ARmy Rumour SErvice

**BugzDaMick** · 01-05-2012, 21:19

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

**Biscuits_AB** · 01-05-2012, 21:23

Great.

**Mr_Fingerz** · 01-05-2012, 21:28

Thank you for sharing.

And taking up valuable bandwidth.

**BugzDaMick** · 01-05-2012, 22:19

Originally Posted by Mr_Fingerz

Thank you for sharing.

You're welcome.

Originally Posted by Mr_Fingerz

And taking up valuable bandwidth.

Oh, sorry. I didn't realise you were paying for it. [Reaches into sky] What's the damage, guv?

MsG

**the_boy_syrup** · 01-05-2012, 22:21

Rotten bastards that's inhuman
Have you ever tried to put anything from IKEA together?

**Brotherton Lad** · 01-05-2012, 22:22

Spooky, the first IKEA sh*d I ever saw in my life was in West Berlin in 1983.

This story may have legs, if only I could work out how to attach them to the rest of the piece.

Does he say what went into the meat-balls?

**Effendi** · 02-05-2012, 00:51

It may have been more interesting than stamping out number plates for the state or stitching mail bags for the Queen.

**cloudbuster** · 02-05-2012, 02:20

Let me see if I've got this right; you're complaining about this bloke getting free publicity from an article that might be full of unsubstantiated bollocks, by perpetuating the free publicity with another article that might be full of unsubstantiated bollocks.

You're Max Clifford's sock-puppet, aren't you?

**Draft Dodger** · 02-05-2012, 10:20

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.