Can the next episode tell about nations whose territories were divided into many countries because of colonizer like 1. Malay tribe is divided into 4 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ). 2.Pashtuns tribe is divided into 2 countries(populations Pakistan and Afghanistan) 3.Kurds tribe is divided into 4 countries ( Turkey, Iran , Iraq and Syria) 4.Hausa tribe tribe is divided into 2 countries (Nigeria and Niger) 5.Yoruba tribe tribe is divided into 3 countries (Benin , Nigeria , Togo )
great one, very well done - we lived also in a town with a invisible curtain cause in that part we had dutch forces that were part of the nato in preparation of a forward defense in case of a soviet invasion just 100 km east of the dutch border to germany. And if those dutch soldiers wanted to stay abroad with the higher payments then their kids had to go to the german gymnasium after 10th grade hence we suddenly got dutch classmates that had learned to speak german but needed to learn to write over night or within a summer cause from 11 th grade on they were on a german school. Great time, great memories of a partly similiar idea of living and learning , but also on quite the opposite, a very laid back living style . Hard for many to imagine but we were rowing and had some dutch guys which also learned rowing late, but fast and could participate in the national competition and what not. The only issue and especially in rowing is that a four or quad can only start their training when all 4 have arrived in time. But the big difference was the idea of punctuality cause that could be quite a difference which means some were even more punctual than germans but a few were the most laid back you can imagine - like reggae man. Deadly for a crew that wanted to compete so it were hard sometime to get along cause we had the choice between a strong Zander or a weaker Klaas and Edwin, where Klaas and Edwin would be there in time and Zander only some times, usually late with hilarious stories. When the Berlin wall fell the dutch government did no longer want to spent the huge amount of additional salaries and closed the garrison soon, but many of those I went to school with tried to study in german or to stay and stayed even till today. But it was a clash of 2 cultures in the class room and activities or hobbies we spend which suddenly appeared cause we had not noticed the dutch before cause they have had their own elementary and what not schools till 10th grade and lived in their own suburb or area. And from 11th grade on we got new class mates which made a huge difference cause sometimes they were a lot better prepared than we and of cause also vice versa.
My aunt was born and grew up in what became East Berlin. She had a friend who worked in the government office, and he told her, "Grab your son and leave and join your husband. I can't tell you why but leave now." A few days after she left, the wall started going up.
Comparable to the former USSR states. There is a positive correlation between living standards and a dislike of that former regime. In the USSR it's the Baltic states, in Yugoslavia it's Croatia and Slovenia. And in both cases it's the communist overlord republic ppl that caused the most headaches to the locals. In Baltic states it's Russians, in Slovenia and Croatia it's Serbs.
When it comes to economy it's the same as it was during Yugoslav era With Croatia and Slovenia being at the top when it comes to living standards Serbia in the middle And Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro at the bottom As for Serbia itself it's northern province Vojvodina it's almost the the level of Croatia and Slovenia While it's southern province of Kosovo (which is under separatist control) is one of the most poorest regions in all of Ex-Yugoslavia Although it's not that extreme like it was during the 80s and 90s
@@fungo6631it’s not just attitude toward communism and the former regime (although that’s a big part of it): all the countries from the Eastern Block that are now more successful were also more successful even before WW2. In fact, the order ranking in GDP and living standards is actually fairly similar now as it was in 1938: Czechia, Slovenia and Eastern Germany on the top. Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Croatia behind them. Then Romania, Bulgaria and the rest of the Balkans. And then Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. The countries that were closer to the European economic core and more industrialised, had a longer democratic tradition, stronger rule of law etc. were and are still the more successful, and communism only slowed them down but didn’t change the relative trajectories. It’s even striking that the former Austrian parts are still more successful than the former Hungarian parts, even within one country (Transylvania vs. Oltenia/Muntenia/Moldavia in Romania is a great example; also Slovenia vs Croatia).
I think an important point to explain the economic disparity between West and East Germany is how reunification was handled. Basically, almost all of the GDR's state property was privatized and sold off at horribly low prices. This made it possible for West German companies to essentially buy out the competition and simply dissolve them. This was partly intended by the conservative government in order not to endanger the West German economy, and it was successful. Within a few years, almost all companies in the East were either dissolved or integrated into West German companies. Basically overnight, the entire East German economy went down the drain and most East Germans have not forgotten that to this day.
Do you have any sources on this? It seems I see way too many excuses when East Germany is still much better than it would have been otherwise. I don't think it's fair to compare to west Germany and see it as a failure. US has huge economic divides in region but there wasn't a recent separation. Italy probably much more economically divided north vs south. Etc.
" Within a few years, almost all companies in the East were either dissolved or integrated into West German companies." Yes, they were terrible companies that were running based on state funding. They were not companies for a free market competition. This happened with many state property/companies in former communist countries.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Yes, there are enough sources for this and in Germany there are hardly any reputable experts (including from the conservative spectrum) who doubt what serious effects this had. Unfortunately, there are only a few sources available in English. But this ist from an article of "Le Monde": "The GDR underwent an overnight economic liberalisation that had taken postwar West Germany a decade. In July 1990, industrial output had fallen 43.7% from 1989; by August, 51.9% and by the end of the year, 70%. The official unemployment figure rose from 7,500 in January 1990 to 1.4 million in January 1992, but was more than double that when short-time working, retraining and pre-retirement were factored in. No other country in Central or Eastern Europe suffered more economically by leaving the Soviet Union’s orbit. This social demolition was deliberate: dozens of reports had explored its consequences. ‘Better to achieve unity with a ruined economy than remain in the Soviet bloc with a half-ruined one,’ said SPD politician Richard Schröder (9). His wish was more than granted. To Ossies (East Germans) the exterminating angel had a name: the Treuhand (trust agency), created on 1 March 1990, the tool to convert the former GDR to capitalism. It privatised or liquidated almost all of the ‘patrimony of the people’, the name for the GDR’s state businesses and assets, which it took possession of in July 1990. This made it the world’s biggest conglomerate, responsible for 4.1 million employees (45% of the workforce) working for 8,000 businesses at 32,000 sites, from steelworks to holiday camps, grocers to local cinemas. By the time the Treuhand was wound up in December 1994, it had privatised or liquidated most of its portfolio with an impact unequalled in industrial history: a country deindustrialised, 2.5 million jobs gone and losses estimated at DM 256bn despite an opening balance sheet of DM 600bn, according to its own president’s estimate (10). This miracle of neoliberalism was, according to Christa Luft, ‘the largest ever destruction of productive capital in peacetime’ (11). Researchers Wolfgang Dümcke and Fritz Vilmar regard this as the key period in the structural colonisation of the GDR (12): West German investors and companies bought up 85% of East German production sites, East Germans just 6%." You can read the full article If you want: mondediplo.com/2019/11/06germany
The economy went down the drain in ALL former communist countries. The only difference is: the few still profitable companies elsewhere were sold at horribly low prices to some cronies and a new oligarchy emerged, while in East Germany they were sold to West German companies who were in the same industry. That's why East Germany has no oligarchy/mafia problem like Russia or even other Eastern European countries.
As a citizen of South Korea which is one of the only countries still divided, Germany is the prime model of how unification of the south and north would look like in the future. It pains me to learn that even 30 years after the unification, Germany suffers from its decisions. Unification between North and South Korea would likely be worse, as the economic disparity between the two is far more profound than east and west Germany 30 years ago.
Also the korean divide is too much. The north is fanatical and the south has moved on. Any connection you guys seemed to have is gone i feel like. Also china isnt going to let korea unify easily. Unification of korea will be the greatest and most challenging and possibly bloodiest but i hope for the best. Wish you guys could introduce the northerners to the modern world.
I am not envious of South Korea's prospects. Reunification could easily destroy the South, the financial burden being the least of it. The people in the North are extremely naive about the world and would find the South utterly baffling. I can only imagine the massive social problems reunification would create for both north and south. I do not think the CCP could tolerate it either. The north is like the 'death strip' behind the Berlin wall, with people growing food among the landmines, under the watch towers.
This doesn't really work as a model. Your task would be 10 times bigger. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. The GDR was poor compared to the Federal Republic of Germany, but at least it was the richest country in the communist world. With an industry, an educated population and regular exchanges between East and West. West Germans were always allowed to enter the country and visit relatives in the East. Only East Germans were not allowed to go to the West, except for a small privileged caste. As a result, Western pop culture was permanently present in the East, forbidden but present. East Germany was an unjustice state, an one-party state, a surveillance state. But North Korea is hell on earth, I would rather live 10 lives in the GDR than a year in North Korea.
Korea would be a caste system, with the first generations of North Korean adults being untouchable. I’ve been around some fringe people who moved into “civilization”, and it took multiple generations for them to really assimilate and adjust. At the very least until the people born previously died off.
The biggest gap was always a mental one. West germans expected integration in the west german society. East Germans never wanted this, they wanted of course a free and democratic, unified Germany, but with some of the socialist achievements, a right to have a say in the development of East Germany. All of this achievements were wiped out within a year. Angela Merkel really made a point when she said "It was like the life before 1990 didn't count". That was the west german mentality, east germans were confronted with. There was no appreciation, no recognition. Mostly it was a lack of interest or sometimes even arrogance and capitalist chauvinism in a way like "You achieved nothing in 40 years". Which wasn't that wrong, many East Germans didn't had any savings or assets. But it was this downgrading mentality by the West Germans for 30 years, why we have a distant relationship. We live in a Germany, where East Germans are underrepresented and mostly are seen as a loud, grumpy and radical group, which is only relevant for german society as objects for sociologic and political research. Our history, our social achievements, the usual ife of East Germans in the GDR were irrelevant for the unified Germany, it should be quickly forgotten after 1990. It never was and never will be, at least for us East Germans.
@@chlks5891just because you or I don’t know them doesn’t mean a society doesn’t accomplish achievements. Ignorance proves nothing. Every society no matter how different or ‘oppressed’ has achievements over half a century.
That’s what they said about post communist Russia East Germans would and should frankly get over it, the minority doesn’t have as much say as the majority especially when they were A puppeted B like you said, had fuck all, and C it’s clear which side had to bail out the other, still dealing with that to this day, if one side is gonna do the bailing they deserve a very large say in how that goes about, since you know, it’s their money
As a child of German immigrants, these videos always hit close to my heart. I was born just two months before the Berlin wall fell. Thanks for making these.
Geez, I feel old. I was a soldier guarding West Germany when the wall fell. I remember seeing a lot of people in older style clothing and the little Trabant cars
We, who lived east of the Iron Curtain, had a somewhat romantic view of the free, rich world on the other side. When the barriers fell and we started living "the new way", we realized that reality is not so black and white. The people were freer, but not as free as we thought and the life was richer, but not as rich as we imagined. Many people were disappointed. Especially those who did not find their place in the new conditions. It is a natural, human reaction to blame the system, even if the reasons lie in their own inability to adjust.
Yeah, quite a difference in a true Socialist and a Democratic Socialist state. Suddenly as a worker you have to pay large sums for housing and its in economically stratified housing areas and you no longer have a subsidized day care facility in each building. In a Capitalist state its all about money, which is great... as long as you HAVE money.
I was an American soldier stationed up by the Czech/East German border and was there for the "reunification" celebration , but to me, it seemed the joy was short lived. The West Germans were very critical of the East Germans saying "they are lazy sheep". I did notice the stark differences between East and West infrastructure as many of the building and bridges still had bullet marks and nothing was really tended to as far as cosmetics. This was a great video highlighting many of the realities of the reunification. I pray someday all will level out and come together.
Your not the only one. My father spent most of the time in the US Army in the 1960s near the border between East and West and this was only 5 years after the Berlin Wall went up. Fast forward and my father, at age 43 and me, just two days shy of 13, got to witness, on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, the history of that very wall, the wall that President Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down, was finally coming down. My father passed in 1995 (shortly after I graduated from high school), but I myself, at 46 (turning 47 in November) am now older than the very country (East Germany) and city (East Berlin) that no longer exists.
@@rwboa22 I was actually stationed in Germany when the wall came down. My one regret was that I never visited Berlin when it was divided. Anyone who had visited had to have special orders issued and units were sending any soldier with those orders to Berlin to help tear that wall down. (they were valid for your whole tour of duty once issued)
I worked in Frankfurt for a year as an engineer. People were amazing and friendly, unlike the typical German stereotypes. But I always felt that it was all surface level affection. Then I visited East Berlin one weekend with some co-workers and spent most of the time at bars. It was cold as s**t that weekend, but I can't forget how authentic and real the people were there. No fake BS friendliness, but raw, human emotions. This was early 2000's.
