The e-mail of today is already a little bit older, but the date of its “publishing” couldn’t be better than this week. 12 years of German Reunification! One of the biggest inner German conflicts is and will be the Reunification. One may have read a lot of things about it and also the content of this e-mail won’t bring that much new. If there will be still something unknown for one or the other then I would be pleased.

On principle you will also come across the policy method “Create artificial conflicts and paper over the cracks.” when analysing this topic. The East-West conflict sometimes seemed/seems to me as conventionalised as the conflicts between woman and man. Both are different (by nature), but want to be or shall be equal/be given the same right and/or the same treatments (whatever). Sooner or later everyone recognises that the discussions don’t make much sense and they agree silently, that “West and East are meanwhile pretty much the same”. But even in this very moment one already knows that this is not always really like that and also not necessarily. Everyone, who distinguishes between “Ossis and Wessis” or “West German and East German”, will likely be called a “stick-in-the-mud”. Would one do the same if a North German would call himself a “North German” or a South German himself a “South German”?

Change of the system, physic & psychic repression, appraisement, collective forgetting, systemic counteracting, obviously and apparently suffering people, propaganda, “Good and Bad”, “Better and Worse” – at sometime I will end up with my own story – my past – and this was called “German Democratic Republic”.

I was quite surprised when some years ago one of our Austrian lecturers was uttering quite easily while walking through Dresden-Neustadt that the GDR was “annexed by West Germany”. Some months later a friend, born in Bavaria, said to me that we (“we Ossis”) are to blame ourselves that “we allowed them to do all these things to us”. This year a Hungarian told me her version: For her it wasn’t a proper revolution. She saw people, who were dissatisfied with their living conditions and moreover who finally wanted to buy the same things as their West German fellow-countrymen. In between you will find a lot of people who came to know the Reunification only via TV and who found everything just unbelievable and amazing. Today I look into the newspaper and see “21.3 % unemployment rate in Bautzen (Saxony)”. 

There are extreme differences between East and West on the one hand and on the other hand you will find people who claim that everything has already grown together – there is no East and West anymore. Some others even want to have the wall back – according to some surveys even more West Germans than East Germans J. I don’t have a clue whether one should believe such statements – actually it isn’t important at all (key word: “Artificial conflicts”). On the other hand there was and is a systematic – partly intentionally, partly unintentionally – extrusion of the GDR past (sport, art & culture, science, etc.).
I guess the “average West German” knew (knows ?) as much about the GDR as George W. Bush knows about the Islam. Vice versa it is likely to be the same, although I assume that we in the East knew a bit more about the West (even if some things were shown in a different way than they really were), because in general Ossis had more interest in the West. On the one side there was “our enemy”, but on the other side this enemy – the “Golden West” – had bigger cars, more money, more bananas and “better music groups”. If the West had had more interest in the East than vice versa, the West would have revolutionised, wouldn’t they? I have some friends from the “Old Bundeslaender” and it is pretty interesting to notice how different the historiography had been. What we called “real socialism” they called “communistic regime” on “the other side”.

And I also remember the female hairdresser the other day who said the following when I mentioned the word “GDR”: “GDR … alas, this is the past. One has to look to the future.” Well, I know, what kind of short conclusion will come when thinking about the combination of “hairdresser & IQ” J, but I would also like to add some things which also could be right:

• IQ doesn’t say anything about the human being as it is – on the contrary many of us stumble over it; with a little less some might have even a more  comfortable life.

•  the opinion of my hairdresser most probably doesn’t even correlate with her IQ, since even much more intelligent people (or at least I assumed that) have the same attitude.  

But, back to the GDR:
Nevertheless it is a fact, that million of people were caught up by reality within months. Euphoria, the will of change, slow recurrence of reality, even slower understanding what had happened, synchronous extrusion of reasons, lack of understanding, resignation, depression etc. No idea, how many committed suicide – there were likely some. 12 years after the reunification only a few still talk about dreams. Even those who could afford many things finally came down to earth.

In my opinion – and I would like to stress that this is just my opinion, the GDR was effaced. Beside the “naïve short-sightedness and witlessness” of many “Ossis” another thing in particular was responsible for that – the meta-layer “Money”. At first it showed its dazzling face and just a little bit later – after everything had been irreversibly changed – its filthy laughing grimace. “Those who fly high, can also fall deep.” they say and the euphoria of November 9^th, 1989 made some commit suicide some time later. Of course, no-one would deny the advantages of the freedom of press and speech. But, sometimes I asked myself, why so many people are still afraid to utter their opinion in public (or using psychologically correct words “they are too shy” J), even more than in GDR times? Admittedly, I was too young then to be able to give a comment regarding the topic “Adulthood in the GDR”, but I guess there is especially one reason for that shyness: “fear of existence” ?! 

One should take the time and look at one thing quite closely: How many East German things were really integrated into the reunited Germany? One has really to search for them, I guess. Regarding to this I have a limited background knowledge – just my own eyes. Sometimes it seems like that the GDR has never been there – if there weren’t some old movies shown from time to time.
The economical & societal system, constitution, national anthem, state’s flag, currency, educational system, health system, law system, media, even the majority of foods (!) were replaced systematically and with German thoroughness within a single year. And we “Ossis” seemed to like that by and large. “Thesis – antithesis – synthesis” they say, don’t they? What dominated during the reunification was the antithesis “Western lifestyle”. The synthesis, which we or a majority of the former GDR population liked to achieve was heavily wrecked by stupidity, misunderstandings, uncertainties, fear, lies, accomplished facts and plain ignorance.

„History is always the history of the winner.“

Well, maybe the forthcoming vicissitude of the present world system – and it will come, don’t worry! J  – will also make us “Ossis” think again, what was better before the reunification. Maybe we can bring in a little bit more into the history of the “United Germany” than we did so far. Some of us already think and talk about that (well, some confuse talking with “lamenting” or “complaining”), but do we really do anything??? 

So far, so good. I would like to conclude with the words of a Dresdener (whose birthplace is just 200 m far from my desk):
“There is nothing good, unless you do it.” (Erich Kästner)

Have a nice, sunny day. Yours, Michael. 

PS: You can also forward this e-mail to people you know – I don’t mind that at all.