Pigs and the Rise and Fall of East Germany

IN CERTAIN CIRCLES in Germany today, meat is taboo — such is the strength of the vegetarian movement sweeping the country. But pork has long held a special place in German cuisine, and it has also held a special place in the hearts of successive authoritarian regimes in Germany — first Adolf Hitler and his Nazi technocrats, and later Erich Honecker and the Socialist Unity Party that crumbled along with East Germany in 1989. It was a curious country while it lasted, perhaps best remembered today for the Berlin Wall, its all-encompassing state surveillance apparatus, its elite athletes doped to the brim on the state’s dime, and its comically crummy car, the Trabant (Trabi).