Occasionally, I get informed by people who have never been to Europe that East Germans are mostly Nazis. Rarely does somebody actually ask me with an open mind.

So, let me tell you a few things about East Germany and those legendary Nazis.

In 1992, right after finishing school, I moved to Berlin.

I lived in Prenzlberg, a working-class/bohemian district with a high percentage of students. For years, I had dreamt of living in Berlin, and I may or may not blame movies like "Christiane F." or "Wings of Desire" for this move. It was not a smart choice of residence, as I found out, slowly, and painfully.

For one thing, you lose contact with how the real world works if you're surrounding yourself with socialists only. Socialist ideology fills you with despair and revenge phantasies.

But more importantly, monocultures like working class and student ghettos prevent you from learning how human nature and human economy really work. If all you are taught to see is unfair profits and exploitation, and not the hard work and risk an entrepreneur has to be willing to shoulder, you will not recognize it. It's hard to get out of this insanity if you have never seen a functioning economy, on whatever scale. Prenzlberg had too many all-knowing humanities students and intellectuals, and not enough small business owners.

One fine day, my boyfriend dumped me, utterly unexpectedly, just when I had decided, for myself, to really commit to the relationship and become the most awesome, sweetest, most wonderful girlfriend ever. I really didn't see it coming: Imagine you're an acrobat and you dare that one risky jump without a net for the first time, but — your partner does not catch you.

I cut my hair, very short. It felt natural, something thousands of women had done before when mourning the loss of love. For a good year at least, each look in the mirror reminds you of the loss. That's good. You should really take some time to heal if something hurt you so bad you cut your beautiful long hair over it.

(I'm afraid our culture has gone full retard, judging by the number of teens who permanently mess up their bodies with ugly tattoos, disgusting ear loops and piercings, without ever having experienced anything much to begin with. A radical haircut is correctable in a year. An ugly tattoo on an obese girl will be ugly forever.)

I tried to drown myself in work, and whenever I felt I had too much energy left over for my own good, I exhausted myself with Taekwondo. I didn't think in political categories. I hurt, for now, that's all.

However, my neighborhood did not bother with non-political stuff, because the personal was supposed to be political, not psychological, and so, when I'd come home late a night, I was often threatened with violence, and called a Nazi.

There I was, exhausted after working my ass off for some leftist newspaper all day, and heartbroken, close to just falling apart, — and grown up men who I had never talked to or even looked at threatened to beat me up for being a Nazi.

I had not changed my clothes, or anything else; I had merely cut my hair.

I did not want to look over my shoulder all the time, so I corrected my hairstyle by dyeing my hair bright red. That fixed the problem — for my days in the city at least.

However, I had learnt to stay out of Berlin on certain days. For instance, Mayday in Berlin sucks real bad. I took part in one Mayday demonstration when I was young and stupid, and I learnt that most leftists were even more stupid than I was. Yes, they riot. They burn cars and garbage containers, they throw rocks, and they build barricades in the streets, and I have no idea what they hope to achieve. They attack police, and it doesn't matter if there are agent provocateurs in the black block. Escalation or de-escalation strategies have been tried for decades; nobody got any wiser, on the whole, since new clueless high school graduates move to Berlin each year, as those who got older and wiser leave for the suburbs.

When I went to visit my relatives in the countryside, red hair marked me as a leftist, and I was scared I'd get beaten up by those Nazis I was convinced lived in the villages. Leftist newspapers were full of reports about Nazis doing Nazi stuff in the countryside. I never experienced any violence or threats from anybody while outside of Berlin, but since the underground leftist and the mainstream media were full of articles about Nazis, I considered myself very lucky.

There were some high profile cases of Nazi violence against innocent people, most famously the case of Sebnitz. A whole town allegedly stood by while a gang of Nazis murdered a little boy in a public swimming pool.

The national media exploded with headlines and articles about the racist Nazi swamp that is East Germany. Millions of Euros were pumped into educational programs to stomp out the Nazi ideology.

A cousin of mine who lives in the countryside was "invited" to be questioned by the police as part of their fight against Nazis. What reasonable cause mandated this intervention? Well, he liked a band called Boehse Onkels. And that's all. Musical preferences made police question him about his being a Nazi.

Other famous cases included a teenage girl who had been attacked by Nazis for trying to protect a 'migrant child' from Nazis. The Nazi then carved a swastika into her skin. The girl was presented with awards for courage and multiculturalism and whatnot, while more German tax money had to be pumped into public re-education programs to stomp out Naziism in East Germany.

I read all articles I could find about all these bad incidents. I discussed this with my friends. We all believed we were surrounded by Nazi and had to fight them.

You know how big events grab the headlines of all major newspapers and are discussed on air 24/7?

You probably also know that there are quite a lot of hoaxes among those headlines, and you only find out six months later, by accident, as you discover that tiny correction at the bottom of page 28?

The corrections do not make headlines, even though they should. The corrections do not make international headlines. The lies and hoaxes, the propaganda is what sticks and forms our fears.

I could probably write a book on all those things that I believed after reading about it in the newspapers or seeing it on the evening news.

There have been countless cases of teenage girls who had swastikas carved into their skin by 'Nazis'. That little boy who was murdered by Nazis while the whole town looked away, he actually died of a heart defect.

However, the world still believes East Germany is full of Nazis, in need of re-education, and as always, more funds for research are needed.

If you are worried, or scared, of anything, do me, the world, and yourself a favor. Before you go out and try to fight what you think is evil, try to learn who might have an interest in keeping you scared. Do examine the evidence presented to you. You have access to the internet, do use it while you can. Is what the media told you actually the case? A year after some high profile scandal, what did real investigate journalists actually find out?

Those who lost their jobs for writing about uncomfortable truths are especially worth paying attention to.

As for those who got awards Well, how much should we respect, let's say, the Nobel Peace Prize, or that Nobel Economic Prize?

There is a saying, in more than one language, I bet, The one who dares to tell the truth better make sure he has a fast horse.