7 My Impression of the German Democratic Republic [Life Itself Exposes Lies]

J. A. Osei’s report of his sojourn in the GDR,which is fully reproduced below, is to be found in J. A. Osei to Heinz Deutschland, Accra, July 22, 1964, SAPMO-BArch, DY 79/615. The original title Osei had chosen for his report – “My impression of the German Democratic Republic” – was crossed out by one (anonymous) member of the editorial board of the journal Correspondence and changed to “Life itself exposes lies”. Ultimately, Osei’s contribution was printed in Correspondence under the title “Reality exposes lies” without, to my knowledge, any further queries by the editorial board.3 Correspondence was the quarterly bulletin of the Faculty for Foreign Students4 at the Bernau college. From 1964 to 1966 it was edited and published in both English and French by the staff of the faculty, with the editorial team usually consisting of six to eight members. It was sent to all alumni of the trade union college and was “meant to report on your and our

activities. It is meant to conveyaid and instructions to assist youinyour further studies and to tighten the bondso ff riendship connectingu sf orever."⁵ In order to give our readersa ni mpression of the original source, Osei'sr eport is reproduced here without corrections. Mistakes are not indicatedw ith [sic!] so as to facilitate as moother reading. Ib elievet hatt he handwrittenc omments by the East German members of the editorial board of Correspondence, which are marked in the letter by square brackets and strikethrough, offer interesting insights into what the editorial board in the GDR deemed unacceptable and wheret hey polished phrases for the final version. *** In September,1 961t he TradeU nion Congress of Ghana⁶ sent an umber of students to be trained in the Collegeofthe Confederation of Free German Trade Un- See "Editorial," Correspondence Informationsbulletin Nr.1d er Fakultät fürA usländerstudium an der Hochschule der Deutschen Gewerkschaften "Fritz Heckert" Bernau (1964), 3. Digital copy in the possession of ImmanuelR.Harisch. Ithank the former director of the Institutefor Foreign Students,H einz Deutschland, for allowingm et od igitize several issues of Correspondence.  The predecessor of the Ghana TUC was founded in 1943u nder the name of the Gold Coast Trade Union Congress (GCTUC) and was modeled after British industrial relations.In1950,during the earlystruggle for self-government,the GCTUC organized ageneral strike which decisively shaped the outcome of the campaign for the benefit of the Convention People'sP arty (CPP) led by Kwame Nkrumah. Duringthe 1950s,however,the CPP joined the British colonial office in the crusade against left-wing, Marxist trade unionists whos ought to establish contactt othe World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). Internationally, the GCTUC remained in the Western, anticommunist camp of the rivalrous International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Accra was host to one of the two ICFTU informational centers on the African continent as wella st otheI CFTU'sf irst African Regional Conference. With the passingo ft he Industrial Relations Act(IRA)inparliament in 1958, however,the Ghana TUC preparedthe ground for its disaffiliation from the ICFTU in 1959and was reorganized, now to consist of 16 industrial unionsthe Timber &W oodworkers' Union, of which J. A. Osei was deputy general secretary after his return from the GDR,b eingo ne of them. The changesd ue to the IRA, criticized by the ICFTU and International Labour Organization (ILO),were far-reaching: tob eamember of the Ghana TUC became obligatory for workers; Ghana'sindustrial unions had to affiliatewith the TUC central in Accra, where the TUC had builtanew headquarters with money lent fromt he CPP government; the "check-off" system was introduced, which allowed the companies to deduct membership fees from the workers' salary;a nd the right to strikew as severelycurtailed. The Ghana TUC general secretary was am inister of the CPP governmenta tt he same time. As ar esult, the Ghana TUC became severelyrestricted in its agency, although it profitedfromastrong financial and organizational base after the integration intot he CPP'sp olitical machine. See DouglasG . Anglin, "Ghana, the West,and the Soviet Union," The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science /RevueCanadienne d'Economique et de Science Politique 24 (1958): 161, 164;Imanuel Geiss, Gewerkschaften in Afrika (Hannover: Verlagf ür Literatur und Zeitgeschehen,1 965), 197-ions in Bernau/Berlin. Ih appened to be one of the luckiest chaps selectedf or this course.⁷ The time of our journey coincided with the closing down of the border between the East and West Berlin which happened on 13th August,1961. [i. e. the erection of the antifascist protection wall].

