Why I Vote: Where My History Meets My Future

By Celeste Tauchar

“I grew up in Paradise.” My mom has pretty much always used words like these to describe where she grew up. Picture it: a fairytale Bavarian village, nestled at the foot of the German & Austrian Alps on a huge lake with a castle in the middle of it. It’s true - Übersee is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life. Growing up, I would hear stories of my mom buying pretzels and milk at her school and going to the disco well after midnight. I’ve gotten a glimpse of the magic myself a few times – a giant bonfire on the lakeshore on New Year’s Eve, taking the alpine coaster down the mountain, attending a Christmas tree lighting festival in a tiny village square in the middle of the Alps.

It all seems like something out of a storybook, so far removed from past political conflict. And yet when you dig a bit deeper, there’s a clear line from A to B. Even though I’m someone with pretty left-leaning politics, I think I have a different perspective from some of my friends when it comes to the benefits of socialism. I’m pro Social Market Economy. I’m pro universal health care. I’m pro free education. I believe the government should be big enough to help people and set them up for success. But I also grew up in a German family whose lives were all impacted by the aftermath of WWII. My great-grandfather was part of the resistance against the Nazis and was killed. My grandmother was a small child when she and her family were forced to leave their home in eastern Germany (now Poland) and walked to the west for freedom. And the entire country was forever changed by what happened afterwards. When I vote in this election, I’m voting to change the systems in place. But I’m also voting as a means to an end – I think it’s going to take years of finding the right balance, and studying our past to see what works, and what does not.

As an American teenager, history class tends to be a bit of a whirlwind. Teachers do their best to connect the dots of world events, but there’s only so much a sixteen-year-old can take in in nine months. In my high school history class, we learned about Hitler and the Holocaust – and if you have limited time, that is what you need to cover (particularly because a recent study showed that nearly two-thirds of US young adults don’t know 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust). But the forgotten story is what happened to the rest of Germany – the everyday citizens who by default suffered the consequences of the Nazis’ actions, and the arrangement that forever changed the political landscape of Europe, and the entire world.

Quick amateur history lesson: when World War II ended, the Allies overtook the Axis powers and decided how to move forward. Germany was split into four occupied regions – the British territory to the Northwest, the French territory to the Southwest, the American territory to the Southeast (where my mom grew up), and to the Northeast, the Soviet territory. It was a system designed to punish the German government for their atrocities during the war, and a way to keep a watchful eye over the country and make sure any whispers of Nazi activity could be extinguished. The capital Berlin was split into the same four quadrants as the rest of Germany, despite being located in the middle of the Soviet territory. Think of it as a little bubble that was its own mini Germany in the middle of big Germany.

Germany’s occupied zones, including Berlin divided within the Soviet East Germany territory.

By the 60s and 70s, the occupation of West Germany (all territories except the Soviet) seemed to be more of a formality, a relic of the war kept in place by the lack of any treaty or official end. When I ask my mom about growing up in an American-occupied territory, she laughs and tells me that they really didn’t notice it much, but they loved having a bunch of 18 to 20 year old American guys hanging around town. So for my teenage mom, American influence meant listening to American music, drinking Coca-Cola, and meeting American boys in uniform. It also meant working at the U.S. Army Hotel, where she met a guy who would eventually become her boyfriend – she moved back to Oakland with him, where she later met my dad, and here I am a couple decades later. Thank you U.S. occupation.

But meanwhile, East Germany was a completely different picture. The Soviet Union was deep in an extreme era of communism, and was working its way through several fumbling leaders in what’s known as the “Era of Stagnation”. What had started as an uprising against right-wing Russian Imperial extremism turned into an extreme in the other direction – decades later, the poor were still poor and the rich did not care. As Germans living in this territory started heading west to find new opportunities and a better quality of life, Soviet leaders needed to do something to keep their citizens in place. So quite literally overnight, they put up a wall.

