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Howe

Courtney Elizabeth

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Contemporary Worlds One

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ATS1325

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Assignment Task One Erika Riemann Testimony 2009

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Helen Bones

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1,097

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Due date Monday 25th March, 5pm

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This essay will explore the historical and personal experience of Erika Riemann who suffered under
Soviet control in East Germany. It is historical in its description of the East Germany that Riemann
experienced during her youth and the treatment of political prisoners in the country she called home. The
personal aspect comes from Riemanns oral testimony. In addition, there will be an exploration of the
advantages and disadvantages in using an oral testimony as a primary source.
The allied countries decided that once Nazi Germanys army had been defeated, it needed to be
deconstructed and demilitarized.1 The London Protocols of the European Advisory Commission decided
on the division of Germany into four sectors by November 1944.2 The Stalinisation in the east saw the
implementation of Soviet ideas in East Germany. Similar to the treatment of the citizens classified as
criminals in the USSR, sympathises of Nazism were sentenced to labour camps. This was according to
the Yalta Agreements, promoting the Soviet military governments irrevocable destruction of the remains
of fascism.3 These German based camps were sometimes former Nazi concentration camps, such as
Sachsenhausen.4 154,000 Germans were sentenced to the terrible conditions ending in 1950, where
43,000 died.5 As a result of these circumstances one in six East Germans fled their country between 1945
and 1961.6 This was the Germany that Erika Riemann witnessed as a young girl. She spent eighteen
months in Sachsenhausen during her ten year sentence as a political prisoner.7
Riemanns sentence began with the defacement of Stalins Face in a painting. Her arrest took her to
Ludwiglust castle for questioning. Interrogations were brutal and inhuman. Riemann recalls that the lack

Pol ODochartaigh, Germany Since 1945, (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 4

Pol ODochartaigh, Germany Since 1945, p. 5

Martin Kitchen, A History of Modern Germany: 1800 to Present, 2nd Edition, (New Jersey, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), p.328

Pol ODochartaigh, Germany Since 1945, p. 18

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism: An Oral History of Daily Life Behind the Iron Curtain, (New York, BBC
Books, 2009), p.64-65
6

Patrick Major, Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009),
p.2
7

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.65

of sleep, nutrition and water left her near the point of breakdown.8 About her experience in the
interrogation, Riemann explains that you just confess to everything they want to hear, because all you
want is to get some sleep.9 This interrogation tactic was also used on other prisoners.
The conditions in the multiple prisons Riemann found herself in were unsuitable for human life. The
Dresden prison forced inmates to share a single narrow bed10 full of bugs. In Torgau, the Russian
guards raped the imprisoned women. Riemann was only saved by assisting in the infirmary. She
witnessed skeletal men with high temperature, swollen faces and diarrhea.11 Hoheneck prison could
accommodate 600 women but at the time of Riemanns stay, there were 1,200. There were no beds, no
food, no anything.12 Extreme pain was another aspect of prison that Riemann experienced excessive
times over her sentence in prison. The first time was in her interrogation and then on her first night of her
sentence. In Bautzen prison, a young Russian professed his love to Erika. 13 When Riemann refused
him, he struck her in the face with his keys and knocked out her front teeth. Riemanns worst pain was to
follow when she faced an operation without anesthetic14 to remove her appendix. The pain caused her
to faint, while in later years the doctor who performed the surgery stated that he couldnt believe that
[she] had survived.15
Riemann was transported to an old Nazi concentration camp called Sachsenhausen. The German guards
in the camp treatment under Soviet rule was similar to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. The German
guards said they would do the same things they had done with the Jews by gassing them. These horrible
years that Riemann experienced throughout her sentence left her with a sense of loss. As a result, in

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.66

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.66

10

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.66

11

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.68

12

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.70

13

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.67

14

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.69

15

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.69

December 1953, during her time in solitary confinement, Riemann attempted to commit suicide.16 After
Riemanns release, she escaped across the border with her uncles help, after she had said that she wanted
to join her family in West Germany.
This oral testimony shows that not all prisoners sentenced to the German based gulags were political
prisoners. Riemanns only mistake was to draw a bow on Stalins mustache17 in lipstick. In modern
democratic countries, her crime would be considered minor and she would have been merely
reprimanded. This presents the Soviet rule on East Germany as a harsh and unforgiving society which
would be forbidden in modern times. This account shows that the treatment of punishment under Nazi
rule and under Soviet rule only varied in their measures. In both cases, pain and terror were a major
aspect in law enforcement, while truth was not. The Russian guards, as well as the German guards,
treated the prisoners like the Jews in World War II. The former concentration camps, for example
Sachsenhausen, were used as prisons and the German guards even stated that there wouldnt be water
coming out of the showers but gas.18 Riemanns testimony portrays the conditions and treatment that she
had to endure and aids the audience in understanding that this is not just her story, but in fact there are
154,000 stories just like hers and 43,000 of those will never be known.
There are many advantages of using oral testimonies as it allows the audience to gain firsthand
knowledge of historical events that would have otherwise been difficult to understand emotionally. It also
helps to provide viewpoints of minority groups that a government resource or influential group could not
have provided, such as the hushed voices of the prisoner who had to sign a document stating that [they]
wouldnt talk about [their] arrest19. Furthermore, it helps to hear opinions of the people who lived in the
period rather than secondary sources that have the assistance of hindsight. It must also be brought under
consideration that the age of a person, or the distance between the event and the recount, can distort the
16

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.72

17

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.65

18

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.69

19

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.72

accuracy of the history told. The point of view of a person can cause the recount to be highly subjective
and opinionated. For these reasons, oral testimonies, along with other primary sources, must be cross
referenced with other sources, both primary and secondary, to be certain of its validity.
The oral testimony by Erika Riemann portrays the life political prisoner in East Germany faced for the
minor crimes they committed. Similar to Riemann, most were in prison for dismissible things, for
example twenty-five men were imprisoned for laughing20 at a joke about Stalin. The oral testament can
be useful to get an insight to life during Soviet rule in East Germany. However, this can be distorted by
the 55 years that took place between Riemanns release in 1954 and the published date of the text in 2009.
Nevertheless, it is an unmistakable fact, that Erika Riemann endured a horrific eight years and sixteen
days that has, to this day, affected heavily on her life.

20

Peter Molloy, The Lost World of Communism, p.68

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kitchen, Martin,A History of Modern Germany: 1800 to Present, 2nd Edition, New Jersey, WileyBlackwell, 2012
Major, Patrick, Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2009
Molloy, Peter The Lost World of Communism: An Oral History of Daily Life Behind the Iron Curtain,
New York, BBC Books, 2009
ODochartaigh, Pol Germany Since 1945, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003