When the Berlin Wall was built, it wasn't just the wall that separated West Berlin from East Berlin, but also the trains. Ending freedom of movement didn't just mean building the wall, it also meant making changes to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn. There were three lines, the U-Bahn lines now designated U6 and U8, and the Nord-Süd Tunnel on the S-Bahn, that ran for the most part through West Berlin but passed for a short distance through the borough of Mitte (the historic city center), which was East Berlin territory. These lines continued to be open to West Berliners, but they did not stop at East Berlin stations, though they still had to slow down and these stations were heavily guarded. Thus, these became ghost stations Trains on the U8 line had six stations in East Berlin before crossing from one part of West Berlin to the other. The U6 had to skip five stations as well as the S-Bahn having to skip four. Friedrichstraße on the other hand was an exception as it was a transfer point between U6 and S-Bahn lines. Wollankstraße as well because it had a West Berlin exit right on the border. At the closed stations, barbed wire fences were installed to prevent any would-be escapees from East Berlin from accessing the track bed, and the electrically live third rail served as an additional and potentially lethal deterrent.
As a Cuban American how do you feel about Cuba these days? They're doing really well considering all the shit the US used to (and still does) put them through 😮💨
It's crazy, how our feeling of time changes as we grow older (and wiser haha). I was born in 1981 (in the GDR btw) and as a teenager, WW2 seemed to me a long time ago. But actually, I was born only 36 years after WW2. The fall of the Berlin Wall seems like not a very long time ago to me now, but it is over 34 years ago, almost 36 years! It's nice and honorable that you present our history so well-researched and for an international audience. Well done! Next time I talk about my home country in English, I can just refer to your video.
In a couple of years the time between now and the fall of the Berlin Wall will be twice as long as the time between the end of WWII and my birth. It's unreal.
A ludicrous, amateur, one-sided, boring videoblog about a fairly recent history, best to be entirely avoided if you're looking for the answers or wished to get a quick glimpse into DDR. *The hysterical "reviews" do this video no justice.
That’s very true - I made a similar comparison to a college friend when we were having our 30 year anniversary from high school I told him 30 years before we were born WWII was going on LOL (same amount of time passing). It made us both feel OLD hahaha.
Thank you! As a child of both countries (mother east german, father from the west) I've always been able to see the effect of the reunion on both systems. I've heard both sides of the story. I wouldn't exists if this chain of events that lead to reunification hadn't happened. However, my mum speaks with much grief from her own personal experience when the wall fell: "Everything you thought you knew was suddenly incorrect." She and many others had to relearn their entire lives. With the GDR disappearing, a big chunk of their identies disappeared as well. Nowhere to be found. And the aftermath in Germany today is tremendous. There is nostalgia for the state from people who were born after the wall fell. "Ostalgie" is the term for that. Because modern remembrance culture still mostly remembers what went wrong, so other people feel the need to glorify the old system. It's a lot to unpack. People feel unheard, they have felt this way for a long time. It's interesting how you, as an outsider, portrayed the story. I have to add, however, that it should not be left to historians to change our perception of this state. It's something that comes from deep within society.
Im not surprised Ostalgie is still a thing or that the people don't feel heard. In the early 90s the west was on a privatization rush and sold off anything that wasnt bolstered down. In the GDR most of the property was held by the state and so the west german government did what is to be expected. They sold off the GDR like it was a yard sale. Add a worrying amount of corruption to it and you have millions of people that got robbed of everything right before their eyes in the moment they were quite vulnerable because of a massive change in their lifes. The Soli couldn't compensate, that this treason has gutted the eastern part even further. And instead of investing in our own nation, doing a marshal plan for the east, the west with its population majority consistently voted in their interests and left the east to rot. And now we have a stinking pile. And even if we wanted to change something now, our current regulations make that so complex, that it will take more than a century to rebuild what was taken in the last 80 years.
What are you talking about. East Germans have traded their country for jeans, sex shops and Mercedes. And what did they get?)) Exploitation at work (not an 8-hour working day), paid education, paid medicine, a policy of tolerance to gays, lesbians, blacks and perverts, sex education lessons at school... Oh, yes, I completely forgot - the influx of Muslims ("Turkish Lessons"). Congratulations! Marx and Engels were Germans, by the way!
I totally get what you're saying. I definitely think a lot of lessons could be taken from the eastern block and their ways like with the universal welfare and focus on community, maybe just with slightly relaxed reforms to business to still allow slight consumer freedom or cooperatives to operate. Especially in the 21st century where we see that independent cooperatives and small companies that aren't of any major threat to welfare can thrive, like with open source stuff on the internet. Like some kind of compromise between the East German Socialist, and the Nordic Socialdemocratic systems. Most of the issues of the DDR seem to mostly boil down to incompetence by those in charge, especially early on. And thats not just a Eastern Block problem.
I'm from Poland, and it reads very weirdly that people had to re-learn their entire lives and that everything they knew was incorrect. Is that real? I am thinking of the experience of this country... Over here everyone already knew all the truth before communism fell, there was a lot of underground media and books and people would also pass all the information in families and in private. Where was the head of East Germans? East Germany had a reputation back then for being "enthusiastic believers" in communism - maybe this is true? The difficulties over here were elsewhere. West Germany is still sociaised to an extent. Over here workers, who used to have a say in how their companies were run, became just receptors of decisions of young men in suits. Thier work - became worth very little. Life has become very tough for this generation, it took a lot of hard work for this country to slowly pull itself up. Many people feel the economy was also colonised by western capital, so that is similar to an extent.
@@noodleppoodle hmm it's not so much that they were all firm believers in communism or didn't know what was going on on the outside, more so that when the reunion happened that very minor things were all changed to fit the BRD system. My mum worked as a nurse at the time and all their normal work processes that worked and proved useful for over 40 years were discarded. My uncle had an academic degree that wasn't recognised by the BRD so he couldn't continue the line of work he was in. Imagine the BRD swooped in and mansplained the DDR people any aspect of their lives. With much entitlement as well. Many people from the west had a "we're better than you and we know better" attitude. When the dude in his video said "it was more like the BRD swallowed the DDR" he couldn't be more right. I hope that helps you understand!
I was 17 when that wall came down, back then it gave me goosebumps, I knew what a momentous occasion it was. Even today, it gives me goosebumps. The biggest impact that the news report had on me, was seeing a brother and sister (I think) reuniting after being separated for nearly 30 years, despite living around the corner from each other.
I saw it on TV and started to feel a little sad for East Germans. They had a taste of the West and then had to return to East Berlin. They had been led to believe that West Germany was still Nazi controlled and found the opposite. Then they had to get used to living in a capitalist country, following reunification. I was glad that those with useful job skills and tenacity, though, had been able to escape to the West via Hungary and Austria, though. It would have been better for East Germany to have remained a separate country for a few years but within the EC or EU.
@@lemsip207 Out of curiosity, why do you think East Germany would have been better off as a separate state whilst part of the Western world? I reckon it would have faced the same problems it did after reunification, but received no support from West Germany as it would not have had any financial obligations towards a whole different country, just like it didn't before reunification.
@lagritsalammas Totally different mindsets after 45 years. The former East Germany dragged the former West Germany down and vice versa. It would have been like merging Austria with Hungary or Ireland with the UK. Did they have a say in it?
@@lemsip207 But EU is a win-win, the stronger countries invest money in the less strong and creates a win-win scenario and helping each other. But im just a Dutch, for me some Western provinces of Germany are still like going to the past as a Dutch person. :) Everything is oldfasioned, and im not talking about East Germany
shortly after the wall fell, there was an article about how the West German prostitutes hated the East German ones, due to the East German ones charging less and stealing business. "if i see one of those Eastern sl#ts around here, I'll bash her teeth in", was one quote. it must've touched every part of society.
Nice. But the video failed to deliver what the title had promised. We all know how Germany WAS divided, thank you, Cap, but how and why IS it STILL divided, this is THE question
The East is partially to this day very unhappy with the political situation. I guess, unemployment rates are still much higher in the East and pay or wages are lower in the East than the West. Also, if you take a look at who votes for whom in the East or the West, you will notice that the East is extremely right winged, while the West is rather liberal. It's a political divide.
The east Germans were educated by a communist state that left a nearly indelible mark that will take at least 3 more generations to fade away. Its in the subconscious of east Germans.
It is kind of explained in the end. It was not a reunification, it was a takeover of the East by the West. People in East Germany wanted the dictatorship to end, but they did not want their child care, their free public transit, their low rents to go away. Eastern companies were absorbed into Western companies for insanely low prices and in many cases were then looted and shut down by the Western companies. Meanwhile the social safety people enjoyed in the East was replaced with the significantly worse social safety in the West. A lot of unemployment naturally followed, leading to the issues we see today.
@@fatmanfaffing4116 I believe (I hope) Ftroll is addressing how horribly understated the oppression of East Germany was in this video. This was more a softening of the horrors of socialism than it was a documentary on East Germany. Some facts can be found here, of course, but mixed in with a lot of minimizing the oppression and grossly overstating the "good".
@@SnapCracklePapa There was oppression for sure, how else does a totalitarian society exist? However the people got on with their lives. The treatment of osti's to this day is pretty poor in many parts of the west. When my mother went there in 2004 they had her ring up for reservations in the west because her German was more 'English' accented and not so obviously East German. When her sister called a couple of places there were no rooms, Mum called minutes later and all of a sudden there were vacancies. My cousin had to sleep in his car as his company paid west employees travel money for hotels but not the eastern ones they got when they bought out the company he worked for as a welder; and he was the best tradesman they had!
Stark? The Southern states of the former Confederacy are some of the most dynamic, fast growing states in the Union. Compare this with states like California, Illinois, and New York which people are leaving.
alot of the major differences there were made in the 50s to try and sugar coat history in an effort to unify against communism, truely batshit insane to think that alot of our modern problems come down to the red scare. though often i just go back to 1912 and remember america fucked itself and the world when they allowed woodrow wilson into the white house, worst president ever sole reason for segregation lasting as long as it did, caused ww1 to be dragged out which then caused ww2 by grievances, a generally disgusting human.
@@dennisweidner288 They're not leaving, they're spreading, like an untreated cancer. They vote socialist-woke BS on their state, ruin it and like a locust swarm, move to destroy the next place.
Yeah, let’s ignore how the people sound completely different. North bad south good! There’s no lasting division or cultural implications, you’ve demonstrated this masterfully.
@@CitizenSnips69 Actually, American regional differences are less than in most major European countries. In addition, you seem to be unaware of the massive shift of population from the north to the southern states and not just retirees. As well as the growing Hispanic population in southern states and not just Texas. There have been huge shifts in the southern population. As well as the loss of population in the north and substantial changes in California. And I suggest you look at indicators like high school graduation, math scores, infrastructure, and other important indicators. ome southern states like Florida and Texas now have higher scores than the once impressive states (New York, California, and Illinois).
The part of Gemany which was becoming the GDR wasn't mostly an agrarian economy. Saxony, Thuringia and Berlin were heavily industrialised, more than Bavaria. But the Soviets took so much as reparations, for example the second tracks of the railways. And what they didn't took many enterprises left/fled the Soviet Occupied Zone. Carl Zeiss, Siemens etc. Some of the West German Wuerschaftswunder was made possible by former East German companies. And, the coal and steel industry of Ruhrgebiet was important, but not the most important economic driver of Germany even before the war. Germany had the biggest chemical industry, two global players in electrics, was leading in machinery and optics, most of these companies wern't in the Ruhr Valley.
This wasn't reparations, they would just take it. Steal it. They did the same thing in Poland, and it's not like we owed Soviets reparations for them starting WW2 together with Germany LOL
All the Soviets took from them and treated them so terrible.. some people that lived in East Germany said that they understood because of the way the Hitler in Nazi regime was and because of what the German Nazi army did by invading Southern Poland and then continuing to go on later 2 years later and invade Russia, what's something that even in the civilians could understand... Understanding is one thing but it was so hard for them and I know the Americans and British were so worried about the people in East Germany and the Americans would do several Berlin and East GERMANY airdrops for a long time because at one time they could cross the border and make sure the people over in East Berlin in parts of East Germany had food and clothing and whatever they needed for babies.. naked drive that across the border but then once they weren't able to access the borders like they were they started flying over the border and dropping it. That was before the wall went up but it was 1945 and Berlin and most of Germany was blown to smithereens and West Germany took at least three or four years to clean the majority but likely took a lot longer in East Germany... I never could understand why the Soviet Union did this except they were out for revenge but I've been listening to World War II stories from soldiers who lived through it and made post-war journals and the German soldiers who were American pows in America, sometimes didn't go back to Germany and chose to stay in America for the American dream despite not being able to see their families. They said as former soldiers they believed if they went back to East Germany they might be treated brutally or sent off to the gulag and that's what worried them the most..Sad!! Recently I've been listening to one of these World War II stories where a panzer unit who worked with general Rommel in North Africa. Was captured as a POW in Africa by the British in North Africa and they were turned over to the Americans about a month later. These men were so obsessed with food because they had done without and they said that the Americans fed them so much better than the. British once they were an American custody.. after a couple weeks they were put on a ship and taken to America and initially were pows in Texas and then they moved to New Mexico... This one man wrote a story about how he didn't mind being a pow in America.. however it was getting close to 1946 and he knew that they were going to be leaving pretty soon and he would be repatriated to Germany and his parents and home was in East Germany and he couldn't stand the thought of living in Soviet occupied Germany. However miraculously he did it but he was one of a couple people to escape A POW camp in America and lived out west for a couple years working on farms with migrants to avoid capture but he was on the loose for 40 years before he was caught I still have not gotten up to 1985 or so when he was caught .. it's on UA-cam and it's World War 2 stories.. it is so interesting and fascinating to hear the stories from these German soldiers when they thought for Germany during World War II because none of them so we're part of the national German socialist Party but they talk about the Nazi soldiers often and the SS. The regular German soldiers did not like them at all . The SS soldiers were always treated and paid much better but they were so cruel to other people, and especially the Jews and people in other countries in Eastern Europe which was something the Third Reich soldiers couldn't understand except that they were just absolutely evil . It amazes me to know that even a lot of the German regular army had been brainwashed for years by the Nazi party but once they were fighting & that's when some of them didn't believe the propaganda anymore.. most of them that froze to death in Stalingrad and Russia in the winter of 1942 and 1943 honestly believed that Adolf Hitler and the Fuhrer would find some way to save them up until the day or so before they died.. How sad..