7M yI mpression of the German Democratic Republic [LifeI tself Exposes Lies]
lies carried false news perpetrated against the Sovereign State of the German Democratic Republic. One of such news was captioned: "Running from Hell to Heaven." Thisn ews gave horrible account of the G.D.R.a sh ow the inhabitants werenot freeand how they could not getfood sufficientlytofeed themselvesand their families, and thereforew eree scaping from East Berlin to the West and so on and so forth. Really, it was onlyt he person who was determined in purpose who could defythosewicked propaganda to go to East Germanyatthat moment.
Determined as we weret ot rain and harden ourselvest oo ust the final remains of capitalism from our new state of Ghana⁸ we weren ot disturbed at all by these news. Finally, therefore, on 6th September,1 961w ef lew from the Accra International Airport to for Democratic Berlin and to hear,s ee and learn for ourselvesw hat the European Capitalists had been saying of that country.

First Lie Nailed Down:
The Polish twoengined plane which took us from Amsterdam touched the beautiful Berlin Schönefeld Airport at exactly4 .30 p. m. We were in adifferent country with different people with different language. Contrary to our expectations a membero ft he Airport Unit of the People'sP olice of the G.D.R., who could not speak English approached us and by his action seemed to ask as to whether he could help us. He was smart and neat,w earingacheerful countenance which depicted his kindness. Thisg entle Officer led us through all the custom formalities without anyo fm yC omrades encountering anyi nconveniences.
Just as we could [had] finish[ed]w ith the Airport and Custom Officials, a 6f oot tall and well built man arriveda tt he Airport and hastilyc ame to us. He introduced himself as Comrade Horst Thomas, alecturer of the Fritz Heckert College, wherew ew eret og oa nd that he was to be our guide. The simple but impressive receptions accorded [to] us by Comrade Thomas and the Airport Authorities wereq uite sufficient to disbelievet he lies told in the Western Press about the G.D.R.

At the College
After some minutes drive we arriveda tt he "Fritz Heckert Institute" [College]. Contrary to the assertion that the Collegei sa" Concentration Camp"⁹ If ound to my amazement magnificent buildingsw ith beautiful surroundings;t his environment alone is quitesufficient to satisfy the whims of anyambitiousstudent.¹⁰  Unfortunately, Iwas unable to retrievethis particular report, allegedlyfromamedia outlet in aW estern capitalist country.  In the Institute'sDining Room both the Whites and the Blacks dinedtogether.¹¹ The mixture of both Whites and Blacks in such ar oom reminds one of the keyboard of ap iano.T hisc ompletelyr elieved us of anyf ear that haunted our minds because of thoseo bnoxious publications about the G.D.R.¹² After seeing all these and manymore Isaid to myself that "HELL" is an imaginary place of permanent torment of fire, (with apology to the Bible) and if one is to believethat the G.D.R. is a "HELL",asindicated by the Western Press,then to me Hell is ac omfortable and happier place to live.  As Yevette Richards has shown for the ICFTU'sown trade union college,the African Labour Collegei nUganda'sc apital Kampala, the fact that at rade union college'sd iningr ooml iket he one in Bernauwas shared by black and white students and staff was by no means universal in the late1 950sa nd early1 960s.I nt he earlyp eriod of the ICFTU college, the white personnel dined in the main diningh all of Kampala'se xclusive Imperial Hotel while the black students, the Kenyan deputy principal Odero-Jowi, and the black U.S.-American teacher McCrays at at tables in another hall, close to the kitchen. In January 1959, when twoAfrican students were refused entry to the main dininghall and the white racist hotelmanagement threatenedthem with expulsion,the students collectively refused to eat and askedfor airline tickets home. They fiercely criticizedthe hypocritical ICFTU,which campaigned for "free trade unionism" and "democracy." See Yevette Richards, Maida Springer:P an-Africanist and International Labor Leader (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,2 000), 154.  In his report, Osei omits the fact that racist incidents did repeatedlyhappen in the socialist states of Europe and the USSR in the early1960s.For scholarlyaccounts,see, for example, Ilona

Care fort he Foreign Students
All Foreign Students have the sameright as the German students in the College. Every Foreign Studentr eceivesf or every month, as tipend of 400 Deutsch [German] Marksand it is made as follows: 150 D. M. for food and 250D .M.for books and other minor expenses.
Major meals are served 3times aday and in addition intermediatemeals are served at every 10 a. m. between breakfast and lunch at 3p .m .b etween lunch and supper.

