35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: Eastern Commissioner: “We are more closely interwoven than it seems”

Even 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the status of the German-German relationship remains complicated. There are still major differences between East and West Germany in terms of income, wealth and election results. Added to this are resentments and misunderstandings. But the new annual report by the Commissioner for Eastern Affairs Carsten Schneider (SPD) also provides a positive insight: people are very much in agreement about the broad outlines of what society should look like. And many views are clearly converging.

“The two parts of the country have long been much more closely intertwined than it sometimes seems,” Schneider writes in the report. At the presentation, the SPD politician stressed: “This country today is different from what it was in 1989/1990. West Germany has also changed.” Cultural differences must be tolerated, they are an enrichment. It is important to work politically to change material differences.

But Schneider admitted that many East Germans still felt like second-class citizens. And he had an example ready that apparently annoyed him immensely: When the German Football Association celebrated the national team’s 1,000th international match, the GDR’s 293 international matches were simply ignored, according to Schneider. The GDR was only mentioned as a previous opponent, with the comment that it was a “legendary flash in the pan”. As a football fan, he found this “not only ignorant, but dangerous”. Populists exploit such sentiments, warned the Thuringian.

Support for social justice and the principle of performance

Schneider’s report “East and West. Free, United and Imperfect” again contains a number of guest contributions, including from former Polish President Lech Walesa, economic expert Michael Hüther and writer Anne Rabe. But it also presents new findings from the Germany Monitor, a survey conducted in spring with almost 4,000 participants in East and West Germany.

Jena political scientist Marion Reiser said of the results that it was “very clear that there is a broad social consensus in Germany about the desired society”. According to her, nine out of ten respondents in East and West are in favour of a society with equal rights for the sexes, with equal opportunities for personal development, with peaceful coexistence of religions, “lived social coexistence” and social justice – all of these points received around 90 percent approval. 81 percent supported the “performance principle”. Three out of four respondents – in East and West – want a strong welfare state.

Less agreement on climate neutrality

A narrower majority nationwide supports the goals of living in a “climate-neutral society” (57 percent) or in a society “in which immigration is seen as an opportunity” (56 percent). And according to the report, these goals are more strongly supported in West Germany than in East Germany.

However, it also says: “These East-West differences are only evident in those people who were born and socialized in the former GDR or in West Germany before 1972. For people who were born after 1972 and were thus predominantly socialized in reunified Germany, there are hardly any differences between East and West in terms of the preferred society.”

800 euros less per month

Really? How then can we explain the dissatisfaction of many people in the East with the reality of democracy in Germany, with politicians and generally with “those at the top”? How can we explain that, according to the Germany Monitor, “populist attitudes” are much more widespread in East Germany (30 percent of respondents) than in West Germany (20 percent)? Are the big, airy questions about “how do we want to live” relevant – or is it not more the everyday experience?

There are “still significant injustices,” said the young East German influencer Lilly Blaudszun on Deutschlandfunk. Among them, she said, is that full-time employees in the East statistically earn on average a good 800 euros less per month than West Germans. Or that 90 percent of the homes in Leipzig belong to West Germans. “I believe that this is a very big factor in why people are dissatisfied and feel that they are not seen by the democratic parties.”

Schneider alarmed by AfD results

Instead of the established parties, many people in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg recently voted for the AfD – a finding that Schneider finds “frightening, sobering and also alarming”, as he told the German Press Agency. The fact that support for the AfD in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg was even higher than in western federal states can be explained in part by the harsh breaks many East Germans have experienced over the past 35 years.

The Germany Monitor also states that although many people would like to have a “we feeling,” only 14 percent actually perceive a strong sense of solidarity across society. This could have something to do with the fact that “public debates often focus on what separates and divides people, and not on what unites us,” said co-author Reiser.

In an interview with dpa, Schneider criticized political “polarization entrepreneurs” and emphasized: “I don’t believe in telling East Germans that they are victims, on the contrary. They are the ones who have empowered themselves over the last 35 years, building something out of what was left of the GDR’s economic and material substance.”

Wagenknecht: East Germans should not allow themselves to be talked out of anger

Schneider did not mention the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance in the dpa interview, but the party founder nevertheless saw reason to counter it. Schneider is trying unsuccessfully “to talk East Germans out of their justified dissatisfaction and anger,” said Sahra Wagenknecht. “The commissioner and the report serve to whitewash the situation politically, which only serves to raise the level of frustration further.”

Left Party MP Sören Pellmann described the balance sheet on the state of German unity as disastrous. “After 34 years of German unity, social cohesion is no longer just fragile, but deeply divided.” Union parliamentary group vice-chair Sepp Müller (CDU) accused the traffic light coalition and Schneider personally of “deindustrializing policies.”