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Only Jokes Thrived Under Communism
As we anticipate the non-celebrations regarding the 20th anniversary of the single-most liberating political event in history, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the consequent demise of communism, here are some East German jokes collected by West German intelligence sources:
Did East Germans originate from apes? Impossible. Apes could never have survived on just two bananas a year.
What would happen if the desert became communist? Nothing for a while, and then there would be a sand shortage.
Why does West Germany have a higher standard of living than we do? Because communists can't get work permits there.
Of course being a funnyman in one of the most awful regimes ran much higher risks than being splattered by a watermelon at a Gallagher show. In fact, the Stasi surveilled the population extensively and even hauled away people for cracking wise. Which lead to this gem:
"There are people who tell jokes. There are people who collect jokes and tell jokes. And there are people who collect people who tell jokes."
More here. Hat tip: Blogger and critic extraordinaire Alan Vanneman.
Read Glenn Garvin's haunting, outraged review of the incredible Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall.
D-FENS|10.16.09 @ 10:29AM|#
Interesting movie about political jokes in the old Communist regimes, called "Hammer & Tickle." Only caught about half of it when it ran on cable, unfortunately.
Brian|10.16.09 @ 10:53AM|#
They made a movie of it? There's a whole non-fiction book on the subject of the same title that's quite good.
Moses in the Desert|10.16.09 @ 10:33AM|#
the single-most liberating political event in history
Chronocentric much?
|10.16.09 @ 11:49AM|#
I doubt the Caananites saw the emergence of the Jews from Egypt as "liberating."
PantsFan|10.16.09 @ 10:44AM|#
Two Stasi agents are on a surveillance mission and quite
bored.
First agent: "Hey, what are you thinking about?"
Second agent: "Oh, nothing special. The same as you..."
First agent: "In that case, you're under arrest!"
Vicki|10.16.09 @ 10:52AM|#
Yup, same types of jokes in USSR, too: http://www.geocities.com/troys_tales/jokes.html
|10.16.09 @ 10:52AM|#
Three shop owners found themselves in prison. They started
talking.
"I set my prices higher than my competitors. I am in prison for
price gouging."
"I set my prices lower than my competitors. I am in prison for
predatory practices."
"I set my prices the same as my competitors. I am in prison for
collusion!"
|10.16.09 @ 12:07PM|#
I would like to ask the server scrolls how, with my accidental double post, the second one appears ahead of the first.
JB|10.16.09 @ 10:59AM|#
And now we have the joke of a President and his Mao-loving communications director.
Sick.
|10.16.09 @ 11:41AM|#
And Hitler was just joking about the Jews. No one respects the performance artist.
|10.16.09 @ 11:59AM|#
Gold. I shall use that in the pub this evening and claim it as my own invention!
|10.16.09 @ 1:00PM|#
No, I insist that you wear a shirt that says, "This joke was written by Pro Libertate."
Average Democratic voter|10.16.09 @ 11:25AM|#
I'll pretend to work, and Obama will pretend to pay me.
|10.16.09 @ 11:29AM|#
How do you double the value of a Trabant? Fill up the tank.
Why should you get the rear window defroster on your Trabant? So your hands will stay warm while you push it.
J.|10.18.09 @ 7:15PM|#
How do you fix your car after hitting a Trabant? Turn on the windshield wipers.
¢|10.16.09 @ 12:02PM|#
Ms. Mao Tse Dunn claims she was joking about Mao.
"What's red and yellow and screams? Flowers!"
(Polite applause.)
Rhywun|10.16.09 @ 12:34PM|#
Man, East Germany was a horrible place. I'm glad I got the chance to visit it in '86. It wasn't the potholes or the shitty cars or the lack of any merchandise worth buying with the Ostmarks they forced you to convert upon entry, so much as the soul-crushing dreary vibe of the place.
|10.16.09 @ 4:32PM|#
The first thing I noticed about E. Berlin in '88 was how neat, tidy and utterly empty of people it was. Exactly what a city should not be.
