ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by BugzDaMick

There are claims that political prisoners in the GDR were used to make IKEA furniture. See the story here:
IKEA 'used East German political prisoners arrested by Stasi to make its furniture in the 1970's and 80's' | Mail Online
While there's no doubt that political prisoners were treated roughly and it didn't take much to become one in the GDR, there are a few things about the story that don't really chime. First off, the Stasi is the most thoroughly examined secret service in the known world. All of the files (minus most of the foreign espionage ones) have been available for almost a quarter of a century, yet not one of those alleged political prisoners has ever spoken out about it, or claimed that they were subjected to any type of forced labour.

The second point is that the “claim" is being made by Hubertus Knabe. More about him here: Hubertus Knabe

Knabe is the curator of the former Stasi nick Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He’s an odious little gobshite at the best of times and discovered at an early stage that he could make shedloads of dosh if he kept plugging the official Boxheed gobment line about the GDR being an illegal state (Unrechtsstaat). One of the first things he did at the former Stasi nick was to lay a short stretch of railway track and place a cattle-truck on it to conjure up associations with Auschwitz and the Holocaust, in spite of the fact that Hohenschönhausen was never at any time in its history connected to any railway network and prisoners were transferred there by vans. He’s also a West German who never lived in the GDR, although his folks did a moonlight flit from the GDR early on. That, more than anything else, makes me think it’s just another one of his “dramatic revelations” to get his moniker in the rags again. Just like he “dramatically revealed” the presence of torture chambers in the nick (which he’d had “reconstructed”, so he said), even though there was no record of them ever being there and even former inmates said it was all bollocks and they never existed while they were there.

MsG

No wonder the furniture s so shit then.

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

was it MFI that did this as well? when i was growing up we used to have some chests of drawers that had GDR stamped on the backs of the drawers so were probably made by these poor bastards. they were suprisingly well made and one or two might still survive in the garage, they must've been feeding them too much.

Funny that you mention that. We had an 80s MFI kitchen delivered and were amazed that every cupboard came with its own free Human Fitter, we were amazed even then that a GDR German could nt even screw 4 pieces of chipboard together without his Gruppenführer.

Originally Posted by BugzDaMick

It's just another try-on by the Boxheed gobment to further discredit the GDR

MsG

how can you further discredit the country that gave us the Trabant? Shit car built in a shit 'country', and neither are missed.

Originally Posted by sunnoficarus

how can you further discredit the country that gave us the Trabant? Shit car built in a shit 'country', and neither are missed.

It does seem rather an odd assertion.

I really don't care about IKEA, except when you go in, there is only one way out and thats usually after a few miles of walking.

I did just find out though that Sandra Bullock got married to the loser Jessie James and she also adopted a black kid. Seems to be the latest rage to get buy a black kid these days.

Originally Posted by cloudbuster

It does seem rather an odd assertion.

Indeed, it's a bit like saying that TOWIE makes Essex girls look cheap and tacky.

Do you think this bathroom came from IKEA?



Linky

Originally Posted by Cabana

Do you think this bathroom came from IKEA?



Linky

It certainly has that GDR tunnelling vibe to it.