When I first moved to Berlin in 2010, I read about a case where a woman applied for a job and was rejected. When her materials were returned to her, the word "Ossi" was written on it. Clearly the employer didn't intend for her to see it, but it demonstrates that there was a sense of superiority and prejudice by people from the west toward the people from the east. In my opinion, there still is.
Please don't generalise. My parents and I left to move to West Germany before the wall came down and my parents had NO problems finding jobs, but they had to start from scratch since school degrees at the time were not accredited/acknowledged the same.
Regarding the employment: its was kinda illegal under communism to be unemployed. So the state just made up lots of useless positions to fill the quota. In Czechia they used to say: "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
That one got carried over well into the early 2000´s. They called it "Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen," back then and the goal basically was to create low wage jobs to keep people busy during times of economic crisis. Well that´s what officials framed it anyway. I think the goal was rather generating cheap disposable workforce, pretty much the same we are doing today with the "Jobcenter" and part time contracts.
@@Mightydoggo Both disposable workforce and propping up the numbers, cause if you're in one of those Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen (employment-creation measures) or the modern equivalent of zeitarbeiter "jobs" (temporary worker jobs), you're out of the unemployment figure, and that's seemingly all that matters, not your living standard (cause that'll be dogsjit either way)
Why are you twisting the meaning and essentially lying. The fact that unemployment is now surging is not a reason to slander the leftists and commies. All the same, the question will be posed bluntly by either commies or fascists. That's why you want to throw slop at the commie.
It's so weird that in my 40 years there's been new countries created, old countries dissolved, planets downgraded, new planets found, and sci-fi TV technology coming to life. Pretty much all my childhood lessons are now obsolete. Watching this was very informative and interesting, thank you for your work.
I watch this video on our holiday of reunification, (German Reunification Day) on October 3 and the video made me thoughtful. I was born in 1988, for me there is no difference in East and West Germany, I have many work colleagues with roots in East Germany. I can remember as a child watching the evening news where once a month the unemployment statistics were announced and East Germany still had well over 20% unemployment in the mid 1990s. I later started university and finished in 2017 and from my final semester almost a third went to East Germany to take very well paid jobs in the industrial sector. I never understood these injustices between West and East in pay scales, pension levels and many other aspects, may it have been economically necessary or not - but then it is not surprising that a part of the population still feels like 2nd class citizens 33 years after reunification? The lives of millions of people changed virtually overnight, which inevitably leads to radical changes. Whether this hasty reunification, with its mass unemployment, impoverishment and further depopulation and neglect of entire regions, was such a clever thing to do? This will be a very interesting aspect of history.
Ja, dass Wessis wie selbstverständlich in den Osten kommen und dort Ossis die Jobs wegnehmen, vor allem im Management, ist leider die Realität. Und der Trend verschärft sich sogar.
When you said you were born in 1988 and for you there is no difference between East and West it was immediately clear to me that you must have grown up in the West. I was born in 1992 in the East and I feel the difference, disrespect and disinterest to this day. I was made fun of for being an "Ossi" by "Wessis" all my life. Some Wessis still see the East as a cheap option for a weekend house at a lake. If you are interested please watch documentaries from MDR about the life of Eastgermans after the reunion, how the Treuhand destroyed the industry, forcing whole villages into suicide, how the Professors at Universities were replaced by Westgermans which is still having a huge impact on Academia in the East to this day. So much happened in the east that westgermans just turn a blind eye to or are even still complaining about having to pay for it all.
@@Lilly3oo4 ich bin Jg. 1985 und an der Uni in Thüringen, an der ich studiert habe, waren meines Wissens nach 100% aller Professoren Wessis. Die Oststudenten wurden meistens implizit diskriminiert, wenn sie sich nicht mit westdeutschen Neurosen gemein machen wollten. Ich habe meinen Master dann in den USA und Kanada gemacht, wo es plötzlich 1,0en hagelte. War keine Überraschung.
lol..."very well paid jobs"...yeah, because they don´t know shite. I do very little in my job and still outperform any of your oh so educated professors and graduates...by far.
@@Hunne2303 naja es ist einfach so, dass zugezogene Wessis den Ossis die Jobs wegnehmen. Für gut bezahlte Jobs werden Ossis oftmals nicht mal in ihren eigenen Bundesländern in Betracht gezogen und der Trend verschärft sich. Der Menschenrechtsreport zeigt auf, dass Ossis in ihrem eigenen Land de facto nicht alle Menschenrechte haben.
Thank you so much for talking about this. I was born in 2006 in the former DDR and many of the societal struggles that divide us from the people of the former BRD are still very impactful for us. It's crazy that I, someone who was born 17 years after the german reunion, still sees the struggles of the "other side". I see many western germans talk about how we are united again and how good it all is, but we are still othered. And even though I don't support the AFD, I kind of understand where their voters are coming from. We need change because we are the ones that were forgotten and left behind by our successful twin brother.
Saxony before the GDR was more industrialized than the Rheinland and was one of the richest regions in Germany. After having to deal with two deindustrializations (one after the war and one after reunification) its to be expected that the region is doing worse than the west
In the early 80's I worked on a project for a company that was founded by two men from Germany. Their first names were Bertholdt and Wolfgang. Both were originally from East Berlin. Bertholdt decided one night to stay in the west, hearing rumors of the border being closed. He never went back. Wolfgang however was still in East Berlin. Wolfgang however was one of the first to scale the original wall making it over alive. He was shot though in one of his ankles. He even showed me the wound. He said he was never particularly athletic and was never able to scale a wall that high after he made it to the west. He said what helped him over was being shot at.
I was born in 1993 so I honestly didn’t know much about east Germany. When I moved to Berlin, I lived on a street right by the park where there’s a memorial to the wall. Staring at the images of my own street just 30 years ago and realizing that even for most of my parents lifetime, you wouldn’t have been able to stand where I was standing. Thats when it really hit home to me for the first time how recent all of this was.
As an American born in 1981, I remember it all being a big deal in 1989 and then the fall of the USSR, but I had no context. In 1997, I went on a three-week trip across Europe and stayed in Berlin for a few days. Even then, Berlin seemed so different than it does today. Remnants of the wall still stood in some places, mostly museum/monuments I imagine, but I remember a sense of unease by the guards of the place and the fact there still were people watching over it says something. A lot of unresolved feelings.
There is a very interesting book, "Who Owns the East?", which describes in great detail how the East was flattened and the unspeakable role the trust played. Companies that still had a chance of surviving were either bought up cheaply as possible competition and then ruined or flattened outright. Some properties were formally given away for a “symbolic” 1 D-MARK. Then came the government's biggest blow against the East with the "restitution before compensation" regulation. Overnight, many people in the East lost their roofs over their heads because many properties and houses were returned to their former owners from the West. If you look at it that way, the West has plundered the East. To this day, Ossi has remained a second-class citizen in many areas. Whether it's salaries or pensions. In political terms, the East itself is described by the government as "Dark Germany" and as politically backward. The federal government is firmly convinced that the enemies of democracy live in the east. The fact that Germany is still separated can be seen from the fact that there is still a representative for the East in the government, so people are also officially denying the East its independence and self-determination from the government level. Even in official language, the German administration still calls it the “new federal states” or “accession area”. Even the economic, energy and sanctions policies of the current government disadvantage the East more than the West. The inaction in the "NS 2" case hit Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the current government's policies destroyed jobs. Or the petrochemical plant in Schwedt, the government's sanctions policy is destroying jobs there and endangering the industrial location there. From there, 90 percent of the East and its gas stations are supplied with diesel and gasoline. Even a large part of the heating oil for the wider area comes from there. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt have had an unemployment rate of 20 to 23 percent for years
"Politically backward"? So much so that they collectively picked their leader from that "Dark Side" and kept re-electing her for 16years (and more if she had wanted to)... Yea, that sounds about what one would do when considering a person "policitally backward".
@robbypolter6689@ Für mich als Pole ist das, was Sie schreiben, schockierend, denn wir haben Deutschland immer als national und sozial sehr stark integriert gesehen. Neoliberale politische Ideen haben Deutschland wahrscheinlich mehr geschadet als Polen, denn hier gibt es zwar auch eine scharfe politische und kulturelle Spaltung, vor allem im Osten (bei uns auch Osten ! 🙃🙂 ), aber ohne die gleichen Folgen wie in Deutschland, wo der Identitätscharakter des Konflikts ein bisschen an den des US-Bürgerkriegs erinnert.
Returned the houses to original houses of 50 years before? 😯😯😯 🥺😯1:07 the attitude to flu vaccn explain everything the difference between capitalism and communism, in capitalism you know you can't trust other people because everyone need to make profit doing bad things to others, that's why you can't trust medicine. In communism the medicine was for the people not for the profit.
Certainly sounds like the reunification was done with little to no consideration for the People. Poorly planed and executed. Was there Any time for the East to "Acclimate " to the laws and/or ways of the West? Seems illogical to ignore the education and degrees of the East Citizens. Should have been a Happy time. Sounds rather punitive instead.
Which European country doesn't? How was the extension of Europe into North and South America, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tasmania achieved? I doubt if the original inhabitants welcomed their enslavement.
Yea the sad thing is that ppl outside Germany only ever think of Nazis and WW2 (and Schnitzel and Lederhosen). But those were just 12 years. That's not even remotely all of its history. There's a debate as to when "german" history starts, but if I had to throw a dart on a board full of dates, I'd aim at Charlemagne. To whom present-day Germany has a more or less unbroken cultural connection. Which gives Germany's history a length of abt 1200 years from the entirety of the HRE via 19th century shenanigans to the north-german confederation founded in 1866/67, which through all of the changes in name, government type and political ideology is still the same legal entity as today's Federal Republic of Germany. And the 12 years of Nazi dictatorship were just one percent of this history. Granted, a terrible, bloody and despicable percent that NEVER should repeat if I had any say in the matter, but still just one percent. In the 30-years-war germans bashed each others' heads in for, you guessed it, thirty years, for religious and later political reasons, with other nations chiming in. This could easily be called the zero'th world war considering the devastation caused, but hardly anyone ever talks about it.
@@invalid8774A nation was not allowed to form for over a thousand years. The people are very old. Our ancestors repelled the Romans. Other nations in Europe look down on several hundred years of colonization and slavery.
It's the balance between Freedom and Security. People who are free want security. People who are secure want freedom. I met a Czech actress in 1980 named Magdalena Buznia - a striking, dark-haired lady with big eyes and a great singing voice. She'd been a member of a theatre in Prague where she played different parts continuously throughout the year. She was never out of work. Always performing. But she had to play the parts assigned to her - not always the best parts - and yearned to be a star. But in Communist theatre there no stars. Everyone was "equal." She defected to the West - risking her life - and wound up in France...and then London, England, where she ended up singing for money on underground tube stations. She was granted asylum in England but, of course, found it almost impossible to get work as an actress. After several years, thoroughly disillusioned by Western society, she went back to Czechoslovakia.
It's not those who have security that want freedom. It's those who don't have freedom that want freedom, same with security. This is a fundamentally flawed premise. Freedom and security aren't a zero-sum game. Absolute freedom is something that's exclusionary with security, but absolute freedom isn't also what people want, because absolute freedom is hell for 99.9999999999999% of people. Communist society wasn't about "Security", it was about absolute, totalitarian control over everyone's lives. Are breadlines freedom? Is getting your life ruined if you accidentally say something someone doesn't like security? Is your neighbors snitching on you security? Is constant, unrelenting lies about what life could be if you could move out security? I personally wouldn't say so.
