A harsh lesson for Germany, courtesy of its socialist past

Re-enactments in a GDR classroom are bringing the hardships of communism to life. Tony Paterson reports

A po-faced teacher, in a drab, grey synthetic dress, snatches a Mickey Mouse comic from under a school desk: "Don't you know this Western rubbish is strictly forbidden in our school. You will be reported," she barks at the cowed classroom culprit.

A few minutes earlier, the class has been drilled to respond to the slogan "For Peace and Socialism – Are You Prepared?" Fifteen blue neckerchief-clad pupils leap to attention and salute. Like robots they answer in unison: "Always prepared!"

The scenes might have been lifted from a Communist Party propaganda film about the state once known as the German Democratic Republic, but at least twice a month, they are played out for real (well almost) inside the former Stasi secret police office in the east German city of Leipzig.

Live re-enactment of school under communism is Germany's latest attempt to address disturbing statistics. Germany's current love affair with the left is not just a knee-jerk response to the credit crunch, with record sales of Karl Marx's Das Kapital and a huge increase in the membership of the recently formed socialist Left Party. Surveys also show that increasing numbers of young Germans, all born after Germany's reunification in 1990, know little or nothing about life under communism. Some even think it was the West Germans who built the Berlin Wall.

"Some think that it was like living in a social paradise," said Elke Urban, who runs the East German school project from the Leipzig Stasi building that has been reborn as a museum. "Paradoxically, it is the east German young people who know least because their parents are reluctant to talk about the past."

Yet the class of 18-year-old school pupils from west German Karlsrühe, who had come to be guinea pigs in the project this week, appeared to be just as ignorant. Before the lesson started they were given a doll in the uniform of the Communist Youth movement to examine. Most thought the uniform was that of the Hitler Youth.

The pupils were then ordered into a classroom decked out with Communist Party flags, a monochrome portrait of Erich Honecker, the last East German leader, on the wall and the slogan "We Love The German Democratic Republic" on the blackboard. All, except one, who was supposed to represent one of the few dissidents opposed to the regime, had to don the blue neckerchiefs of the Communist Young Pioneer youth group. Ms Urban, who plays the role of Frau Müller, the teacher, then reappeared, clad in an austere relic of communist fashion, a dress made out of the East German nylon fabric Dederon, and proceeded to order the pupils about with an unnerving mix of friendly encouragement and hostile reprimand.

One pupil, in a hooded jacket emblazoned with the word USA, was ordered to stand up. "Face the class," barked Frau Müller, "How dare you come to school wearing a Western pullover – this is not a fashion show for the class enemy – a letter of complaint will be sent to your parents' collective."

The pupils were ordered to sing a Communist Youth movement marching song and informed in glowing terms about a forthcoming visit to an East German border-guard regiment where they could climb aboard a Soviet army T-34 tank and hold a "real machine-gun".

But the most disturbing aspect of the 45-minute communist classroom session was the pupils' reaction to "Steffen", the schoolboy who had volunteered beforehand to play the single dissident pupil who refused to join the Communist Youth. Steffen was first subjected to a barrage of criticism from Frau Müller and then deliberately ignored every time he put his hand up to answer a question.

The other pupils began to ostracise "Steffen" themselves and accused him of disrupting the class. Although they were encouraged to stand up against the system before the session, none of the pupils rallied to Steffen's support when he was told he could not visit the border-guard unit, or at any other time.

During these sessions Elke Urban models herself on Margot Honecker, the leader's wife who was also a hardline education minister. She said that only one group had dared to stand up and defend the dissident pupil during her classes. "I deliberately create a totalitarian atmosphere and I am still always shocked how quickly and easily people are conditioned by it," she said. "East Germany may have left a pile of Stasi files behind rather than a pile of corpses, but the similarities with the Nazi regime are there."

Elena Margones, one of the 18-year-olds in the roleplay, said afterwards: "The pressure to conform was so great that, although I felt Steffen was being treated unfairly, I didn't dare say anything."

Ms Urban, who taught French and music for four years in the former East Germany, came from a family which had strong church connections and was opposed to the regime. In 1989, she was one of the thousands of Leipzig residents who took part in mass street protests that helped to bring about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Hers is the only school museum in Germany that tackles communism with classroom re-enactment.

Her project reflects growing concern. Despite hit films such as The Lives of Others which have exposed the iniquities of East Germany's secret police, Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservatives warned that there was an increasing sense of nostalgia for communism. Her party said it was worried by the meteoric rise of the Left Party, the successor organisation to the former East German Communist Party and now Germany's third political force after the conservatives and Social Democrats.

But museum directors like Ms Urban are not ready to apply the same techniques to the Nazi era. "There are too many neo-Nazis around who would probably relish the chance of sitting in a National Socialist classroom. We don't dare to do it."