In the floodlit square at the Brandenburg Gate, fireworks rang incessantly, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people flocked to central Berlin. At this time, Helmut Kohl, who would later be called the “Father of German Unity”, gave a solemn speech on the occasion of the unification of Germany and the GDR. Since that day – 3 October 1990 – the Germans have been tracing back the country’s new history. On Saturday, the united Germany will change the third ten.
National Unity Day has become the centrepiece of the political narrative of modern Germany. This issue is being actively discussed in the media, and is becoming a subject of scientific research and the focus of publicist attention. Among the main aspects discussed are the economic and social complexity of integration and the differences in East and West German mentality. The increased public attention to this historical period has even given rise to a few specific, purely German terms, such as “vessi” and “ossi” (meaning the inhabitants of the former Federal Republic of Germany and the former GDR – from it. West – west and Ost – east), “ossie” (derived from the words Ost and Nostalgie).
The process of German unification, among other things, gave birth to the world’s sacral symbol of a popular revolution, akin to taking the Bastille or storming the Winter: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although this concrete structure was almost completely dismantled (only fragments left as a tourist attraction), the paving stone scar from the wall runs through the entire German capital as a reminder of the Iron Curtain era. By the way, the 30th anniversary of its fall was celebrated last year with an atypical scale for thrifty Germans.
The Coronavirus made some adjustments to the programme of current festivities – mass festivities were cancelled due to epidemiological restrictions. Even so, the festivities will be extensive: thematic exhibitions will be opened in museums and symphony concerts will be held in the capital under the direction of renowned conductors. A nationwide flash mob has also been prepared: people will sing 10 popular songs, including the cult Wind of Change, on the streets or from balconies, all over the country at certain times.
Behind this atmosphere of universal unity, fun and grand national event, however, there are much more complex and controversial processes. The unification of the country (in Germany they prefer to say “reunification”, although in the Russian historiographical tradition this term is not quite correct) took place at lightning speed. What politicians and experts have been doing for decades has actually happened in a matter of months.
For some, the destruction of the GDR was a breakthrough to a free society and European values, while for others it was the collapse of a socialist model with which hopes for a brighter future were seriously associated. Critics pointed out that the GDR was a non-legal state, a country with a low standard of living, technologically and culturally backward and systematically repressive of the creative intelligentsia, with disregard for human rights. Compared to the “economic miracle” of Germany, this was in many ways the case.
With the disappearance of the GDR, however, its citizens lost their state and their jobs forever, and many were literally pushed to the margins of life. After all, the merger process was accompanied by the closure of systemically important enterprises in the eastern part of the country, as well as lustrations of the state apparatus and mass layoffs, which particularly affected employees of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judges, as well as university teachers and scientists. The de facto GDR was literally swallowed up on terms dictated by the German government, which has invested billions of marks in it. Many GDR residents were then captive of illusions, believing that all the problems of socialism that had failed would now be solved. But this did not happen, which later gave rise to acute disappointment.
Today, in official discourse, the era of the GDR is called the SED dictatorship (the Socialist United Party of Germany – the ruling political force in the GDR). The coalition treaty concluded in the last federal elections between the CDU/CSS and the SPD parties underlines that “the memory of the SED dictatorship is part of the democratic consensus in society. The GDR appears to be a quasi-state based on the power of the all-powerful Stasi intelligence service.
For young Germans, there is no doubt about this. But for the older generation of former GDRs, it all turns into pain of lost illusions, a feeling that their hopes have been betrayed.
By the way, it is in the states that were formerly part of the GDR that there is now a surge in right-wing sentiment and a growing sympathy for the populist Alternative for Germany party. Experts attribute this to a great deal of rejection of the political mainstream in Germany, a more difficult economic situation and differences in mentality. In turn, Western media reporters accuse Eastern Germans of a lack of “mature tolerance”, xenophobia and concentration of “Prussian militarist spirit”.
Although the process of unification of the two Germans ended formally 30 years ago, in fact it is still going on a deep social and cultural level. Right now, when the first emotions have subsided, we can say that this is a scar that will only begin to disappear when people who were born after the fall of the wall come to power in Germany.
Evgenia Pimenova, Izvestia newspaper