Morris|10.16.09 @ 1:39PM|#
Oh how the faults and failures of one dogmatic utopian scheme (communism) make us ready and willing to give another dogmatic utopian scheme (libertarianism) a go. Is that the point of this stupid post? Or maybe most reasonoids live under rocks and this stuff is news to them.
alan|10.16.09 @ 2:52PM|#
Ed,
you are like the Neil Young Cinnamon Girl guitar solo -- one note
droned on continuously.
I could easily imagine you in a debate with a mockingbird:
Mockingbird: Chaw Chaw Chtppprrtybrt
Edward: Fucktard utopian libertarian.
Mockingbird: K'kow K'kow k'kow
Edward: Reality based community.
Mockingbird: Zrrr TrerTrit
Edward: Stupid reasonoid post.
Mockingbird: chirp?
So single minded and devoid of brain functionality, you would lose to a fucking mockingbird.
|10.16.09 @ 3:54PM|#
make us ready and willing to give another dogmatic utopian scheme (libertarianism) a go
No one here claims libertarianism will be a utopia.
Communists used the coercive power of the state to force people to behave in the way the Communists decreed was correct.
Libertarians want to limit the power of the state in order for people to be as free as possible (without infringing on the rights of others).
Tman|10.16.09 @ 1:44PM|#
Morris,
Perhaps you have a better dogmatic utopian scheme in mind? Is that the point of your stupid comment? Or maybe leftists live under rocks and the fact that personal liberty and capitalism are the most liberating and prosperous tools available to all mankind is news to you.
Tman|10.16.09 @ 1:57PM|#
Personal favorite Soviet Russia joke-
"It's 1988. A Warsaw man is sent off to the store by his wife to
bring home some ham. Naturally the queue goes on for miles and
when he finally gets to the counter, all the shelves are bare.
He loses his temper. "I'm sick of this stupid country, sick of this government, sick of the communists!"
Suddenly a shadowy-looking man in a trenchcoat approaches him and says "Calm down, comrade. You remember what this sort of outburst would cause back in the bad old days..." and mimes a trigger being pulled against his temple.
Back home, the man's wife looks at him returning empty-handed and asks, "They're out of ham again?"
"It's worse than that. They're even out of bullets."
Colin|10.16.09 @ 2:10PM|#
A man goes to place his order for a Trabant and is informed he can pick it up from the factory in seven years. "Which month?" he asks. July, he is told. "Which day?" he asks. The 15th, he is told. "Morning or afternoon?" he asks -- "the plumber is coming the same day."
Colin|10.16.09 @ 2:15PM|#
A Soviet and an American are debating which country has the better system. The American tells the Soviet "In my country we can say whatever we want. I can go to the White House and tell the President 'Mr. President, you are doing a bad job!"
I can do that too, says the Soviet.
"Really?" says the American.
"Yes," said the Soviet. "I can go to the Kremlin, march into the Secretary General's office, pound on the desk and say 'Mr. Secretary General, I think the US President is doing a bad job!'"
|10.16.09 @ 2:21PM|#
Once again, in Germany people ARE celebrating. And it's their holiday not ours. There's something tasteless about celebrating a holiday you didn't earn. Why is Reason pushing this ridiculous meme that the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe is being ignored? Stop being so bloody provincial.
alan|10.16.09 @ 3:05PM|#
Hey sister, if you think you can keep Oktoberfest to yourself, you have got another thing coming.
J.|10.18.09 @ 7:22PM|#
Not a West Berliner I assume. They were acutely aware of the consequences had the Americans not stuck up for them. Idiot.
|10.16.09 @ 2:25PM|#
Walter Ulbricht und Mao Tse-tung unterhalten sich über
Innenpolitik.
"Und wie viele politische Feinde", fragt Walter Ulbricht, "haben
Sie in der Volksrepublik China?"
"Es werden so ungefähr siebzehn Millionen sein", antwortet Mao
Tse-tung.
"Ju, das ist ungefähr wie bei uns. "
Colin|10.16.09 @ 3:34PM|#
For those who want in on the joke:
Ulbricht and Mao and discussing domestic politics. Ulricht asks Mao how many political enemies he has in the PRC. "About 17 million" responds Mao.
