When Germany reunited in 1990, people on both sides of the inner border were delighted. The promise was that, after decades of upheaval, Germans could develop in unity toward a bright future. The transformation of the former East was meant to lead it out of backward socialism and toward the delights of the market-capitalist West. This attitude toward the sunlit future also imposed a certain way of looking at its past. The reunified Germany’s history was to become a mainly West German story of successful recovery after 1945 — with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East seen as the aberration.

Today, over thirty years after unification, things don’t look so rosy. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is on the rise in the states of former East Germany, and many observers are delving into the GDR’s history to try to understand today’s developments. Is this state — its Stasi control, its suppression of democracy, its official anti-fascism — to blame for Easterners’ supposed “authoritarian attitudes” today? Or is the strength of this antisystemic party more to do with the transition that followed 1990?

Amid this debate, British-German historian Katja Hoyer’s new book Beyond the Wall has caused a sensation. Hoyer’s book does not replicate the image of an East Germany living in constant fear, but focuses on cultural development, social policy, leisure, and the everyday lives of ordinary people in the GDR. Her book is based on primary source research, but especially on interviews with ordinary citizens who lived much of their lives in the GDR.