Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall – and the East German Communist regime – at the end of 1989, the citizens of what was then the ironically-named German Democratic Republic (GDR) discovered something they had long suspected: that, just like in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in their country, some were more equal than others. While they were doing it tough, their leaders were living in luxury. So much for the “workers’ and soldiers’ paradise” they were told of constantly in their regime’s propaganda.
A resort in the forest about 35km out of Berlin known as ‘Wandsiedlung Wandlitz’ was built for the members of the Politburo. It contained what the everyday East German in his Trabant (that he had waited years to get) could only dream of. The resort covered two square kilometres and contained 23 two-storey houses, with seven to 15 rooms and numerous facilities, including a swimming pool, sauna, medical centre, recreation centre, tennis courts, kindergarten, cinema, restaurant, shooting range as well as buildings for service and security staff.
While East Germans had to queue for hours at government-operated supermarkets just to get the bare essentials (bread, milk, eggs, etc), the Politburo comrades had access to high quality products in specially built shops, often imported from foreign countries, goods that the ordinary East German had no chance of buying. The whole area was hermetically sealed and guarded by 800-plus men from the STASI (East German secret police.
