Emma Thompson's paternal grandmother went into domestic service at 16 and had a child out of wedlock after being raped by one of her employers — a story Thompson recounted as context for her working-class roots.
Marion Stokes recorded 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes of 24-hour news broadcasts over 35 years (1977–2012), creating the largest single donation the Internet Archive ever received.
As a distinct historical period, the GDR lasted longer than Nazi Germany, the Weimar Republic, and the German Empire combined.
Stalin extracted roughly $10 billion worth of agricultural and industrial products from East Germany in its first years, crippling its economy from the start.
A third of East Germany's industrial plants were physically removed to the USSR in the first two years of the Soviet occupation.
After World War II, the Soviets reappropriated concentration camps in East Germany and 50,000 people died in them — officially of neglect, not extermination.
At its peak the Stasi had 91,000 full-time surveillance officers on its payroll, making it one of the largest secret police forces per capita ever assembled.
Beyond full-time staff, the Stasi ran 170,000 informal collaborators — known as IMs — embedded in everyday East German society.
One in every six people in East Germany either worked for or actively collaborated with the Stasi, meaning statistically every party had at least two informants.
The Stasi's archive of odour samples in airtight jars — built from 1979 onwards — was still being used by German federal prosecutors as late as 2007.
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