Susan - An American teaching English in East Germany (130)

Susan Morrison is Professor of English at Texas State University. In the late 1980’s she taught in Rostock in the former GDR and then lived in West Berlin but frequently crossed back into the East to teach and meet friends. In this episode we talk to her about her experiences and her impression of the two Germanys in 1989. 

During her time in Rostock, Susan got in trouble with the authorities over bulletin board known as ‘The Wall’; the way she was censured by senior academics in the GDR sheds a valuable light on how people lived within the strict system of control by using humour and compromise. 

Susan talks about finding the humanity in the GDR and how, as she watched the wall fall in 1989, that she wondered if unification would truly benefit all Germans.

Susan also retrieved her personal Stasi File and talks about how they tracked and monitored her during her time in the GDR and the assumptions that they made (not always successfully!).

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James our co-host is the interviewer as we welcome Susan to our Cold War conversation…

There’s further information on this episode in our show notes, which can also be found as a link in your podcast app here. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode130/

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Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated – goodbye.

Radio GDR

If you are interested in East Germany we can highly recommend our friends over at Radio GDR.

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0:00 Introduction and Susan Morrison's first encounter with the East German

2:43 Susan's journey as a graduate student in East Germany

6:49 Susan's role as the editor of the wall newspaper and potential conflict with GDR authorities

11:09 The repercussions of posting a controversial article and the aftermath

14:31 Susan's complex feelings about her time in East Germany

18:08 Susan's discovery of her Stasi file and its references to the controversy

26:01 Susan's extended stay in Berlin and her travels to East Germany

34:35 Susan's experience living in West Berlin during the fall of the wall

46:21 Being detained at the border and misinterpretations by the East German government

56:53 The night the Berlin Wall came down and meeting with Angela after the fall

1:09:31 Feminist scholars' perspective on the change and the story of the Stasi car

1:20:05 Closing conversation with Susan Morrison and Ian Sanders wraps up the episode.

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