Matthew Engel, in his article on Northern Ireland (An uncertain peace, 21 January), writes that on a Radio Ulster phone-in he “heard elderly listeners exhibiting a version of East German östalgie [sic], improbable nostalgia for a dreadful past”.

While I can’t speak for Northern Ireland, I can as one who was born and grew up in East Germany, in saying that it is not a rosy-tinged Ostalgie that colours my feelings but a genuine sadness at the loss of a society in which social values and solidarity have been replaced by the imposition of a monetary ethos and an individualistic “elbow mentality”.

In my book, Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?, I explain this more fully.

Bruni de la Motte

London

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