05.22.10
The Wende Museum
A couple weeks ago I tagged along with my oldest son, Andrew, to visit the Wende Museum. His Post War Germany class was taking a field trip to the museum. As a special bonus, the teacher said that their guide was going to open up the vault for additional viewing. Oye! When I heard that, I asked Andrew if I could tag along, heheheh. Fortunately, his teacher didn’t mind, and the icing on the cake was that the curator allowed pictures so long as I didn’t use flash. So. . . here are a few shots I took in their gallery.
Well, I suppose I jumped the gun a bit. I should probably explain what the Wende Museum is. According to their webpage, “The Los Angeles-based Wende Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and enabling access to materials of Cold War-era Eastern Europe. The collection encompasses artifacts and archives from all former Warsaw Pact states and emphasizes life in the Soviet Union and East Germany. So while the curator was very informative, my lack of German vocabulary made it such that I had a hard time following along with who was who and what things were called. For instance this is a picture of a type of horn that was played in East Germany. She said that if you popped in the name of this instrument on YouTube there will be some examples of how this instrument sounds. But do I remember the name of this instrument? Sadly, no. . .
Pretty wild looking, huh? But then again, some trumpets and horns do tend to look pretty intricate, anyway.
Then there were statues and busts of people, again, the names of who I didn’t catch. . . (I’m starting to feel like an idiot here, and see that I really need to brush up on my East German history, which was pretty much nil from my school days). As the wall came down and society was being restructured, many icons, statues, and other symbols that represented their government were taken down, such as this statuette.
Okay, so I actually know who this statuette represents. . . Sergi Kirov, a prominent Bolshevik from the Soviet Union. Kirov opposed some of Stalin’s more extreme policies and was eventually shot and killed by a gunman.
The museum was quite small, but was stuffed with lots of items which included paintings, propaganda posters, sports memorabilia, etc. Here’s a picture of a sports locker complete with uniforms, medals and awards, news clippings, etc. Sports events were important in history because they help to place times and dates of events as they tend to be recorded in newspapers and share global connections through competitions.
And speaking of propaganda, there were several posters on display that were used as propaganda tools for their masses such as pictures of their “happy workers”. One particular one that was “ironic” was this one, which claimed that the West spent more money on their military than on education.
Heheheh, in light of our current military budget, I’d say that “propaganda” was more fact than otherwise. I know that billions and even trillions of U.S. dollars have been spent on our military. I read an article recently that just for the Iraq war alone the U.S. has spent about 550 billion dollars. That doesn’t include all the other military expenses we have that are likely extremely costly such as research and development, etc. I’m sure there are varying figures, but here’s one example from About.com: US Government Info
Summary of Iraq War Cost Estimates
CBO estimated the following costs for an Iraq war:
- Initial deployment of troops: $9 billion to $13 billion
- Conducting the war: $6 billion to $9 billion per month
- Returning forces to US: $5 billion to $7 billion
- Temporary occupation of Iraq: $1 billion to $4 billion per
month
The US budget for education is about $70 billion for a year. Basically, “one” war, *not* including all the other U.S. military expenses for bases all over the world and research and development, etc., currently costs more than what the U.S. spends on education. The rest of the U.S. military expenses dwarfs what we spend on education. Apparently Soviet propaganda regarding our military vs education expenditures wasn’t too far from the truth. I find that a sad commentary.
Anyway, moving right along we passed the Wende Museum’s library. There were a couple researchers in there, so we didn’t go in and bother them, heh. Instead we headed down to their vault or archive department. I had no idea what to expect, and found that it was quite large and stuffed with more Eastern Bloc artifacts.
There were all sorts of items boxed and organized such as paintings, sculptures, flags, tapestries, books, record albums, uniforms, etc. Here are some of the busts.
Documentation regarding face recognition and passport information.
Files of border forms.
And passport stamps.
Various gift items from different countries. The pearl inlaid, rectangular box in the center of the table was a gift from Gaddafi, if I recall correctly. Or was it Sadat? Oye. . .
There was so much in there, and too many pictures to add here that won’t fit. They also had pieces of the Berlin Wall on their shelves, which I did take pictures of, but since there’s a more complete section of the wall displayed near my house, I thought I’d add that picture here instead.
Okay, so I think that’s all the pics that will fit on this one post. I got a few shots of Brian on the other side of this wall trying to climb over, ha! The side I’m standing on obviously is the side that faced the West. The Eastern facing side didn’t have all the artwork on it. This portion of the wall is currently being displayed right across the street from the LACMA.
For anyone interested in Eastern Bloc history, I recommend checking out the Wende Museum in Culver City.
Marlakins
