What I’m Reading

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by communism, and fiction which I think in its own sneaky way portrays communist societies. That’s why I reread The Hunger Games Trilogy, where one group has everything, everyone else has nothing, but the propaganda is very thick, and it says this impoverished, repressive, murderous society is actually for everyone’s benefit.

I am also reading Stasiland, by Anna Fuller. A journalist, Fuller wrote an award-winning, international bestseller that told the true stories of people who lived in the worst police state on earth: East Germany.

What was it like to live in the “German Democratic Republic,” as they called East Germany?

You couldn’t leave; you were literally walled in.

You couldn’t make money.

You had no freedom of speech.

You couldn’t own a gun.

They tapped your phone and recorded every conversation.

They could enter your tiny apartment any time they felt like it, turn it inside out, and read your diary.

They could imprison and torture you. I know it’s politically correct to say, “Torture doesn’t work,” but everyone broke in East Germany. I hate to say it, but their strategies were brilliant if you don’t mind shattering people’s minds.

The average person was completely repressed by the East German secret police, the Stasi. This book is incredible, disturbing, and true. I can’t wait to report more about it to you.