On August 13th, 1961, Germans living in East Berlin woke up to find a barbed wire fence running through the middle of the city. Two days later on August 15th, the fence was replaced with concrete, and for the rest of 1961, officials finished building a whole system of 15-foot walls and electrified fences separating all of Berlin from the rest of East Germany, as well as setting up the “Death Strip” along the entire 850-mile border between East and West Germany. The Death Strip consisted of 160 yards of open land with land mines, guard towers with snipers, beds of nails, trenches, electric fences, and more, preventing anyone from trying to walk across the border. At official border checkpoints, you could only pass through if you were from West Germany or elsewhere – if you lived in East Germany, you could not leave. If you tried to sneak out, you would get thrown in prison or die.

Berlin’s division. The wall closed off West Berlin from the rest of East Germany. People living in West Berlin could travel into East Germany and drive or fly to other places, but people living in East Germany could not enter West Berlin or West Germany.

Friends meeting across the barbed wire fence before the full wall went up.

East Germany quickly became more and more isolated from the rest of the country, and subsequently, the world. With the Soviet government controlling every aspect of life, East Germans were only exposed to Soviet news sources, entertainment, and manufacturers. Without the influence of globalization, innovation and possibility stagnated and as the rest of the country moved into the 70s and 80s, East Germany stayed in the 60s.

As resources dwindled and the government was preoccupied with maintaining power instead of helping its citizens, many East Germans sank into poverty, starvation, and generally terrible living conditions. City infrastructures were not maintained and buildings that already were hanging on by a thread after years of bombings fell even more into decay. It seemed as if the people living here were forgotten and abandoned, mere subjects of a power regime, too politically important to lose, but not important enough to value.

In my research for this piece, I spoke with my mom’s friend Doreen – they met here in California, but Doreen grew up in East Germany. Her childhood experience is very different from my mother’s. One of the first things she says to me on the phone is “Have you seen Bridge of Spies? That’s where I grew up.” For the rest of our call, our discussion keeps coming back to spies and government surveillance. She says that no matter what you did, you knew the government was watching. If you had a big gathering, you were sure there were spies among the crowd, and in smaller gatherings, listening devices. She grew up in a religious household where her father was a leader in their local church - typically, the communist regime wouldn’t allow religion, so they considered it a privilege to be able to worship.

But while they were lucky to practice their faith, this limited freedom had consequences. Doreen’s uncle took his life after being forced to serve as a spy against his family’s church. He had been a political prisoner after acting out against the “Stasi” (the secret police) – he was promised that he would be allowed to open a practice as a mechanic if he served six years in the military, but of course, the government didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. He was then offered his freedom if he would be an informant, and though he agreed, it took a toll – he stopped going to church because he didn’t want to betray his family. Officers would show up at his door and beat and intimidate him. It would eventually become too much.

Doreen tells me that anybody you knew could be an informant – it could be your friend, your neighbor, your postman. Everyone had different reasons. Some people were promised that they could see their family in West Germany if they would spy on their neighbors. Others were offered financial help. Some people just really loved their government.

Doreen also shares fonder memories with me as well. She talks about her whole class scheming to talk back when the recruiters for the “Free German Youth” visited their school. Though everyone had a choice to join this political group at age fourteen, there were consequences if you didn’t. By the time it was Doreen’s turn, the regime was already starting to tear at the seams, and her class saw an opportunity for rebellion. When asked why they wanted to join, she and her classmates each individually answered, “Because I know I won’t be allowed to go to college if I don’t!” She also tells me about how exciting it was when family members from West Germany would send them packages that included things that were special or expensive, like imports – she mentions that bananas were rare, and a really big deal.

Eventually, after years of mounting pressures from international leaders, East Germany decided to loosen travel restrictions. They decided that East German citizens could apply for travel visas and move within certain permissions. But on November 9, 1989, the spokesman for the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Günter Schabowski, misspoke and told the world that the border was open, effective immediately. It was a tidal wave that couldn’t be stopped. Thousands of East Germans stormed the border checkpoints. People climbed on top of the wall and covered it in graffiti. The very next day, East German troops began dismantling it.

