The young people had already had their "first brush" with the German Democratic Republic in school. Over the last few months they have explored various aspects of everyday life in the GDR, undertaken projects and interviewed eye witnesses. Now they intended to put their questions to Angela Merkel, who grew up in the GDR.

And the Chancellor gave them some very personal insights into her life in the GDR. She told them about her childhood, her life at school and university, and her private life. She told the young people that even as a child she had learned to be careful what she said at school so as not to get into trouble.

Political education as of Grade One

The students were particularly interested to find out what school was like in East Germany. To find out themselves and to show others, a group from one school had produced a video in which they re-enacted a music class. It was strict and rigorous – and highly political.

Even subjects like music, the Chancellor told them, subjects which you might think would be neutral, were political. For a lot of the time only working class music was on the curriculum, while classical music was accorded little attention. With history it was similar. Anything that happened before 1848 was considered unimportant, and thereafter the focus was always the labour movement. "It was better in maths and physics, it was less political."

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No university degree course without Marxism-Leninism

The Chancellor related how she had gone on to study physics, because it "wasn’t so open to political manipulation". But of course she also had to study Marxism and Leninism as part of her degree course. They were compulsory subjects for every course and had a major bearing on the final grade. The Chancellor found "scientific communism", part of Marxism-Leninism particularly incredible, as she said. "Anyone who could think could only laugh about it."

In the projects they had done at school, one of the young people said, they had discovered that only those who toed the party line were allowed to study in the East. That was not the case, said Angela Merkel. She came from a church background; her father was a protestant minister. Her mother was not allowed to work, because she was an English and Latin teacher and the authorities were afraid she would make Christians out of her students. But nevertheless, Angela Merkel was able to get her Abitur (school leaving certificate) and study at university.

"But you did have to compromise," said Angela Merkel. Anyone who said exactly what they thought every day would have found it very difficult to finish school or get a place at university. As soon as you said anything political in public, you were facing uncertainty, admitted the Chancellor.

Everyday life over politics

But life was not only influenced by politics. In everyday life a lot of time was taken up with seeing where you could get what you needed, said the Chancellor. "In the GDR a lot worked by barter." Friendships and acquaintanceships were forged to gain access to winter boots or an electric drill. "There was not often a lot of time left for politics."

Control of press and television

"What about freedom of opinion and freedom of the press in the GDR?" the young people asked the Chancellor. In a school project they had discovered that the articles in the newspapers in East Germany often twisted the facts for propaganda purposes.

Everything that was published in newspapers or broadcast on television was regulated and controlled, said Angela Merkel. She preferred to go to Poland to read the western newspapers that were banned in the GDR. She also learned a lot from western television which many people in East Germany could receive, except for those living in and around Dresden. "I never watched Aktuelle Kamera, the East German daily news broadcast," said the Chancellor. She spent a lot of time in church groups and liked to go where she could hear other opinions.

The veil of dictatorship lay over everything

The GDR was a dictatorship, said Angela Merkel. People were not free to develop and there was no self-determination. "You were always under some sort of observation or surveillance." That is why it is important to appreciate the value of the democracy and liberty in which we live today. She was happy when the wall fell, said the Chancellor, and it was good that Germany was reunified quickly.

Finally, the Chancellor thanked the young people for their projects, which had taken them into a hitherto unknown world. But it is also important to look beyond Germany’s borders, she said, where people still live as we did in the GDR or worse, as regards their freedom. "And we must help them too," said Angela Merkel.