"Yeah, about the same for us."
|10.16.09 @ 2:26PM|#
Ein DDR-Bürger geht spät in der Nacht durch Ostberlin und ruft
lauten Halses immer wieder: "Scheißstaat, Scheißregierung!"
Plötzlich taucht ein Stasi-Offizier auf und verhaftet ihn. Der
Mann will den Grund dafür wissen, der von der Stasi erinnert ihn
an seine lautstarken Äußerungen. Der Mann verteidigt sich und
sagt:
"Ich habe ja gar nicht gesagt, welchen Scheißstaat und welche
Scheißregierung ich meine."
Der Stasioffizier denkt kurz nach und läßt den Mann gehen. Dieser
verschwindet, wird aber zwei Minuten später von dem Stasioffizier
wieder eingeholt und erneut verhaftet.
Darauf der Mann: "Wieso dieses?"
Entgegnet der Stasimensch: "Es gibt ja nur einen Scheißstaat und
eine Scheißregierung..."
Colin|10.16.09 @ 3:39PM|#
OK this one is a bit funnier. Essentially an East German goes walking at night through East Berlin and shouts over and over "Shit state! Shit government!"
Suddenly a Stasi officer arrests him. The man explains that, hey, I didn't say which shit state and which shit government I was talking about.
The Stasi officer thinks for a second and lets the man go. Two minutes later though he arrests him again.
The man asks what's up this time and the Stasi responds "There's only one shitty state and one shitty government..."
|10.16.09 @ 2:27PM|#
Well someone's a grumpy little ruskie today. Perhaps some people here like visiting the former GDR and Eastern Europe and are glad that those places aren't communist hell-holes anymore ...
|10.16.09 @ 2:35PM|#
Dude, I'm the one who actually has something to celebrate, and those are anti-East German jokes. Just thought I'd let the liberated people speak for themselves in their own language.
|10.16.09 @ 2:30PM|#
An East German runs through East Berling shouting "Shit country! Shit government!"
Suddenly a Stasi officer springs up and arrests him. The man asks why he's being arrested. The Stasi man reminds him of his recent outburst. "But I never said which shit country and which shit government I was talking about!"
The Stasi officer thinks a bit then lets him go. The man takes two steps before the Stasi officer changes his mind and arrests him after all.
"What for?" says the man.
"Who are we kidding? There's only one shit country and shit government..."
alan|10.16.09 @ 2:38PM|#
The late Sovietologist David MacKenzie liked to tell a favorite joke of workers in Russia, 'Under Communism, they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.'
It was funnier when he did it.
|10.16.09 @ 3:01PM|#
There's something tasteless about celebrating a holiday you didn't earn.
(1) Oh, I think we had a little something to do with it.
(2) Why? I don't think anyone living had a damn thing to do with Christmas, the Fourth of July, or even Halloween, but we celebrate those.
BakedPenguin|10.16.09 @ 4:24PM|#
I've said this time and time again, but I don't expect trolls or statists to get it.
Hong Kong 1950-1996 and the US 1870-1890 were very close to minarchist states. The differences between them and what the minarchists on this board want is pretty small.
|10.16.09 @ 6:09PM|#
While we're telling Ossi-Wessi jokes,
Was ist das Unterschied zwischen Gott und einem Wessi? Gott weisst alles, aber der Wessi weisst alles besser!
What's the difference between God and a West German (often known in East Germany as a Besser-Wessi)? God knows everything, but a West German knows everything better!
I also learned one in high school about what was the solution for the Besser Wessi problem; a solution of hydrochloric acid...
Rhywun|10.16.09 @ 10:13PM|#
weisstweißt
You'll have to pry my ß from my cold, dead hands. Spelling "reform", my ass.
Bill Dawson|10.17.09 @ 11:05AM|#
What a quinkydink; I linked to those jokes Friday too at my German History Blog (germanhistoryblog.com). I was actually impressed that the Wessis were alert enough to pick up on jokes being a pulse of the commoners, so to speak.
|10.18.09 @ 11:28PM|#
Q: Why wasn't marijuana popular in the Soviet Union?
A: It's too much of a bummer to get high, get the munchies, and go stand in a line for nine hours.
-jcr
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