The sacrificial ducks are currently 330 euros per month; unlike the regular old-age benefits from the pension insurance scheme, they have not been adjusted annually so far – although many of the recipients should be better protected against poverty in old age, as Zupke said. Inflation weighs heavily on many of those affected, she criticized. Zupke called for an annual “dynamization” of the victim’s compensation.
The commissioner pointed out that the traffic light parties had agreed this in their coalition agreement – but that the federal government had not yet implemented the plans. It is a “poor performance” that within the federal government not even the departmental responsibility for the implementation of the planned nationwide hardship fund has been clarified. Zupke referred to a survey from Brandenburg in 2020, according to which almost half of the SED victims there are affected by poverty or at risk of poverty.
Zupke also pointed to the upcoming 70th anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR on June 17, 1953. This day should be taken as an opportunity to think about “what politics and society can do specifically for those affected,” she said.
In addition, Zupke warned against whitewashing when it comes to communist rule in East Germany. “June 17 refutes the myth that socialism in East Germany was a social model that started well and eventually went wrong,” she said. Rather, from the outset, the SED rule was characterized by “intimidation, repression and controlled justice”. “Many people went through hell or paid with their lives.”
Zupke called for more historical research on the subject. She pointed out that there are around 15 professorships for Bavarian or Franconian history at German universities alone. “But we don’t have a single chair for the history of the GDR and communism.”
