...or any other German gamers.

I'm planning a two part adventure inspired by the films Sophie Scholl and The Lives of Others . I was wondering if you (anyone) could give me some local insight into both these periods so I could add a little verisimilitude to the adventures.

Regards,
David R

What is it that you want to know?

Well in the case of Sophie, what was university student life like then...under the watchful eyes of the Nazi party and for Others are there any memoirs or important court cases dealing with Stasi agents. I dunno, guess I'm looking for blogs, websites (in English)...anything that would give my players an insight into the way how folks lived in that period. Accounts from ordinary citizens., anything that would give my players and me something other than just action/thriller tropes to work off from. Little details. Sorry if I'm a tad vague.

Regards,
David R

For the Nazi Era, this might be a good start:

http://www.amazon.com/History-German-Defying-Hitler-Commentary/dp/B0008E6IMM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/104-6499451-8840739?ie=UTF8&qid=1181372942&sr=8-3

Some English-captioned GDR photograhs:

http://www.ddr-bilder.de/Einleitu-e.htm

The late GDR/DDR is a tough beast to tackle, though.

Most people had arranged themselves with living in the late Honnecker regime, and had settled into a weird comfort-zone of mediocrity.
There´s much to say about it, but the most important would be, that the late GDR was perceived as a pleasant place by many inhabitants. The oppression was mostly invisible, and one could arrange with it. Unless you happened to stand up for anything.

For this romanticized picture of the GDR, that many painted themselves even at the time, you might watch "Good Bye Lenin!" or "Sonnenallee". It´s a shallow movie, but the self-delusional ostriching in mediocrity goes back to very shallow reasons too.

Actually, it´s pretty complex, but for a game, that might suffice.

I´d suggest that you introduce some wisecracky, highly sarcastic and Schweijkian NPCs. Real Socialism tended to either break people, or make most of the intelligent people into superficially obedient smartasses, who knew it all better, but weren´t allowed to do so.
Those guys know how to improvise, how to circumvent orders, how to play the game with the state within it´s limits. There used to be a whole culture around that, especially in Satire.

Keep in mind, that the earlier of the 50ies and 60ies is again pretty different. Much more enthusiasm, and much more violent oppression, more fear, more pride in socialism, more prisoners, kids shamusing their parents etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Dictatorship-As-Experience-Towards-Socio-Cultural/dp/1571811826/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104-6499451-8840739?ie=UTF8&qid=1181375473&sr=1-11

http://www.amazon.com/Literary-Intellectuals-Dissolution-State-Professionalism/dp/0226864987/ref=sr_1_37/104-6499451-8840739?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181375162&sr=8-37

Thanks Sett your input is proving very interesting indeed esp :

QuoteI´d suggest that you introduce some wisecracky, highly sarcastic and Schweijkian NPCs. Real Socialism tended to either break people, or make most of the intelligent people into superficially obedient smartasses, who knew it all better, but weren´t allowed to do so.
Those guys know how to improvise, how to circumvent orders, how to play the game with the state within it´s limits. There used to be a whole culture around that, especially in Satire.

I'm interested in how the people in the 40's (the first part of the adventure, which is set in a University) and later in the early 80's (set in a small town were the pcs are part of the State machinery spying on civilians) existed...coped ? in the culture of fear that seemed so pervasive.

Regards,
David R

For the 40s the most important part to know would be that there has been no iron curtain and that masses of people moved away from to Russian zone to the Western zones. I don't know about the motives of the people who stayed in the East at this point, but everyone who wanted and could ran away.
Also, treatment of the zone was quite different from what the British, French and Americans did. The Russians basically burned, looted and stole every piece of industry they could, while the Western commanders actually had an interest in re-building their domains.

East Germany in the late 40s was for sure a way more depressing area than the West - and if you look at the pictures of the bombed cities and emaciated survivors, that should be _really_ depressing.


For East Germany of the 80s, take what Settembrini already said about arrangement and escape into privacy.