The defectors who didn't defect
There's a really interesting piece up on Spiegel Online's English site called "Hijacked to Capitalism," about a plane full of East Germans that got hijacked and forced to land in West Berlin in 1978.
The US and West Germany assumed the people on the plane would seize the chance to defect to the West - something many people throughout the history of East Germany risked their lives to do, after all - but in reality, only a few of them did, most choosing to head back home to East Berlin.
I really like this article because it provides a little bit of insight into that "other side" we rarely talk about, the normal lives of East Germans minus the "everything was better in the West" propaganda and the "everything was better in the East" nostalgia. You can access the article through the link above.
The US and West Germany assumed the people on the plane would seize the chance to defect to the West - something many people throughout the history of East Germany risked their lives to do, after all - but in reality, only a few of them did, most choosing to head back home to East Berlin.
I really like this article because it provides a little bit of insight into that "other side" we rarely talk about, the normal lives of East Germans minus the "everything was better in the West" propaganda and the "everything was better in the East" nostalgia. You can access the article through the link above.