Good video, but it’s pretty much a TLDR version of the book - which is great, by the way, and I definitely recommend the reading. Two things that you could have shown to exemplify the remaining differences of the two Germanys still today, when you show the demographics maps: the public transport map of Berlin - building tunnels and U-Bahs was too expensive, so the DDR prioritised trams, which are still predominant in the east side of the city -, and a satellite picture of the city. The street lights have different colors in the east and the west due to the different lamps the DDR and the FGR used
Just wanted to say the same :) the video itself is great, but from its title I expected more details about how Germans feel about that period now and how exactly that past affected the people of today. Though once again, the video is still interesting, just not what was expected, imho
If you’re talking about that “Beyond the Wall” book, I agree with you there. It’s a pretty good read, but I’m NGL here: it’s also gonna take me quite a while to finish it because it’s pretty hefty too.
I was half way through university here in Canada when the Berlin Wall fell, and even here it was breathtaking and unbelievable to see. I hope it doesn't sound frivolous to say that, as a young person at the time, I was jealous. A moment in history that would be remembered for hundreds, maybe thousands of years was going on, and I wished I could be there and be part of it. It's still inspiring to watch, all these years later. If the Wall could come down and Germany be reunited, what _isn't_ possible?
This is probably my favourite thing you've ever done. Other topics have been more novel and urgent for me to learn about, but this documentary and the way it was put together (interviews on different levels, maps, time-specific video footage, on-location filming, etc.) succeeded in putting me, the viewer, in the shoes of the East Germans under and post the GDR. -Something I never realised I should have known I needed. Lastly, I just have to praise the nuance with which you treat the topic of ideology and economic systems without downright singing the praises of the capitalist turn or drowning in Ostalgie. The street interviews also really help with that.
I visited East Germany and Berlin with my little boy this Christmas. It was gorgeous. The people were kind and wonderful. All of Germany was really. I found it interesting that East Berlin was far cleaner than West Berlin. East got the lion’s share of problems just because they were East. But the beauty of the place was stunning.
I've read countless books and watched countless docus about the old DDR. Its highly facinating. But what is most interesting is that every time i read and watch something made by people that didnt actually live there its always ONLY negative. Its all just Stasi, Police, Communism is bad, everyone was poor and so on. There is a german couple running the grocery store not far away and they both grew up in DDR. They both said the same thing, it was a worry free life. They had a place to live, family values were highly regarded, education, work and such was all there for everyone. The intensive care doctor i had once to grew up outside of East Berlin, her only complaint was that she couldnt get a book she wanted as a kid. I highly reccomend reading the book "Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?" if you are interested in the story. It is written by two people that lived there, one englishman even. Its the most nuanced non biased litterature about life and inner workings of the state i know.
ha. People still say that about in Poland and the PRL. Everyone did have a job and a home and family unit was closer.... but everyone was poor and oppressed together and that's why the family and community were so strong. In the end communism was never a paradise but capitalism has enough shortcomings for some people to think that it was.
Thanks for the book recommendation! So far, my knowledge about DDR has been limited by Lindemann Sr.'s book and "Good bye, Lenin", but I really want to know more.
It was so great they had to build a wall aorund them to protect them from imigrants flooding their country... Yes there where a lot of loosers of the systemchange and naive people after the wall came down...But no! Die DDR war am Ende!!!!
I lived in Leipzig for a few months and I saw this division clearly in people. I'm used to this concept because in Italy there are similar dynamics (North vs South for example), but it still rose a lot of questions for me. I'm glad I found this video which answered to a lot of my questions, thank you man!
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@@DeadHawk23 it is not ad-friendly. I you want to make the maximum money out of your video, you have to censor it. But it is not too bad, this video is of little quality anyways.
It should be remembered that the FRG Government heavily subsidized West Berlin as well as financially incentivize those who volunteered to live there? I was in Berlin in the Spring of 1984. Extraordinary. I traveled through 'Checkpoint Charlie' from the FRG West into the GDR East. What a sight to behold. Remarkable. Where the FRG had 'quickly' reassembled and rebuilt what appeared to be a prefabricated modern city, the GDR rebuilt much of its destroyed infrastructure painstakingly, brick by brick from the ground up. They had cleaned the 'brick and stone' rubble and reconstructed each building brick by brick and stone by stone. Many of them built back to their once previous splendor. It was a sight to behold. Inspiring. The truly memorable thing for me however, which they both share, is the exquisite fragrance drifting from further East in the spring time. The 'Berlin Air'. I shall never forget it and for that alone, I would return. Sublime. One last thing ... Blue Jeans? They were the symbol of the 'Working Man' in the United States. They were intended as strictly utilitarian cotton clothing made to withstand hard work and toil. They only became fashionable in the '60's. I still have 2 pairs which are almost 20 years old. I still wear them!
I’m American & I had a friend who was an East German university professor. When the wall came down the East German teachers all lost their jobs & west German teachers were brought in. She had to return to university in the West & receive western education & degrees to teach again. She decided to get psychology training & became a therapist instead. It was many years before she was allowed to practice.
Which I find normal. Some communist indoctrination lingered in me for years after "89. I hated it, and still do. Yet now, remembering the long hours of waiting in ques for bread , or sleeping with frozen windows on the inside, etc I wonder whether hate or pity is appropriate.
That is not true! I was born in East Germany and went to school when the unification took place. All of my teachers continued working and there was not a single West German teacher at my school ever. Also, my father was a teacher for higher education ("Erweiterte Oberstufe - EOS") and he also did not face any problems when continue working for his school. And since there had always been a shortage of teachers, it would have never been possible to replace all the East German teachers with ones from West Germany anyways. The only East German teachers who might have faced problems were those who worked as former Stasi informants (spying on their colleagues) or those who were ideologically compromised (still holding on to socialism/communism).
@@AndeRabe I only tell you what my friend told me. I’ve never been to Germany. She is the only person I knew from East Germany. Maybe I misunderstood, but I don’t think so. She spoke very little English & I speak no German. We used an English-German dictionary to communicate or her son translated. I sponsored her son for a year as a foreign exchange student. This was the 1997-1998 school year. She stayed with us for a week. She was going to university in Kuln at the time. She was originally from Leipzig where she taught; her son still lived there with his dad.
@@TrixRN On university teachers, aka professors you are right, but it's more all the economists, philosophers, historians, all the subjects with political influence, not in nature science. Math professors could stay. If you talk about teachers and school years, people think on elementary and junior high. I think that's just a missunderstanding. A Professor is not called a teacher in german, and a university is not called a school.
Very informative and thought provoking. I travelled across Germany in September 1993, there was a stark contrast when crossing the old border. I remember there was what would've been a very pretty, small town near Jena, but it looked like nothing had been tended to since the end of the war, making it look grubby and unloved. You could tell where the border had been by the watchtowers that still stood. There was a lot of road building going on at the time. There were few places to stay in the former East Germany, but when I found an English speaking resident of Jena, I found the family group really friendly. My girlfriend and I ended up staying in a 5 star hotel, there wasn't anything else really.
I can still recall being there as a student in 1988. We were hosted by the Hoch Schule Fur Economia and a member of the East German Planning Committee, Peter Krueger. Peter and I had great idealogical debates and the merits of our economic and political systems. I know he died a few years after the breakup and it was a lesson on how much of a challenge it must have been integrating the ideologues of the DDR. For years I attempted to contact Krueger’s widow who was living in West Berlin however she would never communicate with me. I guess memories of Peter and the past were just painful to recall.
I lived four several years in the DDR, just before the fall of the wall. For me being a young adult I entered a world like an adventure. Worked, lived and got befriended with east germans of my age, Helped several people flee the country trough Hungary. Nowadays I still work for a German company and meet east and west Germans. I can confirm that up to today they still don't like each other. In my opinion east germans had a better way of life. More social and more adventures. They had to get creative because of the system. A lot of bad things happened after the fall, initiated by rich people from the west. About that you can't find so much on the internet. It shaped the situation from today were there is a rich and poor part of Germany.
I landed in Berlin in 2017 and was shocked how depressing that city was. After 1.5 years, I had to move to other cities to really experience the rest of Germany. Even today, I am in shock how Berlin as the capital is still underperforming comparing to other cities. I am not optimistic for that city to change.
Berlin is underperforming because its governed by the leftists (SPD / LINKE) for ages, secondly since some years it has a massive issue with eastern-arabic Clans and thirdly its infrastructure is very old and rarely gets modernized. Its the capital but still, ancient metro system, no up2date internet access in every building, highest crime rates in the country and very likely highest homeless rate too.
compared to east german states and cities its actually overperforming. berlin is attracting a lot of young well educated people. the growth rate of the real estate prices is the largest among all german cities, during the past years. most german unicorns are from Berlin. i can totally undesrtand that some parts of berlin can give you a depressing vibe but the citys performance is not that bad. the gdp per capita is about the german average and the gdp grew by 4.9% in 2022, so its basically outperforming any city or region in germany.
@@supernanny8375 it's actually not the most dangerous City in germany, its Frankfurt am Main, but still they have a lot of crime goin on no doubt about that
I'm English and have lived in East Germany for 18 years, I like the the community spirit that is here, people I find are less materialist.I have found something that would exist in the UK .
Don't forget that East Germany had a wonderful national anthem that should not have gone unused after unification! If you haven't heard of it yet, you should to listen to it.
Auferstanden aus Ruinen, Deutscher unser Faterland. "Standing on the Ruins", it's a beautiful yet sad song about finding the national way again after destruction. A much better anthem for a new kind of Germany than that silly thing about Germany #1 (vs the State for context) and verses about their great wine and girls.
Whatever the quality of it was, it is on a fundamental level not suitable as an anthem This is simply because it would define Germany solely in relation to WW2(the ruins). Ideally an anthem should have somewhere that describes the country in a better way, something that transcends time. Eg. the United Kingdom defines itself by it's king. And yes saying your country is number is pretty cool.
Oh it has been used after the unification of germany. For example in 1995 when BRD President Roman Herzog visited Brazil. To compare: Imagine the US President visits Brasil and as a welcome the Confederate States Anthem is played.
I lived in west germany when the wall came down. They very next day, the roads were flooded with 'Yugo' model cars. They majority of east german drove these clunkers. There were hundreds of them broken down and abandoned on the autobahn. It was a huge culture shock for most of them. They lived in a rationed world, drove crappy cars, if any at all, and had trouble finding work. So many of them returned to east germany, were the culture shock wasnt as severe, as it took time for east germany to adjust to a new way of living. The first taste of capitalism that some of them got, was selling pieces of the Berlin wall. There would be dozens of people setting up stands just to sell chuncks of concrete, anywhere they could set up a stand. That went on for a long time after the wall came down.
Gosh, I was almost tearful watching those scenes again from November 9th 1989. On that day, I remember coming home from work, putting on the TV and watching it all unfold over the course of the evening - whilst opening a lot of bottles of wine. I was born in the UK in 1955 and had never known anything other than a divided Europe. It was a very, very big deal.
Thing is, on the surface Germany looks socially accepting, but there is still prejudice with others who are different. If you don't speak German, look different or came from a different background, you will never, ever be totally accepted. Of course, nobody will say that to your face. We were in a group with mostly Germans. Someone introduced someone as from East Germany. I thought that was odd, they never introduced everyone based on where they came from but they had to point out that someone was from East Germany, even after decades when East Germany doesn't exist anymore separately. That shows that there is still a divide. The physical wall came down, but it did not came down mentally and psychologically.
The exception is if you speak Arabic or Turkish, then you'll be accepted with open arms in the West. If you speak Arabic you'll even get free shit! So, if you want to be accepted, grow a beard, learn Arabic, convert to Islam and try to blend in with the middle Eastern and African refugees.
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 Thing is - you might also be introduced as "From Bavaria" in Northern Germany (at least at the time when I grew up there), or "From up North" when in Bavaria - it's not just an "East vs. West" thing. Being unified to the German empire comparatively late in history from various basically independent smaller realms, the regional spirit is very strong in many parts of Germany. That being said, a lot of Germans tend to be rather xenophobic. They tend to stay aways from things or people unknown to them. It can be overcome, but in comparison to other nations or cultures, it does take some time.
They are currently trying to change the law to protect east germans from discrimination as atm they fall legally through the cracks of protection, as they are neither a different ethnicity nor a different sex or religion. Its pretty bad.
If you find them so "xenophobic", why don't you find somewhere else to live? And how do you think white people that settle down in the third world typically get treated? Hell, even just white people backpacking through third world countries routinely get robbed, r@ped, kidnapped, or murdered. I'm sick of these double standards whereby only white people are scrutinized for their behavior while you lie by omission by neglecting to mention that there is no civilization on Earth as welcoming to outsiders and people living in unnatural or strange ways as the West, for better or for worse.
