Berlin 30 Years After Reunification: The ones who got left behind
It must have been about the 9th or 10th November 1989 when Peter Stead, one of my university lecturers stood up in class and asked why anyone was still sitting there. “There’s no excuse, you should all be in Berlin.”
I wasn’t there to hear him say it though. I was already on my way.
Needless to say it was an incredible time. I joined crowds of people who had flocked to Berlin from across Germany and Europe and had begun hammering away with chisels at the concrete block wall near the Brandenburg Gate. The restrictions on East Germans travelling to the West had already been lifted. There was a party like atmosphere — a real sense that communism was over.
East German border guards looked on from the other side in bemusement as we hammered away. Once a small hole emerged we struck up a conversation with the guards on the other side. I bought a small flat hat from one of them for just 5 Deutsche Marks. Somebody else bought a belt. My grey overcoat got smothered in paint from the graffiti on the wall as I lent against it to peak through the hole. (I wondered around university with it for the next few months wearing it as badge of honour. “Nick you’ve got paint on your coat..” Cue my ever so modest response, “Oh that, it’s the Berlin Wall”. )
The hat is the worst thing I’ve ever lost, and anyone who knows me knows I am constantly forgetting things. I left it on the Pan Am flight back to Heathrow on my way home.
Over the next few days I explored Berlin both East and West in the bitter cold with a old friend from school. Hundreds of Poles and other Soviet block citizens set up an impromptu market close to the wall selling all kinds of things to earn valuable Deutsche Marks. There was an undeniable sense of euphoria. But there was one conversation that sticks out — we were travelling on a tram not far from Alexander Platz in East Berlin and got chatting to a high school student on a tram (she could speak English, I spoke no German). The collapse of the wall was a terrible thing, she said. Now West Germans would be able to come over and buy up everything from their shops. Where would she be able to buy shoes? Here was somebody who clearly wasn’t happy with the end of Communism.
Away from Berlin I also remember concerns among an older generation in Britain that had witnessed the war. My grandfather suggested the next war would be with Germany, not Russia. This seemed like madness to me but he wasn’t alone in holding those concerns. Margaret Thatcher was famously opposed to reunification from the start and wanted a 5 year moratorium before the two states came together. Francois Mitterand is quoted as telling Mrs Thatcher that “a united Germany could make more ground than Hitler had.”
By any standard reunification has been an incredible success. It’s hard to put a figure on it but it is estimated to have cost over a trillion Euros. Still Germany is by far the most successful economy in Europe and indisputably its leader within the European Union.
There has been some fallout though — many eastern Germans have felt left behind — not perhaps the young woman who was worried about where she would buy shoes — the young and educated have done well. The elderly and less educated have felt marginalized — and it’s their votes that have helped to feed the rise of the right wing AfD.
In a few months time we will be heading back to Berlin — and believe it or not it will be my first time there since 1989. We will be taking a closer look at the legacy of unification and examining Germany’s position now in a Europe where nationalism is on the rise.
Below you’ll find an interview I did with Gerald Knaus, the Director of the European Stability Initiative, a think tank that works on European Enlargement — which looks more closely at issues raised by unification. For the moment he thinks the hard right in Germany is in abeyance — the most recent polls show in fact that the greens — Germany’s most pro-EU party — are the most popular. But there’s still a significant amount of popular discontent waiting in the wings. Gerald is due to join our tour in November.
For more details about the tour please, or any of our tours please contact me — Nicholas directly on 07855 266 151 or Isobel at iroberts at politicaltours.com
Gerald Knaus on reunification
Germany is more open than ever before, the border with east is gone, the whole country and the former GDR along side former soviet block has been transformed. The effects have been dramatic. Germany has benefited as a whole but for others it is a shock.
Along with that change there has been a significant movement of population both within the GDR and Germany — with many leaving their former hometowns. While there have been huge opportunities but it has also left people behind, the unemployed and elderly.
Germany also transformed in terms of its values from the West Germany of Helmut Kohl (Christian democratic and conservative) to a more liberal, multi-ethnic society — (with Berlin resuming its role as the liberal capital of Europe)
In terms of values — West German changed from Kohl to a more multi ethnic — liberal, encompassing women’s and minority rights, LGBTQ etc.
And that all happened quickly — the former population of the GDR found itself plunged into a much more open society. For many people this was a massive dislocation — socially, in term of values as well as economically. On top of that the pace of change has continued right upto the present day.
Initially that translated into a protest vote for the left, motivated by a kind of nostalgia for the past, and then as the left became more mainstream — (they entered government, locally and nationally ) the right steps in.
So what does all this mean? The effort that was put into reunification was extraordinary, there was massive investment, not just in terms of infrastructure but in terms of social spending, welfare — social transfers — ostensibly trying to give the same opportunities that were enjoyed by western Germany to the east. But it shows that despite enormous amounts of money spent the frustration is still there.
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