Shortly before the 65th anniversary of the Berlin Wall being built on August 13, the Bundestag president visited the Hohenschönhausen memorial. There, she recalled the arbitrariness in East Germany and rejected comparisons to the current situation. Anyone who voiced criticism back then faced the regime’s harshness, the CDU politician said.
“When people talk today about there being no freedom of speech, that Germany is close to a dictatorship, and such things you find on the internet — that is absurd, considering what people experienced in East Germany,” Klöckner said after a tour of the former Stasi prison in Berlin. More than 11,000 people were imprisoned there. Initially, they were subjected to physical violence, later to psychological torment. She thanked contemporary witnesses who share their experiences of Stasi detention.
The SED victims’ commissioner Evelyn Zupke said the shadow of the dictatorship is long. Many people still suffer health consequences from imprisonment and repression. The laws passed in 2025 on higher victim pensions and a hardship fund are successes. “But not all groups receive sufficient support today,” Zupke said. In her new annual report, Zupke advocates for regular financial aid for victims of forced doping in East Germany. With “State Plan 14.25,” the SED regime introduced a state-organized doping program in 1974. By 1989, 10,000 to 15,000 young people had been regularly doped without their knowledge, mainly with anabolic steroids.
Source: Stadt München