As a west German, I don't hope it's that bad and future generations get better conditions. The division in the USA appears much deeper and more violent, especially seeing how it's generationally perpetuated beyond infrastructure debt. Best case the next generation of Germans will stop judging each other that way, thanks to resumed family contact, exchange programs and shared experiences from the evening stop motion to educational access.
@@fionafiona1146 Нереально. Восточных немцев можно было ориентализировать, если бы сохранилась промышленность. Но западные немцы уничтожили все, поэтому восточные немцы сейчас - это бичи, которые не смогут стать частью восточной деспотии, потому что они не способны к предпринимательской активности. Они даже как рабочую силу могут продать себя только западным немцам..
I remember my dad going to a tech convention in West Germany, it was the mid 80s. My father was in his late 20s. His company created not just a prototype, but a functioning lightbulb that could work for 24 months non stop. His management expected a great success. And the interest was there, people came , looked at the specs "Interesant, interesant..." and walk away. My dad was devastated after 2 days with no contracts or sells. So much that it must have shown on his face, because an older dude from a BASF stand came to him and asked what was going on. So my father, throwing councious to the wind (and drinking a few Korns) layed it all out . Great product, cheaper then western counterparts , high standard and yet no one wants to buy it. And then the BASF employee explained to my father the stores are not interest in selling one great light bulb (or a box of them) once every 2 years. That efficient use of resources is not the goal in western economy. That they would rather have a light bulb that last 2-3 months, and my dad just couldn't get his head around the idea . And the dude just laughed. Bought a few boxes of the bulbs for magazines with fertilizers they were just finishing building, by which he saved my dads ass. Or rather he was less punished and sent to work in Marocco 84-88.
There's a lot of misguided information in this video. It attributes the decline in agricultural outputs to "collectivization", completely ignoring the tens of millions of people who had just died in WW2, most of them rural peasants from both the Soviets, and the Germans.
Wow, you spend 90% of the video talking about the history and almost no time actually going over the point of the video... It's literally in your titlecard. Why is Germany still divided? Is this some kind of clickbait?! I see a lot of those analysis videos with an interesting concept but it falls short, because it then procedues to take up so much time talking about something that isn't really to the point of the video. I understand that you want to explain the historical background to lead into your question, but I think it would be better to focus more on the problems facing Germany in the modern day. Why do people feel the country is still divided? What might be possible reasons for resentment between east and west? Or did you just want to make a history video about East Germany? If so I think its a good video, but maybe change the title :3
I've been bingeing your videos for the past few hours and lemme tell ya, it's definitely reignited my want to understand history. The stories that led to the events unfolding on the news today. I know it seems silly but you do it so effortlessly.
Nice deep dive! Ever since I saw the movie “Goodbye Lenin” in school I’ve been fascinated by the phenomena of reunification. This covers so much more than the niches of Ampelmännchen 🚦 and Ostalagie for pickles or other odd groceries that disappeared.
@@ThePresentPast_Where did you get the number that Soviets r@ped 2 million German women, Fascists propaganda? Fascist Germans actually did that in the Eastern Front and it was illegal to commit that in the red army, not saying it didn't happen at all but it was punished in the red army.
I see some Germans try to excuse the deaths of 17 million soviets by mentioning the death of barely a million German civilians Does this mean 1 German is worth 17 soviets?
yup when russia comes to germany at some point in the near future, i wonder whose side these scheissossis wil be on@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan i mean it cant be fun to be a second class citizen in your own country
Interesting video. I was a British soldier based at Bergen Hohne during the mid 80's to 1990. I was driving on the Autobahn late at night, when I encountered a pair of dimly lit red lights ahead of me, I pulled over to pass the car and did not recognise it or the plate? This was the Trabant, when I got back to camp, we were told that the wall had fallen! Es war unglaublich!
Small correction - monument of the soviet soldier in Berlin isn't "crushing nazis" with its sword - it is symbolically lowering the sword on foreign land. It's a memorial to the fact that the war has ended, not the glorification of its results.
I was stationed in Berlin when the wall came down. The younger generations in West Berlin ages from 16-35 were living a fun spirited party life. And I still have contact with people from when I was there many years back. I was there 88-90 and was some of the most memorable times of my life.
I was in high school (in the US) when reunification happened. I remember thinking it was a bad idea, since the two countries must have been so very different - I thought it simply wouldn't work. But somehow it seems to have produced a functioning society. It's nice to see some of that discussed here, showing some of the difficulties with squashing these two places together. I suppose it may have been for the best in the long run but it's not without its issues.
@@eeeee11235 No idea. I don't remember ever doing anything to verify myself - I don't make content or anything. Maybe because I've had this account for so long?
This is such a fascinating topic. I feel like focusing on Germany, from a German perspective would be a great direction for this channel. I'm fascinated by the GDR and how it managed to maintain a relatively good standard of living within a communist system and as much as we focus on the repression and stagnation, there were some undeniably positive aspects of that society.
Maintaining "a good standard of living" in communist East Germany worked as long as the people practiced self-censorship, minded their own business, and didn't ask difficult questions.
I grew up in the region of the former GDR in the aftermath of the reunification. The problems after the reunification had a significant impact for my family and my upbringing. There is a lot of problems in the East today which are a direct result of the events of reunification. Also, even though I am born after the wall came down, I still faced discrimination due to the fact that I am an East German Woman, not just in the west also in the east when it comes to career paths. However, thank you for that video as it reminds me of my stay in the US where I also shared and explained that backround to a lot of people.
i was on a three week program as an intern in east germany a couple years ago and worked at a Mercedes dealership. Something the old time mechanics told me was to look for how many newer and better models were around. Their explanation was that the people during DDR who didnt have access to luxury items would sometimes go a bit further than just to meet their needs when making bigger purchases. spend that little extra if you know what i mean. It was interesting, but i never heard much about that mindset since
You could have also shown one of the pictures from berlin seen from above at night. East and west Berlin still use lamps with different colours, you can perfectly see the separation even today.
I was born in 1972 and visited Berlin, both east and west the year behore the wall fell. This video is unique in such a way it probably is the first to 'use' the people a point of view.. Thank for you for making it. It's like reliving history I saw happen when I was much younger. Congratulations!
Imagine what would happen to north and south korea after a reunification. The economic and education disparity between the two is off the charts compared to germany
People forget that West Germany was also a surveillance state and unlike with East Germany, that one was never reconciled. It's actually amazing how little information there's about West Germany compared to East Germany. And vast majority of material on West Germany focuses exclusively on economic miracle.
absolutely: the East German anthem is an absolute masterpiece of extraordinary beauty, while the Western anthem that was imposed upon reunification (annexation) is just censored rubbish....
@Dummigame But it categorically wasn't an annexation, do you know what that word means? It was a reunification, with the support of the common German in both states.
@@titanomachy2217 It is de facto an annexation though. East Germany was not a succesor state, but rather absorbed into West Germany. Everything about the East was exterminated and replaced by West German ones. Sure the East Germans were ecstatic when so called reunification happened, but soon enough they were tremendously disappointed at how it was carried out. People lost their jobs, the country was deindustrialized, their voices got ignored as they were collectively called the "Jammerossis". Regardless how you see it, "die Wende" (as how it is still commonly called) was never an equal merge of two states, but an annexation of a defeated state by a victorious one.
This is complete nonsense. Before the war, Austria was an independent state. It was a former part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which disintegrated into successor states such as my country (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Austria, etc.
@aleszitka Austria consists of German people. All the Germans voted for the Anschluß. Since then we have a united Deutsches Reich. The Deutsche Reich was split into three states with mainly Germans in them: the BRÖ, the BRD and the DDR.
@@maxsievers8251 Free elections: ...a day later, Austria was incorporated as the so-called East Mark into the German Empire. In a referendum held less than a month later, 99.7 percent of the population approved this move. However, the vote was held in an atmosphere of intimidation of the opponents, with more than 70 thousand people inconvenient to the regime already being arrested as a precaution before the vote, another 200 thousand Austrians were deprived of the right to vote. it reminds me of the current russian elections in eastern Ukraine
@@aleszitka Lol the elction in Austria is nowhere near the Russian election in Donbass. Search for Saar Protectorate referendum, a referendum in today German State of Saarland in the aftermath of WW2 on whether Saar was to join France or Germany. Conducted in an area that are dominated by ethnic German people. And that is exactly what happened in Ukraine Eastern Ukraine ever since the inception of 'Ukraine' as a country, the area has been dominated by ethnic Russian people. So stop kicking a dead horse cause even if the referendum was held neutrally by independent observers, the Russia still has a higher chance to win
Another thing the DDR did to show superiority was build the Fernsehturn. They purposefully built it so tall to dominate the Berlin skyline as symbolism that socialism dominates. But the most interesting GDR/DDR fact of them all...the Palast der Republik lives on through the Burj Khalifa in Dubai! About 35K tonnes of steel from it was shipped to the UAE for the Burj Khalifa. The Palast der Republik opened in 1976 and was the main gathering place of the DDR in East Berlin. Besides parliament, it also had restaurants, a performing arts center, a post office, a casino, galleries, a bowling alley, and even an indoor swimming pool! The Palast was demolished in the 2000s to rebuild the old Stadtschloss. The Palast may be gone from Museum Island, but across from the former site is the former State Council Building, which houses the ESMT Berlin campus. They've been quite passionate about preserving its history. The interior has a large glass socialist mosaic by Walter Womacka. The interior also has a ballroom with a preserved GDR emblem made of one million mosaic stones. And the building's entrance is actually a balcony kept from the ORIGINAL Stadtschloss and was added to the State Council Building. The balcony is significant because it was the balcony Karl Liebknecht, who led the Spartacist uprising declared a new socialist republic in 1918. It's also the same balcony the Kaiser declared war against Russia
When you got to the part about the blue jeans, I was reminded of the time back in... probably 1989 or 1990 when a Soviet ship put into port in Boston (which in and of itself was a big deal). I remember a newspaper article about how the sailors were allowed to go ashore, and all they did was eat McDonald's and go to the mall - where they bought out the every store's entire stock of jeans. No reports of anyone trying to defect; they just wanted Big Macs and Levi's.
Bin Wessi und lebe (+arbeite) seit 2015 in Ostberlin. Danke für die emphatische Dokumentation. Ja - ich habe Freunde im Osten gefunden und Menschen kennengelernt, die die Stasi verteidigen. Ich kenne Westberliner die Events und Besuche im Ostteil der Stadt vermeiden; ja auf mich herabsehen, dass ich mich so gut eingelebt habe. Immer noch "komisch". Wenn man jemanden neu kennenlernt, wird innerhalb der ersten 15 Min. klar, ob Ossi oder Wessi, durch "ganz normale" Konversation 😂.
To be honest, the characterization of Katja Hoyders book as "brilliant" is an opinion which is quite exclusively held by you and Katja Hoyer. German historians have almost unanimously given devastating reviews of the book.
@@cumuluscloud3854 Sascha-Ilko Kowalczuk ist z.B. kein Wessi. Die Kritiken, die ich meine, beziehen sich ganz klar auf ihre historische Methodik und nicht auf Hoyers These, dass es in der DDR vielleicht doch ein bisschen schöner war als allgemein angenommen.
Actually North Korea wasn't living that bad when USSR was giving them money. And before 80s, North Korea had better life quality than South Korea. So North Korea and DDR are quite similar. The fact you couldn't travel probably brought down DDR more than anything. And women were working cause DDR lacked working force.
As a Bavarian living close to the border its crazy how you an spot the differences - Small ones like fewer stores and places to eat than in bavaria but also large ones like fewer people, less industry, smaller streets and older houses. I only recently learned that a big part of real estate and industry in the former east is actually owned by people from the former west. This and the low wages are reasons why many people move. But fewer people also lead to fewer workers for existing or new businesses. Fewer businesses slow or even stop local development. Sadly the politicians somehow could not really fix this issue. The big cities are booming, but mostly "West-germans" profit as they bought properties at low prices for many years.
this is basically how you could describe whats happens in the US and those affected by socioeconomic factors because of their race and the struggle to make it out of low income neighborhoods
Watched from Old Harbour Jamaica 🇯🇲 and I remember when the wall 🧱 came down and have a relative visiting Germany at the time and he carried home a piece of the wall 🧱.
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 They more specifically said that east german isnt a distinct ethnicity from west german so it doesnt trigger the protection against discrimination. They are working on adapting the defining clauses to protect east germans now.
Very cool. I'm old enough to remember seeing the Berlin wall come down on TV. I was a teen at the time. I've been to Munich in 1990 with my girlfriend and her parents. Jeremy Clarkson went to Germany in a series called "Jeremy Clarkson meets the Neighbors". He contrasted the difference back in the 90's. Thank you.
Thank You! This video offered a look at East Germany that was not offered to Americans in school. When I think of Germany, I think of masters in automotive engineering and manufacturing. My best built cars were German (Ford) and or Japanese. I have never had an opinion on East Germany because I had no information to form an opinion. While I vividly remember the wall coming down, it was little more than major news story to me.
