East German Chic

The New York Times, promoting communism for 90 years! You can learn how it started in, Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times's Man in Moscow.

From The American Catholic

By Donald R. McClarey

Leave it to the New York Times to get all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the Gulag:

The New York Times is still trying to refurbish the thuggish reputation of the Communist regime of East Germany, once part of the Eastern Bloc, Soviet-aligned countries of Eastern Europe.

The latest sad example came from reporter Thomas Rogers in Berlin, dedicated to the now-demolished Palast der Republik, former home of the (in name only) East German Parliament: “Symbol of Brutality or Social Spot? – Reflecting on East German’s Palast, a demolished colossus.” The online headline: “Symbol of a Brutal Regime? Or a Fun Place to Party?”

For many former East Germans, the decision to tear down one of the architectural showpieces of the German Democratic Republic, or G.D.R., was a form of historical vandalism.

Rogers was gentle with the monstrous East German regime.

The communist G.D.R. was a one-party state where many citizens were systematically monitored by intelligence services and people faced severe consequences if they spoke out against the regime.

But it still arouses nostalgia among some former citizens who fondly remember its gender egalitarianism and social safety net or admire its utopian aspirations.

A “social safety net” that utterly failed, and “utopian aspirations” toward a totalitarian monoculture? What’s to admire?

But criticism of the evils of the Communist regime are the fault of simple-minded and un-“nuanced” mindsets.

Elke Neumann, the exhibition’s curator, said that many Germans have an overly simplistic understanding of East Germany, and that she hoped the exhibition would help people form a more nuanced view of the G.D.R.

“Many people still think everything was black and white,” she said in an interview. “It makes sense for people to see what was actually there.”

….

A unique mixture of government building and leisure destination, it housed the (largely symbolic) Parliament of the G.D.R., as well as nearly a dozen venues for eating and drinking, a theater, a bowling alley, a post office and a youth club. It also boasted two auditoriums, including a hexagonal space with unique, diagonally retractable seating that allowed it to accommodate events ranging from state dinners to rock concerts.

More “yes, but look at the bright side” formulation that the Times wouldn’t dare do for a fascist regime, or Chile or Spain or Nazi Germany.

Go here to read the rest.  I suspect that Walter Duranty is looking up from the journalist pit in Hell and smiling as the New York Times burnishes up the image of yet another loathsome Leftist regime.