The social and economic traces of the decades in which Germany was divided into two countries by the Cold War have been reduced but are still visible, as admitted by the German Government’s annual report on the issue, which is always published around these dates. Germany commemorated this Tuesday the Day of German Unity, that is, the anniversary of the entry into force, on October 3, 1990, of the treaty by which the former communist GDR ceased to exist, and the reunified Germany was born.
It is 33 years since that historic moment and the political class, gathered in Hamburg for the celebrations – each year they are held in a different city –, called on society to overcome divisions in this time of diverse challenges.
At the current moment, both citizens and institutions must bet “not on populism and polarization, but on the spirit of community and cooperation,” said Peter Tschentscher, mayor-governor of the city-state of Hamburg, who now holds the rotating presidency of the Bundesrat (upper house of Parliament). At the event held at the Elbe Philharmonic, Tschentscher recalled that the merger of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was a “turning point” in German history and a “milestone in the path towards a unified Europe.”
He was listened to by the Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as well as representatives of the 16 länder (federated states) and personalities from civil society, among another 1,300 guests. There was before, as is customary, an ecumenical religious service in the church of St. Michael in Hamburg.
33 years after the 1990 milestone (the Berlin Wall had fallen a year earlier), “reunification is complete, although it is not yet perfect,” said Carsten Schneider, federal government commissioner for East Germany, in the presentation. of the annual report – relating to 2022 – in Berlin before the weekend.
Certain disparities remain between east and west, contributing to the discontent of some citizens of the five länder of the former GDR: Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Around a fifth of Germany’s 84.5 million inhabitants live there. (The case of Berlin is particular, as a city divided for 28 years by the Wall, in which a sector operated in a Western way.)
Thus, despite the undoubted economic rise of these regions, with dynamic cities such as Leipzig, Dresden, Potsdam or Frankfurt am Main, the average income available to a household in eastern Germany is 11% lower than that of a western household. On the other hand, as Schneider highlighted, it has been a great achievement to adjust pension levels so that in 2023 they are the same throughout Germany. Inequalities in retirement pensions were a hurtful grievance for many workers in the former GDR.
Aging is also a big problem, the report laments. Between 1991 and 2021, around 4 million East Germans moved to the former federal territory, almost all of them young people between 18 and 29 years old. Instead, only 2.8 million West Germans went the other way. Now, in addition, the east receives less immigration from abroad. In some rural areas of the Eastern Länder, the population is stagnating or declining, and public services are consequently declining.
Analysts attribute to these discrepancies the unrest and anger of a part of the population in the east, with the consequent increase in support for the extreme right, especially in rural areas. The latest polls detect the renewed strength of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in almost all the länder of the former GDR, where it exceeds 30%, while in Germany as a whole – where it is also a rising phenomenon – it is around 30%. twenty%.
Three eastern länder hold elections next year: Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. So far, however, the AfD’s electoral victories have not translated into participation in regional governments, as the other parties impose a cordon sanitaire on the far right in the forging of coalitions.
In any case, discontent and estrangement in the eastern länder persists. According to a recent survey by Infratest Dimap for the public broadcaster ARD, 40% of East Germans explicitly identify themselves as Ostdeutsche (East Germans) and 52% as simply Germans. In West Germany, however, 76% consider themselves German and only 18% identify as Westdeutsche (West German). Additionally, almost half (43%) of East Germans said they feel like “second-class citizens,” compared to 49% who do not.
The choice of October 3 as a national holiday instead of November 9, the date of the fall of the Wall and which many claimed, is due to historical coincidences that invalidated the option. On November 9, 1918, what would later be known as the Weimar Republic was proclaimed, an unproblematic coincidence of calendar, but there were then two other disastrous November 9s.
On that day in 1923, the Beer Putsch, Hitler’s failed coup d’état in Munich, took place; and on that day in 1938 the Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish shops in the pogrom known as Kristallnacht, Kristallnacht. These antecedents led to the official election of October 3 as a national holiday.