@kevinsellsit5584 I don't recall being told anything about East Germany. The media addressed such topics, but there was no real effort in the schools the way it was in Communist countries.
So, you're saying everything I do remember about East Germany is from the James Bond movies Dad took me to that mom felt we shouldn't see...You may be correct Dennis. ;) Although, if you were lucky enough to be in my 5th grade California public school class, I was the kid that brought de-classified films of missile testing at white sands. Dad had one of those jobs that "I'd tell you but then I'd have to..." Thinking back, you have to wonder what the mothers thought when little Jenny was asked "what did you learn in school today"? That being said, I can't think of any violence whatsoever at that school. Strange how things have changed.@@dennisweidner288
@@chaosXP3RT Who does not know that? Ford was also a key player in building American industry that became the Arsenal of Democracy--a key factor in the destruction of the great totalitarian powers in World War II.
7:30 really? i mean, at least use some real sowiet music like "The hymn of the defender of the fatherland" or the "national anthem". the Lyrics of the C&C song are just rediculous and in the context of such an important topic kinda in a bad way.... just my two cents.
Wow! Such an amazing video! I born in '97, am East-German and I can still feel the wall in the head, even in my own. If you're growing up in the East, like me, you get told the narrative and the teachers "help" with their own history. This development will be still going on probably for a long time, until there are no generations, who knew the wall. All the economic force that was taken out of East-Germany, needed and needs to be rebuilt. If you're looking outside the bigger cities in the East, a lot of times, there is almost nothing, just agriculture and people who are moving to the cities. So no economy there. That was destroyed, when West-Germany took over the East
~8:44 Funny extra detail about that photo, that soldier wasn't actually wearing looted watches; part of the kit for Soviet soldiers at the time was a wrist-mounted compass, so that's why it looks like he was wearing two watches. However, Soviet higher-ups didn't realize this, hence the image being edited.
@@optikum100 It's factually a wrist mounted compass that was part of the equipment for Soviet troops, what seems "obvious" to you doesn't really matter lol
Thank you very much for this Jochem. My uncle told me stories of when he visited East Germany on his Triumph Bonneville, from England and noted how the differences were very stark. For instance, he went to book into a hotel, that looked like something out of a 1950's spy/detective movie - as was the desk manager. Ordinary streets looked tidy, quiet and deserted, and very noticeably stuck in the 1960's - especially seeing the cars. East of Checkpoint Alpha, I've always felt this area was both fascinating and scary, especially as an outsider that could be viewed with some suspicion. Even today, I get the feeling that those who are not German - particularly East German might get a hard time. However, post-war Eastern Europe has always had me intrigued, and its always been interesting to see how far the different regions progressed.
I am East Germany, born in 1976. Something raised my attention in the video: "A third of the working class gets to go to university". How can that be if 95% only had 10 year school education (POS) and only 5% were able to get an "Abitur" at a 12 year school (EOS)?
Ich bin in der DDR aufgewachsen, zum Zeitpunkt der Wiedervereinigung war ich noch bei der NVA. Die Wiedervereinigung wurde meiner Ansicht nach, nie richtig aufgearbeitet und der 2WK auch nicht. Nach der Wiedervereinigung wurde die Wirtschaft durch die Treuhand noch mehr ruiniert. Gewinner / Profiteure waren andere.
I'm glad you referenced the war refugees and how they were dispersed between West and East Germany following the war. My mother was a refugee from Danzig. Her mother died near the end of the war, while her father was somewhere else working as an electrician. The surving family members fled west and were separated along the way. There were five children in her family. My mother ended up in West Germany and was raised by the family she fled west with from Danzig. Two of her siblings ended up in Leipzig, East Germany and reuinted with their father in 1949. My mother was also reunited with her father in Leipzig but after a short time returned to the family that was raising her as their own kn West Germany even though she retained her family name. An older brother was hung as a deserter in February, 1945. Her oldest brother was also a soldier in the whremacht and ended up in Hamburg, West Germany. My mother ended up working on an American Army base were she worked as a translator and met my father.
As an American, painting Soviets as bad people when Germany in WW2 invaded Soviet Union is trying to revise history. Pls read more before trying to revise history.
So why Germany is still divided? Just a few minutes cover opinions on this topic, the rest of the video just illuminates the surface of the storyhistory which is already known. I was hoping for a more thorough analysis to gain a better understanding of the current situation
True, it requires a part 2 of equal length addressing this issue on different angles using various perspectives from the local people there and how things still remain bifurcated. This video does not do the title justice.
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The ameriken colony needs liberation again. Hope China will do it this time!
Shit, why does my adblocker not work on posts like this?!
Can the next episode tell about nations whose territories were divided into many countries because of colonizer like
1. Malay tribe is divided into 4 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ).
2.Pashtuns tribe is divided into 2 countries(populations Pakistan and Afghanistan)
3.Kurds tribe is divided into 4 countries ( Turkey, Iran , Iraq and Syria)
4.Hausa tribe tribe is divided into 2 countries (Nigeria and Niger)
5.Yoruba tribe tribe is divided into 3 countries (Benin , Nigeria , Togo )
great one, very well done - we lived also in a town with a invisible curtain cause in that part we had dutch forces that were part of the nato in preparation of a forward defense in case of a soviet invasion just 100 km east of the dutch border to germany. And if those dutch soldiers wanted to stay abroad with the higher payments then their kids had to go to the german gymnasium after 10th grade hence we suddenly got dutch classmates that had learned to speak german but needed to learn to write over night or within a summer cause from 11 th grade on they were on a german school. Great time, great memories of a partly similiar idea of living and learning , but also on quite the opposite, a very laid back living style . Hard for many to imagine but we were rowing and had some dutch guys which also learned rowing late, but fast and could participate in the national competition and what not. The only issue and especially in rowing is that a four or quad can only start their training when all 4 have arrived in time.
But the big difference was the idea of punctuality cause that could be quite a difference which means some were even more punctual than germans but a few were the most laid back you can imagine - like reggae man. Deadly for a crew that wanted to compete so it were hard sometime to get along cause we had the choice between a strong Zander or a weaker Klaas and Edwin, where Klaas and Edwin would be there in time and Zander only some times, usually late with hilarious stories.
When the Berlin wall fell the dutch government did no longer want to spent the huge amount of additional salaries and closed the garrison soon, but many of those I went to school with tried to study in german or to stay and stayed even till today. But it was a clash of 2 cultures in the class room and activities or hobbies we spend which suddenly appeared cause we had not noticed the dutch before cause they have had their own elementary and what not schools till 10th grade and lived in their own suburb or area. And from 11th grade on we got new class mates which made a huge difference cause sometimes they were a lot better prepared than we and of cause also vice versa.
i mean what can i say... what about poland, and east bloc countries?
My aunt was born and grew up in what became East Berlin. She had a friend who worked in the government office, and he told her, "Grab your son and leave and join your husband. I can't tell you why but leave now." A few days after she left, the wall started going up.
Ehrenmann.
und? ging es ihr toll im islamisierten und vertürkten Westdeutschland? Hoffe der erste Döner hat super geschmeckt.
That was a great friend. Bless her.
@@grundgesetzart.1463is it really gotten that bad in Germany? I saw just last week the Chancellor said something about not taking anymore migrants.
@@Garbeaux. This guy is exaggerating
It would be interesting to look into the economic and political differences between the ex Yugoslav states
agree
Comparable to the former USSR states. There is a positive correlation between living standards and a dislike of that former regime.
In the USSR it's the Baltic states, in Yugoslavia it's Croatia and Slovenia.
And in both cases it's the communist overlord republic ppl that caused the most headaches to the locals. In Baltic states it's Russians, in Slovenia and Croatia it's Serbs.
When it comes to economy it's the same as it was during Yugoslav era
With Croatia and Slovenia being at the top when it comes to living standards
Serbia in the middle
And Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro at the bottom
As for Serbia itself it's northern province Vojvodina it's almost the the level of Croatia and Slovenia
While it's southern province of Kosovo (which is under separatist control) is one of the most poorest regions in all of Ex-Yugoslavia
Although it's not that extreme like it was during the 80s and 90s
@@fungo6631it’s not just attitude toward communism and the former regime (although that’s a big part of it): all the countries from the Eastern Block that are now more successful were also more successful even before WW2. In fact, the order ranking in GDP and living standards is actually fairly similar now as it was in 1938: Czechia, Slovenia and Eastern Germany on the top. Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Croatia behind them. Then Romania, Bulgaria and the rest of the Balkans. And then Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
The countries that were closer to the European economic core and more industrialised, had a longer democratic tradition, stronger rule of law etc. were and are still the more successful, and communism only slowed them down but didn’t change the relative trajectories. It’s even striking that the former Austrian parts are still more successful than the former Hungarian parts, even within one country (Transylvania vs. Oltenia/Muntenia/Moldavia in Romania is a great example; also Slovenia vs Croatia).
@@kostam.1113 Montenegro has higher standard of living than Serbia
I think an important point to explain the economic disparity between West and East Germany is how reunification was handled. Basically, almost all of the GDR's state property was privatized and sold off at horribly low prices. This made it possible for West German companies to essentially buy out the competition and simply dissolve them. This was partly intended by the conservative government in order not to endanger the West German economy, and it was successful. Within a few years, almost all companies in the East were either dissolved or integrated into West German companies. Basically overnight, the entire East German economy went down the drain and most East Germans have not forgotten that to this day.
In other words, the same as happened to the state-owned companies of the Hungarian economy in the years after 1989.
Do you have any sources on this? It seems I see way too many excuses when East Germany is still much better than it would have been otherwise. I don't think it's fair to compare to west Germany and see it as a failure. US has huge economic divides in region but there wasn't a recent separation. Italy probably much more economically divided north vs south. Etc.
" Within a few years, almost all companies in the East were either dissolved or integrated into West German companies."
Yes, they were terrible companies that were running based on state funding. They were not companies for a free market competition. This happened with many state property/companies in former communist countries.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Yes, there are enough sources for this and in Germany there are hardly any reputable experts (including from the conservative spectrum) who doubt what serious effects this had.
Unfortunately, there are only a few sources available in English. But this ist from an article of "Le Monde":
"The GDR underwent an overnight economic liberalisation that had taken postwar West Germany a decade. In July 1990, industrial output had fallen 43.7% from 1989; by August, 51.9% and by the end of the year, 70%. The official unemployment figure rose from 7,500 in January 1990 to 1.4 million in January 1992, but was more than double that when short-time working, retraining and pre-retirement were factored in. No other country in Central or Eastern Europe suffered more economically by leaving the Soviet Union’s orbit.
This social demolition was deliberate: dozens of reports had explored its consequences. ‘Better to achieve unity with a ruined economy than remain in the Soviet bloc with a half-ruined one,’ said SPD politician Richard Schröder (9). His wish was more than granted. To Ossies (East Germans) the exterminating angel had a name: the Treuhand (trust agency), created on 1 March 1990, the tool to convert the former GDR to capitalism. It privatised or liquidated almost all of the ‘patrimony of the people’, the name for the GDR’s state businesses and assets, which it took possession of in July 1990. This made it the world’s biggest conglomerate, responsible for 4.1 million employees (45% of the workforce) working for 8,000 businesses at 32,000 sites, from steelworks to holiday camps, grocers to local cinemas.
By the time the Treuhand was wound up in December 1994, it had privatised or liquidated most of its portfolio with an impact unequalled in industrial history: a country deindustrialised, 2.5 million jobs gone and losses estimated at DM 256bn despite an opening balance sheet of DM 600bn, according to its own president’s estimate (10). This miracle of neoliberalism was, according to Christa Luft, ‘the largest ever destruction of productive capital in peacetime’ (11). Researchers Wolfgang Dümcke and Fritz Vilmar regard this as the key period in the structural colonisation of the GDR (12): West German investors and companies bought up 85% of East German production sites, East Germans just 6%."
You can read the full article If you want:
mondediplo.com/2019/11/06germany
The economy went down the drain in ALL former communist countries. The only difference is: the few still profitable companies elsewhere were sold at horribly low prices to some cronies and a new oligarchy emerged, while in East Germany they were sold to West German companies who were in the same industry.
That's why East Germany has no oligarchy/mafia problem like Russia or even other Eastern European countries.
As a citizen of South Korea which is one of the only countries still divided, Germany is the prime model of how unification of the south and north would look like in the future. It pains me to learn that even 30 years after the unification, Germany suffers from its decisions. Unification between North and South Korea would likely be worse, as the economic disparity between the two is far more profound than east and west Germany 30 years ago.
Also the korean divide is too much. The north is fanatical and the south has moved on. Any connection you guys seemed to have is gone i feel like. Also china isnt going to let korea unify easily. Unification of korea will be the greatest and most challenging and possibly bloodiest but i hope for the best. Wish you guys could introduce the northerners to the modern world.
