A long time ago I visited one of my parents’ friends in East Germany with them, and I said something about how it was good that Germany reunified after the wall fell.
My parent’s friend said, people here don’t think it was a good thing. People here felt like they lost the war.
Interesting, indeed. Maybe it’s a form of nostalgia? We still have plenty of people missing the comunists in my country, usually folk that had it better during the regime. But I never heard “we felt like we lost the war”.
When you grow up in west Germany, you basically never realize that the GDR was basically annexed by west Germany.
The majority of people in the GDR actually didn’t want to turn capitalist, but they rather wanted another, more liberal form of socialism. Also, the Treuhand basically destroyed the east German industry which was then bought up by the West.
So, actually the “finally reunited” narrative is the one that’s overly romantic, not (only) nostalgia for the GDR.
On top of that, East Germany didn’t get the investment they were promised after unification. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the people who didn’t live under Neoliberalism 40 years ago are rejecting it today.
It is so striking where AfD is popular thought.
A long time ago I visited one of my parents’ friends in East Germany with them, and I said something about how it was good that Germany reunified after the wall fell.
My parent’s friend said, people here don’t think it was a good thing. People here felt like they lost the war.
I never realized that was a thing.
Interesting, indeed. Maybe it’s a form of nostalgia? We still have plenty of people missing the comunists in my country, usually folk that had it better during the regime. But I never heard “we felt like we lost the war”.
When you grow up in west Germany, you basically never realize that the GDR was basically annexed by west Germany.
The majority of people in the GDR actually didn’t want to turn capitalist, but they rather wanted another, more liberal form of socialism. Also, the Treuhand basically destroyed the east German industry which was then bought up by the West.
So, actually the “finally reunited” narrative is the one that’s overly romantic, not (only) nostalgia for the GDR.
On top of that, East Germany didn’t get the investment they were promised after unification. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the people who didn’t live under Neoliberalism 40 years ago are rejecting it today.