[xx511134bz]

Odd/amusing point, the Stasi referred to the wall as the "antifascist defense border". Although these days, I'm a bit torn on the term as I see rent prices jacked up across the world by whomever can borrow money at the lowest rate.

The Stasi and the Berlin Wall | DW Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxkWC6MgcQ

[ArtWomb]

Highest recommendation for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's film The Lives of Others (2006) ;)

[aerosmile]

The Russians' usage of the term antifascist certainly didn't age well, but it's worth noting that "fascists" is how all people in the world referred to certain Germans and Italians for a period of 25 years all up until 1945 (and the affected folks didn't mind that - in fact, the term was invented in Italy in 1915 and then adopted by Mussolini in 1918 and by Hitler in 1923 [0]). So for Russians to refer to Germans who didn't join them as fascists is just a continuation of how the term had been used for a long time.

By 1961, it was definitely unfair to continue using the term in its original meaning, and at this point it was certainly the Russian government pushing their agenda a lot more strongly than the general population would have on its own. But it's not like everyone was strictly opposed to it either - the horrors of the war had created in Eastern Europe such deep resentment towards Germany that it would take a lot more than 16 years to get over that. In fact, my grandpa lived until the 90s and still called every German a fascist.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

[fsckboy]

> the term antifascist certainly didn't age well

antifa?

the political left has never stopped using the term fascist as a pejorative, it's thrown around quite liberally even today

[f6v]

Sometimes I get lost in public discussions these days. Everyone is “fascist”, “far-right”, and “leftist” at the same time.

[aerosmile]

Far-left and far-right ideologies have more in common than many people realize (including the people within those factions). They are both based on the principle on low tolerance, and as such they are well-aligned on the idea of strict enforcement of their ideologies.

There are some hilarious misconceptions that members of those factions have about their own ideologies. Far-left is against the police brutality, but there is a 100 year history of perfect correlation between leftist regimes and policy brutality.

Far-right is against government interventions in all economic matters, but that also has never materialized anywhere else.

The bottom line is that anything that's far-something requires suppression of the society's natural tendency to return to the center.

[cronix]

Far-left and far-right intersect at totalitarianism.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The Wilson and Attlee governments in the UK would be very surprised to hear there's a "100 year history of perfect correlation".

They were certainly leftist. Many would consider them far leftist today. (Of course they weren't, but that doesn't mean the label wouldn't be applied.)

Neither was legendary for police brutality. That came later, with Thatcher's response to the Miner's Strike and the poll tax riots - among others.

[aerosmile]

My bad, I meant to say far-left instead of leftist. Hopefully that sentiment is evident throughout the rest of my comment.

[blix]

I have a hard time considering a government that ruled over and fought bitterly to protect a global capitalist empire as truly 'leftist,' unlike the UK's geopolitical enemies of the time.

It is also likely that subjects of certain British colonies would have a substantially different opinion on police violence.

[user-the-name]

That sounds entirely like a problem with you not making any effort to understand what is discussed rather than anyone else's problem.

[f6v]

Or maybe it’s people who didn’t do well in school don’t know what a fascist regime looks like.

[seanmcdirmid]

Where is the line at to be drawn between nationalism and fascist ultra nationalism? The rise in nationalism in many countries is one thing, but as that nationalism becomes stronger it is too easy to see it as drifting into fascist territory.

[aerosmile]

I said specifically "the Russians' usage of the term..."

[inglor_cz]

I suspect that real estate prices are dragged up by fear of inflation. People in my country buy whatever has a roof, because they do not want their savings to go to waste.

[Spooky23]

It’s all about the cheap money.

I just refinanced my house for a rate that is effectively negative in real terms right now.

[spaetzleesser]

Agreed. Some people/institutions have access to more money than can be productively used so they bid up anything that has the potential to make money, be it startups, Bitcoin or housing.

[inglor_cz]

We had even slightly lower interest rate on mortgages in 2017 and the market was nowhere as hot as today.

I am sort-of familiar with real estate market in Prague and Ostrava, two very different cities.

Apartments in Ostrava were hard to sell even with low interest rates, because the city lost 10 per cent of its population - a typical rust belt phenomenon. Even just two years ago, an apartment put on market in Ostrava could be there for half a year before attracting a serious buyer.

They are now hot like hell and more than twice as much expensive.

