50) an hour, vs. 5.4 East German marks ($2.85 at the official exchange rate). "The materials, equipment and technology are as different as night and day," says Olaf...
...German Democratic Republic celebrates its 40th anniversary, thousands of its citizens ride the freedom train to the West. -- Taking a lesson in democracy, Soviet legislators reduce the scope of a sweeping plan to ban all strikes...