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 East German anthem with English translation

The sudden fall of the Communism in Eastern Europe caught Western leaders and the CIA off guard . As late as 1988, West Germany's chancellor, Helmut Kohl, said he doubted he would see German Unification in his lifetime and $151 million had been spent on a new parliament building in Bonn, begun only in 1986. By the late 80s, East Germany and Romania were the last of the hard-line Socialist states. The intrusive nature of the secret police, with 1 in 7 adults being a government informer, special privileges for the party elites and the obvious material wealth and freedom beamed from West German tv stations and growing economic stagnation , Gorbachev's renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine and Glasnost reforms were some of the major factors leading to East German collapse by 1989.

 Trailer for Goodbye Lenin ! About a family in the

waning years of the Cold War in East Germany

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