Arthur at recto|verso (the blog of F. A. Bernett Books) provided these scans from a serial named Contra, “produced by the DDR in an effort to undermine BGS [border guards] morale and solicit West German defections to the apparent socialist paradise which awaited them on the other side.”
Contra is one small part of a 1969 British Frontier Service dossier recently obtained by the bookstore. It documents “examples of leaflets fired in large and small ‘propaganda rockets’ and ‘metal coconuts’ into Federal territory from the DDR.” Visit recto|verso to read Arthur’s larger post, “Everything has its Limit! Even Miniskirts…”
Some more information from Arthur:
The tabloid was a kind of proletariat skin magazine, with breezy articles boasting of superior Soviet weapons systems, East German sports prowess, and goofy cheesecake photographs of scantily dressed women.
A regular feature also claimed to convey “warm wishes from the DDR” to current BGS troops on behalf of West German military defectors, who, judging by the photographs, were clearly enjoying the superior charms of these East German swimsuit models, along with the professional services of expert tailors and barbers. [Ed.: see the image third from the bottom.]
To view more wonderful images click here.
One response
This is fascinating (and horrifying), thanks so much for posting.
A great book about the devastating effects of the prostitute/spy paradigm of the USSR: Hero by Andrei Makine (born in Siberia, lived in a crypt in the Russian Orthodox Cemetary in Paris, a great writer). It’s about a man who gives everything has to the Communist party, and then they turn his daughter into a spy/prostitute.
The effects were devastating — just as prostitution and trafficking has devastated the post-USSR generation.
The statue of Karl Marx in front of the Kremlin looks wistfully at the Bolshoi Theater- as if to say, Communism was only a Utopian Theory, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I am not about totalitarianism. The artist took a deliberate risk, and he’s celebrated for this by the intelligentsia in Moscow. I wish I could read German — I wonder if these texts contain anything hidden like this.
It always breaks my heart — the promise of the Revolution, and it’s exceeding tragedy — the nearly hundred million who died. Frank O’Hara writes beautiful of it in his wonderful essay “About Zhivago and His Poems”:
“Pasternak has written a revolutionary and prophetic work which judges contemporary society outside as well as within the Iron Curtain. And if Pasternak is saying the the 1917 Revolution failed, he must feel that the West never even made an attempt. Far from being a traitorous work, Dr. Zhivago is a poem on the nobility of the Soviet failure to resconstruct society in human terms ….”
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