Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nostalgia for the old days and ways of socialist East Germany is stronger than ever. Germans even have a name for the phenomenon: “Ostalgie.” From East German scooters to ’80s hair metal, artifacts of the past are increasingly popular with some who grew up in the GDR [German Democratic Republic] and watched it disappear overnight — and even many who didn’t. But it’s controversial, because Ostalgie can move beyond favorite foods and bands, and into a problematic whitewashing of the misdeeds of the dictatorship.
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