I am not envious of South Korea's prospects. Reunification could easily destroy the South, the financial burden being the least of it. The people in the North are extremely naive about the world and would find the South utterly baffling.
I can only imagine the massive social problems reunification would create for both north and south.
I do not think the CCP could tolerate it either.
The north is like the 'death strip' behind the Berlin wall, with people growing food among the landmines, under the watch towers.
This doesn't really work as a model. Your task would be 10 times bigger. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. The GDR was poor compared to the Federal Republic of Germany, but at least it was the richest country in the communist world. With an industry, an educated population and regular exchanges between East and West. West Germans were always allowed to enter the country and visit relatives in the East. Only East Germans were not allowed to go to the West, except for a small privileged caste. As a result, Western pop culture was permanently present in the East, forbidden but present.
East Germany was an unjustice state, an one-party state, a surveillance state. But North Korea is hell on earth, I would rather live 10 lives in the GDR than a year in North Korea.
A country that can’t even afford fruits. Haha. There is indeed a huge gap with the north.
Korea would be a caste system, with the first generations of North Korean adults being untouchable. I’ve been around some fringe people who moved into “civilization”, and it took multiple generations for them to really assimilate and adjust. At the very least until the people born previously died off.
The biggest gap was always a mental one. West germans expected integration in the west german society. East Germans never wanted this, they wanted of course a free and democratic, unified Germany, but with some of the socialist achievements, a right to have a say in the development of East Germany. All of this achievements were wiped out within a year. Angela Merkel really made a point when she said "It was like the life before 1990 didn't count". That was the west german mentality, east germans were confronted with. There was no appreciation, no recognition. Mostly it was a lack of interest or sometimes even arrogance and capitalist chauvinism in a way like "You achieved nothing in 40 years". Which wasn't that wrong, many East Germans didn't had any savings or assets. But it was this downgrading mentality by the West Germans for 30 years, why we have a distant relationship. We live in a Germany, where East Germans are underrepresented and mostly are seen as a loud, grumpy and radical group, which is only relevant for german society as objects for sociologic and political research.
Our history, our social achievements, the usual ife of East Germans in the GDR were irrelevant for the unified Germany, it should be quickly forgotten after 1990. It never was and never will be, at least for us East Germans.
What exactly were these "socialist achievements"? How exactly did you have a greater say in the development of the country?
@@chlks5891just because you or I don’t know them doesn’t mean a society doesn’t accomplish achievements. Ignorance proves nothing. Every society no matter how different or ‘oppressed’ has achievements over half a century.
I really appreciate your perspective. Thank you.
Achievements? You mean the "right" to be spied on and have the STASI terrorize you? Seriously: What are you talking about?
That’s what they said about post communist Russia
East Germans would and should frankly get over it, the minority doesn’t have as much say as the majority especially when they were A puppeted B like you said, had fuck all, and C it’s clear which side had to bail out the other, still dealing with that to this day, if one side is gonna do the bailing they deserve a very large say in how that goes about, since you know, it’s their money
As a child of German immigrants, these videos always hit close to my heart. I was born just two months before the Berlin wall fell. Thanks for making these.
your country is full of mollattos and your country is ruined
Мајка ти те родила во источна Германија или западна Германија?
zosto bi begal od zapadna?@@jovan-noble-guy749
Geez, I feel old. I was a soldier guarding West Germany when the wall fell. I remember seeing a lot of people in older style clothing and the little Trabant cars
Now, you will have Muslim children
We, who lived east of the Iron Curtain, had a somewhat romantic view of the free, rich world on the other side. When the barriers fell and we started living "the new way", we realized that reality is not so black and white. The people were freer, but not as free as we thought and the life was richer, but not as rich as we imagined. Many people were disappointed. Especially those who did not find their place in the new conditions. It is a natural, human reaction to blame the system, even if the reasons lie in their own inability to adjust.
People also think the grass is always greener on the other side till they get there
This was not about the West as such but neoliberalism which destroyed any "romantic view" in the West, too, at the same time.
Yeah, quite a difference in a true Socialist and a Democratic Socialist state. Suddenly as a worker you have to pay large sums for housing and its in economically stratified housing areas and you no longer have a subsidized day care facility in each building. In a Capitalist state its all about money, which is great... as long as you HAVE money.
it is the system, the politics and the media who betrays us all and whants us being divided. ...and the majority is silent
A rose by any other name ? Still grows in manure. ✌️🌍🌎🌏
I was an American soldier stationed up by the Czech/East German border and was there for the "reunification" celebration , but to me, it seemed the joy was short lived. The West Germans were very critical of the East Germans saying "they are lazy sheep". I did notice the stark differences between East and West infrastructure as many of the building and bridges still had bullet marks and nothing was really tended to as far as cosmetics. This was a great video highlighting many of the realities of the reunification. I pray someday all will level out and come together.
You were a border guard?
Man that must have felt depressing!
How about the work ethic difference?
I think East Germany suffered tremendeously from bad case of propaganda from the West
Have you forced your way with German girls? Like the red russians?
“Lazy” is capitalist propaganda to make workers work harder for the capitalist elite. Works well on the simpletons.
As someone who can remember when East Germany still existed, it's weird to think that now I have lived longer than East Germany did!
Any 5-year-old or older American lived longer than the Confederacy.
Your not the only one. My father spent most of the time in the US Army in the 1960s near the border between East and West and this was only 5 years after the Berlin Wall went up. Fast forward and my father, at age 43 and me, just two days shy of 13, got to witness, on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, the history of that very wall, the wall that President Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down, was finally coming down. My father passed in 1995 (shortly after I graduated from high school), but I myself, at 46 (turning 47 in November) am now older than the very country (East Germany) and city (East Berlin) that no longer exists.
@@rwboa22 I was actually stationed in Germany when the wall came down. My one regret was that I never visited Berlin when it was divided. Anyone who had visited had to have special orders issued and units were sending any soldier with those orders to Berlin to help tear that wall down. (they were valid for your whole tour of duty once issued)
Надеюсь мне кто нибудь ответит я из России хочется по разговаривать с немцами
Hello you Russian that wants to talk about German people!@@Za_Russia454
I worked in Frankfurt for a year as an engineer. People were amazing and friendly, unlike the typical German stereotypes. But I always felt that it was all surface level affection. Then I visited East Berlin one weekend with some co-workers and spent most of the time at bars. It was cold as s**t that weekend, but I can't forget how authentic and real the people were there. No fake BS friendliness, but raw, human emotions. This was early 2000's.
West Germans r the slave of American empire.
Frankfurt just sucks... its super buisnessy and almost everyone only cares about themselves... and drugs. (I live near frankfurt)
It’s because they still have an Eastern European element of acting like an entitled rude asshole
That's because all they had were each other...
@@aggressivertyp9663I know the Frankfurt area ok. I was in Hanau for 2 years.
When the Berlin Wall was built, it wasn't just the wall that separated West Berlin from East Berlin, but also the trains. Ending freedom of movement didn't just mean building the wall, it also meant making changes to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn. There were three lines, the U-Bahn lines now designated U6 and U8, and the Nord-Süd Tunnel on the S-Bahn, that ran for the most part through West Berlin but passed for a short distance through the borough of Mitte (the historic city center), which was East Berlin territory. These lines continued to be open to West Berliners, but they did not stop at East Berlin stations, though they still had to slow down and these stations were heavily guarded. Thus, these became ghost stations
Trains on the U8 line had six stations in East Berlin before crossing from one part of West Berlin to the other. The U6 had to skip five stations as well as the S-Bahn having to skip four. Friedrichstraße on the other hand was an exception as it was a transfer point between U6 and S-Bahn lines. Wollankstraße as well because it had a West Berlin exit right on the border. At the closed stations, barbed wire fences were installed to prevent any would-be escapees from East Berlin from accessing the track bed, and the electrically live third rail served as an additional and potentially lethal deterrent.
Didn't know about that. The more you learn every day, thanks, Avery. Where did you learn about this?
i see you everywhere ww2 related video i go
As a Cuban American how do you feel about Cuba these days? They're doing really well considering all the shit the US used to (and still does) put them through 😮💨
@@smileyp4535 Well if he's Cuban American, then his family probably didn't think Cuba was that great, considering they fled to the US...
@@smileyp4535Doing well?
Compared to Haiti maybe.
They trade with the rest of the world. Their poverty and lack of freedom is their choice.
my grandma lived in east german, she flew with my dad, they were allowed to go to a "holliday in west german" but they never came back
I wouldn't either.
But family members in the east can get big trouble back then, the Stasi was brutal
@@borntoclimb7116 so This is how she told it to me, there are some other things, but i dont want to say that online
@@BrownieGuy123 okay
@@BrownieGuy123 what other things ? Was she find new husband in west to survive?
It's crazy, how our feeling of time changes as we grow older (and wiser haha). I was born in 1981 (in the GDR btw) and as a teenager, WW2 seemed to me a long time ago. But actually, I was born only 36 years after WW2. The fall of the Berlin Wall seems like not a very long time ago to me now, but it is over 34 years ago, almost 36 years!
It's nice and honorable that you present our history so well-researched and for an international audience. Well done! Next time I talk about my home country in English, I can just refer to your video.
As a Gen-Xer, it was depressing when I realized I was born closer to the beginning of WWII than I am now to the fall of the Berlin Wall. 😟
In a couple of years the time between now and the fall of the Berlin Wall will be twice as long as the time between the end of WWII and my birth. It's unreal.
A ludicrous, amateur, one-sided, boring videoblog about a fairly recent history, best to be entirely avoided if you're looking for the answers or wished to get a quick glimpse into DDR. *The hysterical "reviews" do this video no justice.
I grew up in Germany my dad was stationed we left a yr before the wall came down.Nice doc!
That’s very true - I made a similar comparison to a college friend when we were having our 30 year anniversary from high school I told him 30 years before we were born WWII was going on LOL (same amount of time passing). It made us both feel OLD hahaha.
Thank you! As a child of both countries (mother east german, father from the west) I've always been able to see the effect of the reunion on both systems. I've heard both sides of the story. I wouldn't exists if this chain of events that lead to reunification hadn't happened. However, my mum speaks with much grief from her own personal experience when the wall fell: "Everything you thought you knew was suddenly incorrect." She and many others had to relearn their entire lives. With the GDR disappearing, a big chunk of their identies disappeared as well. Nowhere to be found. And the aftermath in Germany today is tremendous. There is nostalgia for the state from people who were born after the wall fell. "Ostalgie" is the term for that. Because modern remembrance culture still mostly remembers what went wrong, so other people feel the need to glorify the old system. It's a lot to unpack. People feel unheard, they have felt this way for a long time. It's interesting how you, as an outsider, portrayed the story. I have to add, however, that it should not be left to historians to change our perception of this state. It's something that comes from deep within society.
Im not surprised Ostalgie is still a thing or that the people don't feel heard. In the early 90s the west was on a privatization rush and sold off anything that wasnt bolstered down. In the GDR most of the property was held by the state and so the west german government did what is to be expected. They sold off the GDR like it was a yard sale. Add a worrying amount of corruption to it and you have millions of people that got robbed of everything right before their eyes in the moment they were quite vulnerable because of a massive change in their lifes.
The Soli couldn't compensate, that this treason has gutted the eastern part even further.
And instead of investing in our own nation, doing a marshal plan for the east, the west with its population majority consistently voted in their interests and left the east to rot. And now we have a stinking pile.
And even if we wanted to change something now, our current regulations make that so complex, that it will take more than a century to rebuild what was taken in the last 80 years.
What are you talking about. East Germans have traded their country for jeans, sex shops and Mercedes. And what did they get?)) Exploitation at work (not an 8-hour working day), paid education, paid medicine, a policy of tolerance to gays, lesbians, blacks and perverts, sex education lessons at school... Oh, yes, I completely forgot - the influx of Muslims ("Turkish Lessons").
Congratulations! Marx and Engels were Germans, by the way!
I totally get what you're saying. I definitely think a lot of lessons could be taken from the eastern block and their ways like with the universal welfare and focus on community, maybe just with slightly relaxed reforms to business to still allow slight consumer freedom or cooperatives to operate. Especially in the 21st century where we see that independent cooperatives and small companies that aren't of any major threat to welfare can thrive, like with open source stuff on the internet.
Like some kind of compromise between the East German Socialist, and the Nordic Socialdemocratic systems.
Most of the issues of the DDR seem to mostly boil down to incompetence by those in charge, especially early on. And thats not just a Eastern Block problem.