Freedom of Movement
All foreigners, respectable of their color or creed,a re free to movee verywhere and see anything as anyo ther German citizen. As students, who werew illing to learn and know everything, we joined German families at week-ends in their homes. We found to our amazement thatevery averagefamilyhas sufficient food to feed upon. They live in spacious flats at very low rentage.
The German Democratic Republic has no unemployment questions to solve. All and sundry work to earn ad ecent living.¹³ Iw as mostlyi mpressed to see graduated young women engineers in the "Sachsenwerk" Electric Motor Factory in Dresden. Their agile fingers doing and undoing parts on electric motors are delightful to the eyet ow atch.¹⁴  The idyllic pictureO sei painted of the East German workers can be broughti ntod ialogue with the concept of relative deprivation -" the idea that how one judgeso ne'so wn situation and circumstances depends on the person or group to whom or to which one is comparing oneself." See Andrew I. Port, "'Awkward Encounters':E ast German Relations with the Third-World 'Other'," German History 35 (2017): 630. A1 962report, written by twoF DGB labor advisors who wered ispatched to the Ghana TUC for eight months in order to act as Ghana TUC general sec-retaryJ ohn K. Tettegah'sright-hand men, stated that 65 %ofthe workers and 36 %ofwhite-collar workerse arned as alary below the minimum subsistencel evel as defined by the Ghanaian government.See "Bericht über einigeFragender EntwicklungGhanas und des Ghana TUC", Berlin, 11.1.1962, 54,S APMO-BArch, DY 34/3475. RichardJ effries has examinedt he decliningr eal wagesf or Ghanaian railwaymen in detail; see RichardJ effries, Class, Powera nd Ideology in Ghana:The Railwaymen of Sekondi (Cambridge:C ambridge University Press, 1978). To summarize, in Imanuel Geiss' words,t he austerity measures introduced by the CPP in 1961m ade the toilingm asses suffer.S ee Geiss, Gewerkschaften in Afrika,195.  Osei'sadmiration for the female engineers -expressed in the aboveparagraphwith an erotic and somewhat belittlingundertone -paralleled the CPP'sprogressive policies with regardt o women in the Nkrumahyears. Female traders had been acrucial pillar of support for Nkrumah's 7M yI mpression of the GermanD emocratic Republic [LifeI tself Exposes Lies]

Socialist Construction
In that modernmodel city of Eisenhuttenstadt¹⁵,which Icall the city of "Socialism",wew ereh ighlyi mpressed to see how every worker works willingly, freely and diligentlyw ithout anye motion. Prior to the Second World Wart his city which is situated in ah eart of at hick forest,d id not exist.A fter the war the G.D.R.workers under the banner of the Socialist Unity PARTY built this industrial city with its most modernS teel Factory.T he city is thereforet he workers city. What Ig athered from this city of Eisenhuttenstadti st he oneness of purpose with which the workers work and live.W orkers families, previouslyu nknown to one another,a re joined togetheri nacommon alliance which is the mood of production. They meet in club houses to discuss how best they can produce and to produce abundantlyt oe nable them to createm ore to improvet heir own living condition. "Each worker is not for himself and gold [god] for them all" as it is said in the Capitalist countries but rather every worker in this Steel Factory is his brother'sk eeper.This meanst hat the concern of one worker is the concern of all workers. They are knittedtogether by the steel they produce and "behold how good and how pleasant it is for workers to live together in Socialism".¹⁶ CPP during the anti-colonial struggle and sincethen had contributed considerablytoits success through their financial and organizational efforts.D uringt he CPP'sr ule, women entered institutions of higher learninginincreasingnumbers and soon gained access to male-dominated domains such as aviation and engineering. See Edzodzinam Tsikata, "Women'sPolitical Organisations 1951Organisations -1987   The East German model city of modernity,Eisenhüttenstadt(literally "ironworks city" in German, from1953to1961named Stalinstadt),which Osei called the "city of 'Socialism,'",was designed on the drawing board.Itwas founded in 1950 in order to provide the workers of the nearby steelworks with housing. Locatedi nthe stateo fBrandenburgclose to the Polish border,the city had roughly 25,000 inhabitants by 1960.

