20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall
by Sebastian Litta on November 11, 2009 in Opinion
I was born in a country that no longer exists: East Germany, that tiny socialist country where people wore grey clothes and worked in grey factories producing grey widgets that other grey people did not want to buy. But it was also a country where all of these grey people had colorful dreams of a future where they would be able to live without the fear of being imprisoned for listening to the wrong music, where they could vote for different parties and travel abroad.
Still, in January 1989, our grey-clothed leaders announced that the wall around our country would last for at least another 40 years. They were wrong. Less than a year later, on November 9, 1989, during a turbulent time of mass protest against the hated regime, a press conference changed the world. Socialist party official Günter Schabowski announced an ease of travel restrictions. When a journalist asked when this would take effect, Schabowski had no answer and simply remarked, “I assume it’s now.” Within hours, if not minutes, East Germans flocked to the border checkpoints and, before midnight, the specter of Communism was over.
How will Germany commemorate this event? While there are many success stories to be told, the general picture is less optimistic. Compared to other former socialist peoples, East Germans certainly enjoy a much higher standard of living now. Also, Germany is ruled by Angela Merkel who grew up in the East. And, more importantly, Michael Ballack, captain of the German National Soccer Team, is an Ossi – or East German – too.
However, there is no CEO of any major German company coming from the East. Most top politicians are from the West; even many governors in the East German Länder used to be Westerners. Merkel did not include a single Ossi in her new cabinet. But it is not just the lack of East Germans in the top echelons of German society that cause many people to be skeptical about the future. Other developments will likely be on the minds of many East Germans during the upcoming celebrations.
First, there are huge demographic problems: by 2020, East Germany will lose another 10 – 15 percent of its population given the declining fertility rates coupled with many young East German women migrating to the West in search of work.
Second, there are too few jobs to be found not just for women but for all East Germans. With the exception of a few highly subsidized technology companies, there are no major employers in East Germany. Unemployment is high, in some regions reaching 25 percent.
Third, this dire economic situation is very different from the Wirtschaftswunder times of the 1950s which allowed West Germans to appreciate democracy because of Coca Cola and steadily rising incomes. Many East Germans question the benefits of democracy. In a recent election in my home state of Brandenburg, the post-communist party earned almost a third of all votes.
Even more stunning was that the main candidate of the party was Kerstin Kaiser, who had worked for the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police that commanded a network of several hundred thousand people that spied on colleagues, classmates (as in the case of Kaiser), neighbors, or even parents or spouses. People are beginning to forget that East Germany was once a dictatorship; nostalgia is winning the subtle war against democracy.
Finally, history could not resist playing a little trick by allowing East Germans to have stormed the wall on November 9 of all days! This day is not only the day when Germany finally became a republic after World War I in 1918 but also the day when Nazis and their many supporters destroyed Jewish synagogues and shops in 1938. This makes November 9 an unlikely day for cheerful celebration.
In addition, Chancellor Helmut Kohl decided to make October 3 – the day in 1990 when reunification documents were signed in a rather sober ceremony – the new national holiday. Hence, this November 9 is likely to be a strange holiday. The heroes of 1989 are almost forgotten. And Germans are about to forget the tremendous achievements that this peaceful revolution has brought.
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