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February 10, 2012
Merkel got bad marks for Marx
Published: 31 Jan 10 13:27 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100131-24935.html
Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly got poor grades in her obligatory Marxism-Leninism course during her doctoral studies in communist East Germany.
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Merkel studied for a doctorate in physics at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in the 1980s and was given only a "satisfactory" grade by her ideology professor in 1983, following a three-year course in Marxism-Leninism. She got the same low grade three years later on handing in her dissertation on the subject, now lost.
Merkel received a "very good" grade for her physics research, and successfully achieved her doctorate for her thesis on quantum chemistry. All doctorate students in the GDR were obliged to take advanced courses in ideology.
Merkel has consistently had to face accusations that she supported the GDR's communist ideology during her early life in East Germany.
DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
Would you want your political representative to have gained a A+ in fascism?
While "knowing your enemy" is important, the traditional Communism is hardly the real enemy now that it once was. I suspect she knows "enough", and it's more important to look at how Putin or the Chinese actually apply "Communism" in today's world.
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I always assumed proffesors behind the Iron Curtain probably dressed up in Brooks Brothers ties, read the wall street Journal, fantisized about buying Pork Belly Options and going on dates with normal girls.
And, why is education in the GDR "indoctrination" and everything in the West is perfectly objective? My Aunt Fanny it is. Even capitalist economists read Marx as they haven't a clue how their own economy works! That's how we're all in a mess today.