Seeing is Believing
We had the pleasure to visit the port of Rostock. This is the shipping port of the G.D.R.with its modern Harbour.I th as alsoafishing harbour attached and employs about 30,000 workers.T he Workers of the German Democratic Republic have every cause to be happy. The Governmentand the people chose the socialist order of living and they are enjoying the fruits of their toils and sacrifices.
ManyH olidaya nd Convalescent Homes are built for the workers and their families. After every 12 continuous months' work aw orker chooses one of these HolidayH omes wheret or elax for just3 0D .M arksf or the days of his leave.A ll kinds of entertainments and modern clinics as well as Post Offices are attachedt oe ach home. We had the opportunity of visitinga nd staying in some of these Homes;Klink-onthe-MüritznearW aren in the regionofNeubrandenburga nd alsoi nF riedrichsroda in the Thuringen Forest in the regiono fE rfurt.
We had [also] trips alsot oH eringdorf at the Baltic Sea near the Polish border.There we met thousands of workers and their families from manyS ocialist countries enjoying their holidays togetherw ith the G.D.R.workers.¹⁷ Our trip also took us to the Spreewald in the District of Cottbus.This is one of the most interesting places for tourist'sa ttraction. The cruiseo nt he long,n arrow,winding stream offers af rolic spree [for] fine recreation. And least If orget: The voyage on the MuritzLake through series of canals to the villageofPlaucannot be short of enjoyment.These and manyo thers are reserved for the workers  Here Osei affirmst he official script of socialist internationalism, the idea of one socialist community made up of socialist brotherc ountries.With regardt ot he recreational sphere, the FDGB'sholidayservice(see note below) aimed at providingi ts members with affordable enjoyment as ac onstitutive part of its mission to raise overall productivity.I nG hana, the CPP perceivedthe trade unions as the vehicle of the government'sproductionist dreamswithin the discourses of development and progress. The TUC also engagedi nanumber of socio-economic activities for its members, like workers' recreational centers with sports facilities,c inemas and bars,vegetable farms,h ousingp rojects, and two professional dance bands "for the entertainment of workersi nc ompliancew ith the Convention People [sic!] Party'ss logan of 'WORK AND HAPPINESS'." See Arthiabah and Mbiah, Half aC enturyo fT oil, Trouble and Progress, 127-37.While Ghanaian workers, grosso modo, could secures ome social and security benefits, real wages, however,stagnated and the CPP governmentcracked down on the right to strikeand to protest in the early1 960s,m ost prominentlya fter the 1961s trike.S ee Osei-Opare, "'If you trouble ah ungry snake,'" 36,a nd Jeffries, Class,P ower and Ideology in Ghana,7 1 -101.S ee also footnote1 3.

7M yI mpression of the GermanD emocratic Republic [LifeI tself Exposes Lies]
and [the] people of the G.D.R. for theire njoyment.¹⁸ Who then can sayt hat the citizenso ft he G.D.R.a re not free? Can thereb ea ny other freedom and liberty more thant hese? Away then!M r. Capitalist,w ith your intrigues and wicked machinations. We have seen and we bear testimonyofthe good thingsinthe German Democratic Republic.
"Some people went to the G.D.R.t os it and stink; But we went there to sit and think."

Respect of Colour
The people of the German Democratic Republic are kind and loving.Wherever we went during our 18 months' stay, either in groups or in singles, either officially or privately, we werea ccorded with warm reception and hospitality.
In the drinking bars, restaurants and in the dancing rooms too, the Black is as well welcome as the White. Unlikethe capitalist countries in Europe, people of all racesa re regarded as equal.

PeaceL oving
The German Democratic Republic is apeace-loving country.The Government and people of this country have endured series of provocations from the people of West Germanyw ithout reiteration. Thisp atience of the people of the G.D.R. has savedt he whole world and mankind from what would had flared up to another dangerous World War. One could recollect the cold murder of the G.D.R. soldiers on the Jerusalem Strasse on the Border in East Berlin [to West]a nd other places.¹⁹ The killing of the Prince of Sarajavo [ Sarajevo] in 1914k indled the first World Wara nd would not the killing of more people by another people justify aG reat War? But the G.D.R. Government bore these provocations cooly and collectedlyf or the interest of mankind. This alone is al iving testimony that the Communist detests war.

Friendliness
The large number of German Students of the Collegeofthe Confederation of Free German Trade Unions and friends and families from manyp arts of the country who sawu so ff on SundayM arch 24th, 1963a tt he Berlin Schönefeld Airport, wailing and weepingb ecause of the friends they would perhaps see no more is agood sign of the friendliness of the people of the German Democratic Republic.
Ih aven ever stop[ped]r ecollectingt he happy days Ih ad in this wonderful country and Ih avee very ambition to visit this country in the near future to payhomagetomyAlma Mater and to meet also friends and families of auld langsyne.
Ih avee very hope that the German Democratic Republic will grow in strength and might to accomplish its ultimatet ask of building completes ocialism wherecontinuous abundance will flow for the people and theirdependents and whereg reed, avarice, frauda nd exploitation will never exist.