My mom’s friend Katja grew up in West Berlin – aka the non-Soviet part of the city. She was 13 when the wall fell, and she remembers it clearly. When speaking about that time, she recalls chaos, both beautiful and ominous. People were jubilant and taking in their freedoms. But there was also the clashing of two different Germanys. Katja remembers buses of people coming from East Germany, Poland, and Russia to buy all of the modern name brand foods at the grocery store. She says that you had to get there when doors opened if you wanted to buy food, and for the longest time, two particularly hot commodities were hard to come by – bananas (again!) and chocolate. Petty crime went up in West Berlin as people who had been living so desperately finally had access to variety, higher standards, and mobility.

But the main effect was joy. There’s no image that can quite compare to New Year’s Eve in 1989, when David Hasselhoff sang “Looking for Freedom” while suspended in a crane over the Berlin Wall.

Thousands of East Germans flooding into West Berlin on November 9, 1989.

David Hasselhoff performing “Looking for Freedom” on New Year’s Eve 1989.

When I ask my mom about all of this, she says that while it did impact her, she’s the wrong person to ask. She grew up in Paradise, remember? Her response makes me laugh, but it also makes me think of Doreen’s story. It conjures up an unavoidable discussion of two worlds, so close, yet completely isolated from each other. It makes me think of America today.

When I ask Doreen about any positives that she can remember about East Germany, she tells me that since everyone was in the same boat, people really worked together. Because the government was so tightly rationing every last resource and controlling access to everything, people would come together to help each other. The way she puts it, “You knew the government wasn’t going to help you, so you had to help each other.” She tells me stories of her community building a barn, neighbors helping with the harvest, and friends sharing eggs when they had a surplus. She says the first thing she noticed when the wall came down was the lack of collectivism and community feeling.

For Doreen, the freedom of individualism is worth the lack of community – when you grow up with that level of oppression, I can understand why. But there’s also something about the collective mindset of helping each other. Quite frankly, it feels like now the government won’t help you either. It’s why the idea of taxes is so insidious to so many Americans – they don’t see the benefits or get any help in return.

Fascism feels like a big, scary word – something you learn about in history books, or when reading about other, less forward-thinking countries. But as all things go, it starts slowly. Friends ostracizing each other for differing political beliefs. Finding an outsider to blame for the problems in your country. Holding onto power so tightly that you claim the only way the other side can win an election is by fraud. And while both sides will paint the other as extremists, there is only one party whose leader is currently in charge of the nation, encouraging violence and firing off misinformation with the tap of a finger.

I think about all of this in the context of Germany’s history. In Germany, it was left-wing fascism. Today in America, it’s the beginnings of traditional right-wing fascism. To me, it’s six of one, half a dozen the other. When leaders become all-powerful, they also become symbols for an emboldened vocal minority who will together try to dictate the lives of all other citizens. Extremes don’t work. The Soviet system in East Germany didn’t work. The capitalist system in America isn’t working. And while I find myself getting further and further radicalized with every month of the pandemic and every word the President spews, I realize that my views aren’t radical at all.

When I started writing this piece, I was a little nervous of how I would be perceived. With our country so divided, sharing a case study of communist failures can make it seem like you’re super pro-capitalism – believe me, I’m not. Here’s the thing. A system in which the government takes care of its people and its planet should be the standard. No one should have to pay thousands of dollars for an unexpected trip to the hospital. Higher education should not cost anywhere from $30,000-$60,000 per year. At the very least, the government should not profit off of lower-middle class people working towards a better life and a dream. And people who work hard, come up with innovative ideas, and change the world for the better should have the ability to climb the ladder of success – but not at the expense of everyday workers, and only if all people, including People of Color and women are given access to that ladder. CEOs and corporations should not pay nothing in federal income tax. And the future of sustainable energy sources should be viewed as an exciting opportunity to save our planet and creative countless new industries and subsequently, thousands of new jobs.

To me, freedom means being free to go to the doctor when I’m sick. Freedom to expand my potential with education and career exploration. Freedom to follow my ambitions as far as they can take me. Freedom to have children one day without worrying about the waning resources drying up with each new decade. So when I vote, I will be voting with this future in mind. It’s very possible. And it sounds a lot like Paradise.