[adsche]

Is the real estate market (esp. for renting out) actually dominated by private investors and their savings? Here in German cities, it feels like it's dominated by faceless investors and corporations but I have no data to back that up.

[inglor_cz]

In March-May 2021, I was looking for an apartment or smaller house in my city of birth, Ostrava. The market was crazy, but the prospective buyers looked like regular people. Sometimes 15-20 of us met in a single location and had to be shepherded through the dwelling in groups.

[f6v]

99.99% for-rent apartments I’ve seen in Western Europe were owned by some huge company. That’s a stark contrast to Eastern Europe where you’re much more likely to rent a privately owned property.

[buran77]

This may be because of local laws or city council rules. In many cities the developer of a complex today is forced by law to have a certain percentage of the development dedicated for rental (Munich I think may be the leader here with a proposed 80% for rental). The only way to achieve this is to have the apartments owned by the developer or handed over to another management company (or investor) for rental only.

It's also why you sometimes see a development with a several rows of houses meant for sale flanked by one or more apartment buildings with a far smaller footprint but enough floors to equal roughly the same usable area in order to get the project approved.

[johannes1234321]

actually in Germany 60% of the appartments are owned by private individuals 10% state/local governments, 10% coops (Genossenschaft), and the reminder corporations. (While statistics differ a bit depending on where you draw the line between some private owner and a corporation for auch a statistic) https://www.savills.de/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/2756... is one survey with some numbers

[buran77]

The laws I mentioned are relatively new [0]. So for now it's hard to compete in numbers with a century of already built apartments. And eventually all "for rent" units do go on the market for sale.

But it's also easy to see why for someone looking for rent in many big cities today it looks like most apartments are owned by big management companies. New developments in "hot" cities with high demand and such laws are owned by a management company because that's the only way it works. You'd see entire buildings owned by the developer. It will take decades for those new apartments to go into private ownership.

[0] https://www.thelocal.de/20210708/explained-munichs-radical-n...

[sandworm101]

How many of those are actually privately owned but are only managed by the big bad corporation? It is often very hard to tell the difference.

[pydry]

IIRC west germany did end up welcoming some nazis back into government positions so from their standpoint it probably seemed fairly reasonable. There were still Nazis everywhere in postwar berlin.

[sdoering]

They did. Same with the US inviting Third Reich scientists. Or BND, CIA, MI5 and others inviting HVA (Stasi foreign spy agency) people into their ranks.

What, except maybe that states are immoral and opportunistic, does these things tell us?

I am not sure. Maybe I am missing net positive things as outcomes from these behaviors. But to me neither example is good.

[ipaddr]

Using those scientists to made the bomb to end the war was one positive outcome.

[sdoering]

The idea that the bombs on Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki shortened the war in a significant way is in historic sciences at least contested.

I remember my professor at University arguing against the fact that this idea was presented as proven fact, when there were many question in the scientific community.

Not sure how maybe newer evidence might have changed it. I would need to dive into the actual scientific literature to update my knowledge of the topic.

[evanb]

The Operation Paperclip scientists helped build rockets for the post-war era. Not bombs.

The German / Austrian / Hungarian scientists that worked on the bomb came to the US years before the Manhattan project started.

[flohofwoe]

East Germany did that too in the early years for building up their "inofficial army" (called "Kasernierte Volkspolizei") before the "official" NVA (National People's Army) was founded in 1956. After that they mostly got rid of old Nazis in the army though, at least the high-ranking ones. In general, the more specialist and "valuable" an old Nazi was, the more it was likely that his history was quickly forgotten, also in the East.

[refurb]

Exactly. Both sides did this as it’s hard to defeat a country then build it back up when you exclude everyone who who was in the old govt (many who joined the Nazi party for non-ideological reasons).

If you dig into the history it’s pretty interesting. The USSR and France I believe were adamant about de-Nazification, but petered out quickly when they realized it was holding up rebuilding the country. The US and UK weren’t too worried about lower level Nazi’s once the leaders and major war criminals were handled.

[heraclius]

In that were the real concern, the DDR would have restricted travel from the West to the East by residents of the West, but not travel by its own residents to the West and return journeys—yet it prohibited the latter.

Moreover the DDR cannot seriously have had such concerns, since it too e.g. employed former Nazi officers in its army.