Debates over reunification have returned with vigour, 30 years after the Wall came down
, as the Berlin Wall tumbled, Hans-Joachim Binder was on night shift at the potash mine in Bischofferode, a village in the communist-ruled German Democratic Republic. Mr Binder, a maintenance worker who had toiled in the mine for 17 years, had no idea of the momentous events unfolding 240km to the east. The first sign something was up was when most of his colleagues disappeared to investigate what was happening at the border with West Germany, just ten minutes’ drive away.
But the refugee crisis merely triggered a deeper shift, says Christian Hirte, the government’s special commissioner for east Germany. One idea, floated by Angela Merkel, who as chancellor is east Germany’s best-known export, is that the east is undergoing something comparable to the experience of West Germany in 1968, when children forced their parents to account for their activities in the Nazi period.
Perhaps the Treuhand could have proceeded more gently, some argue today. Maybe the unified country should have developed a new constitution rather than simply extending the western one eastwards. The west might have learned from the more enlightened aspects of life in the, such as free child care and encouraging women to work outside the home.
Such accounts risk ignoring the huge strides made by east Germany since reunification. Citizens were liberated from the humiliations of life in a surveillance state. They were allowed to choose their leaders, express their opinions and travel, to west Germany and beyond. Economically, despite the hardships of the early years, the east soon began to converge with the west, and life improved drastically across a range of measures.
For many, the best way to get western lifestyles was to move west. Over one-quarter of east Germans aged 18-30 did so, two-thirds of them women. Rural parts of the east were especially affected. As towns and villages emptied and tax revenues slumped, schools were closed, shops shuttered and housing blocks demolished. The mass emigration of youngsters led to a plummeting number of births.
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