I'm from Poland, and it reads very weirdly that people had to re-learn their entire lives and that everything they knew was incorrect. Is that real? I am thinking of the experience of this country... Over here everyone already knew all the truth before communism fell, there was a lot of underground media and books and people would also pass all the information in families and in private. Where was the head of East Germans? East Germany had a reputation back then for being "enthusiastic believers" in communism - maybe this is true? The difficulties over here were elsewhere. West Germany is still sociaised to an extent. Over here workers, who used to have a say in how their companies were run, became just receptors of decisions of young men in suits. Thier work - became worth very little. Life has become very tough for this generation, it took a lot of hard work for this country to slowly pull itself up. Many people feel the economy was also colonised by western capital, so that is similar to an extent.
@@noodleppoodle hmm it's not so much that they were all firm believers in communism or didn't know what was going on on the outside, more so that when the reunion happened that very minor things were all changed to fit the BRD system. My mum worked as a nurse at the time and all their normal work processes that worked and proved useful for over 40 years were discarded. My uncle had an academic degree that wasn't recognised by the BRD so he couldn't continue the line of work he was in. Imagine the BRD swooped in and mansplained the DDR people any aspect of their lives. With much entitlement as well. Many people from the west had a "we're better than you and we know better" attitude. When the dude in his video said "it was more like the BRD swallowed the DDR" he couldn't be more right. I hope that helps you understand!
I was 17 when that wall came down, back then it gave me goosebumps, I knew what a momentous occasion it was. Even today, it gives me goosebumps. The biggest impact that the news report had on me, was seeing a brother and sister (I think) reuniting after being separated for nearly 30 years, despite living around the corner from each other.
I saw it on TV and started to feel a little sad for East Germans. They had a taste of the West and then had to return to East Berlin. They had been led to believe that West Germany was still Nazi controlled and found the opposite. Then they had to get used to living in a capitalist country, following reunification.
I was glad that those with useful job skills and tenacity, though, had been able to escape to the West via Hungary and Austria, though. It would have been better for East Germany to have remained a separate country for a few years but within the EC or EU.
@@lemsip207 Out of curiosity, why do you think East Germany would have been better off as a separate state whilst part of the Western world? I reckon it would have faced the same problems it did after reunification, but received no support from West Germany as it would not have had any financial obligations towards a whole different country, just like it didn't before reunification.
@lagritsalammas Totally different mindsets after 45 years. The former East Germany dragged the former West Germany down and vice versa. It would have been like merging Austria with Hungary or Ireland with the UK. Did they have a say in it?
@@lemsip207 But EU is a win-win, the stronger countries invest money in the less strong and creates a win-win scenario and helping each other. But im just a Dutch, for me some Western provinces of Germany are still like going to the past as a Dutch person. :) Everything is oldfasioned, and im not talking about East Germany
shortly after the wall fell, there was an article about how the West German prostitutes hated the East German ones, due to the East German ones charging less and stealing business. "if i see one of those Eastern sl#ts around here, I'll bash her teeth in", was one quote. it must've touched every part of society.
Nice. But the video failed to deliver what the title had promised. We all know how Germany WAS divided, thank you, Cap, but how and why IS it STILL divided, this is THE question
The East is partially to this day very unhappy with the political situation. I guess, unemployment rates are still much higher in the East and pay or wages are lower in the East than the West. Also, if you take a look at who votes for whom in the East or the West, you will notice that the East is extremely right winged, while the West is rather liberal. It's a political divide.
The east Germans were educated by a communist state that left a nearly indelible mark that will take at least 3 more generations to fade away. Its in the subconscious of east Germans.
It is kind of explained in the end. It was not a reunification, it was a takeover of the East by the West. People in East Germany wanted the dictatorship to end, but they did not want their child care, their free public transit, their low rents to go away. Eastern companies were absorbed into Western companies for insanely low prices and in many cases were then looted and shut down by the Western companies. Meanwhile the social safety people enjoyed in the East was replaced with the significantly worse social safety in the West. A lot of unemployment naturally followed, leading to the issues we see today.
He said most younger generations left east Germany. By itself, that tells me a lot.
My mother escaped in 1957 by swimming the Elbe. We visited in 1986 and I am so grateful I saw it before unification. A great documentary.
a lie about a lie, not a movie...
@@Ftroll Huh? I don't understand your comment?
@@fatmanfaffing4116 I believe (I hope) Ftroll is addressing how horribly understated the oppression of East Germany was in this video. This was more a softening of the horrors of socialism than it was a documentary on East Germany. Some facts can be found here, of course, but mixed in with a lot of minimizing the oppression and grossly overstating the "good".
@@SnapCracklePapa There was oppression for sure, how else does a totalitarian society exist? However the people got on with their lives. The treatment of osti's to this day is pretty poor in many parts of the west. When my mother went there in 2004 they had her ring up for reservations in the west because her German was more 'English' accented and not so obviously East German. When her sister called a couple of places there were no rooms, Mum called minutes later and all of a sudden there were vacancies. My cousin had to sleep in his car as his company paid west employees travel money for hotels but not the eastern ones they got when they bought out the company he worked for as a welder; and he was the best tradesman they had!
Your mother escaped east germany by swimming in that river?
My goodness your mother has guts!
I'm absolutely mind blown!
It’s been over 150 years since the American Civil War and the difference between the US South and other regions is still stark
Stark? The Southern states of the former Confederacy are some of the most dynamic, fast growing states in the Union. Compare this with states like California, Illinois, and New York which people are leaving.
alot of the major differences there were made in the 50s to try and sugar coat history in an effort to unify against communism, truely batshit insane to think that alot of our modern problems come down to the red scare. though often i just go back to 1912 and remember america fucked itself and the world when they allowed woodrow wilson into the white house, worst president ever sole reason for segregation lasting as long as it did, caused ww1 to be dragged out which then caused ww2 by grievances, a generally disgusting human.
@@dennisweidner288 They're not leaving, they're spreading, like an untreated cancer. They vote socialist-woke BS on their state, ruin it and like a locust swarm, move to destroy the next place.
Yeah, let’s ignore how the people sound completely different. North bad south good! There’s no lasting division or cultural implications, you’ve demonstrated this masterfully.
@@CitizenSnips69 Actually, American regional differences are less than in most major European countries. In addition, you seem to be unaware of the massive shift of population from the north to the southern states and not just retirees. As well as the growing Hispanic population in southern states and not just Texas. There have been huge shifts in the southern population. As well as the loss of population in the north and substantial changes in California. And I suggest you look at indicators like high school graduation, math scores, infrastructure, and other important indicators. ome southern states like Florida and Texas now have higher scores than the once impressive states (New York, California, and Illinois).
The part of Gemany which was becoming the GDR wasn't mostly an agrarian economy. Saxony, Thuringia and Berlin were heavily industrialised, more than Bavaria.
But the Soviets took so much as reparations, for example the second tracks of the railways. And what they didn't took many enterprises left/fled the Soviet Occupied Zone. Carl Zeiss, Siemens etc.
Some of the West German Wuerschaftswunder was made possible by former East German companies.
And, the coal and steel industry of Ruhrgebiet was important, but not the most important economic driver of Germany even before the war.
Germany had the biggest chemical industry, two global players in electrics, was leading in machinery and optics, most of these companies wern't in the Ruhr Valley.
This wasn't reparations, they would just take it. Steal it. They did the same thing in Poland, and it's not like we owed Soviets reparations for them starting WW2 together with Germany LOL
All the Soviets took from them and treated them so terrible.. some people that lived in East Germany said that they understood because of the way the Hitler in Nazi regime was and because of what the German Nazi army did by invading Southern Poland and then continuing to go on later 2 years later and invade Russia, what's something that even in the civilians could understand... Understanding is one thing but it was so hard for them and I know the Americans and British were so worried about the people in East Germany and the Americans would do several Berlin and East GERMANY airdrops for a long time because at one time they could cross the border and make sure the people over in East Berlin in parts of East Germany had food and clothing and whatever they needed for babies.. naked drive that across the border but then once they weren't able to access the borders like they were they started flying over the border and dropping it. That was before the wall went up but it was 1945 and Berlin and most of Germany was blown to smithereens and West Germany took at least three or four years to clean the majority but likely took a lot longer in East Germany... I never could understand why the Soviet Union did this except they were out for revenge but I've been listening to World War II stories from soldiers who lived through it and made post-war journals and the German soldiers who were American pows in America, sometimes didn't go back to Germany and chose to stay in America for the American dream despite not being able to see their families. They said as former soldiers they believed if they went back to East Germany they might be treated brutally or sent off to the gulag and that's what worried them the most..Sad!!
Recently I've been listening to one of these World War II stories where a panzer unit who worked with general Rommel in North Africa. Was captured as a POW in Africa by the British in North Africa and they were turned over to the Americans about a month later. These men were so obsessed with food because they had done without and they said that the Americans fed them so much better than the. British once they were an American custody.. after a couple weeks they were put on a ship and taken to America and initially were pows in Texas and then they moved to New Mexico... This one man wrote a story about how he didn't mind being a pow in America.. however it was getting close to 1946 and he knew that they were going to be leaving pretty soon and he would be repatriated to Germany and his parents and home was in East Germany and he couldn't stand the thought of living in Soviet occupied Germany. However miraculously he did it but he was one of a couple people to escape A POW camp in America and lived out west for a couple years working on farms with migrants to avoid capture but he was on the loose for 40 years before he was caught I still have not gotten up to 1985 or so when he was caught .. it's on UA-cam and it's World War 2 stories.. it is so interesting and fascinating to hear the stories from these German soldiers when they thought for Germany during World War II because none of them so we're part of the national German socialist Party but they talk about the Nazi soldiers often and the SS. The regular German soldiers did not like them at all . The SS soldiers were always treated and paid much better but they were so cruel to other people, and especially the Jews and people in other countries in Eastern Europe which was something the Third Reich soldiers couldn't understand except that they were just absolutely evil . It amazes me to know that even a lot of the German regular army had been brainwashed for years by the Nazi party but once they were fighting & that's when some of them didn't believe the propaganda anymore.. most of them that froze to death in Stalingrad and Russia in the winter of 1942 and 1943 honestly believed that Adolf Hitler and the Fuhrer would find some way to save them up until the day or so before they died.. How sad..
When I first moved to Berlin in 2010, I read about a case where a woman applied for a job and was rejected. When her materials were returned to her, the word "Ossi" was written on it. Clearly the employer didn't intend for her to see it, but it demonstrates that there was a sense of superiority and prejudice by people from the west toward the people from the east. In my opinion, there still is.
Why wouldn't there be-???🤔. A lot of un healed wounds from the1920's. Same simular situation in the far east.
So they treat them how white people treat blacks here in America. Fascinating
@@asullivan4047 "Why wouldn't there be" because we are now in the 21st century with the people responsible for all this being dead.
Please don't generalise. My parents and I left to move to West Germany before the wall came down and my parents had NO problems finding jobs, but they had to start from scratch since school degrees at the time were not accredited/acknowledged the same.
You can't just take one anekdote and say that's how Germany is. Black sheep are everywhere.
Regarding the employment: its was kinda illegal under communism to be unemployed. So the state just made up lots of useless positions to fill the quota. In Czechia they used to say: "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
That one got carried over well into the early 2000´s. They called it "Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen," back then and the goal basically was to create low wage jobs to keep people busy during times of economic crisis. Well that´s what officials framed it anyway. I think the goal was rather generating cheap disposable workforce, pretty much the same we are doing today with the "Jobcenter" and part time contracts.
@@Mightydoggodamn, korea do the same with old people
@@Mightydoggo Both disposable workforce and propping up the numbers, cause if you're in one of those Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen (employment-creation measures) or the modern equivalent of zeitarbeiter "jobs" (temporary worker jobs), you're out of the unemployment figure, and that's seemingly all that matters, not your living standard (cause that'll be dogsjit either way)
Why are you twisting the meaning and essentially lying. The fact that unemployment is now surging is not a reason to slander the leftists and commies. All the same, the question will be posed bluntly by either commies or fascists. That's why you want to throw slop at the commie.
In Poland there was similar saying "no matter if you stand or you lay down you are granted 2k"minimal wage I guess.
It's so weird that in my 40 years there's been new countries created, old countries dissolved, planets downgraded, new planets found, and sci-fi TV technology coming to life. Pretty much all my childhood lessons are now obsolete.
Watching this was very informative and interesting, thank you for your work.
I watch this video on our holiday of reunification, (German Reunification Day) on October 3 and the video made me thoughtful. I was born in 1988, for me there is no difference in East and West Germany, I have many work colleagues with roots in East Germany. I can remember as a child watching the evening news where once a month the unemployment statistics were announced and East Germany still had well over 20% unemployment in the mid 1990s. I later started university and finished in 2017 and from my final semester almost a third went to East Germany to take very well paid jobs in the industrial sector.
I never understood these injustices between West and East in pay scales, pension levels and many other aspects, may it have been economically necessary or not - but then it is not surprising that a part of the population still feels like 2nd class citizens 33 years after reunification? The lives of millions of people changed virtually overnight, which inevitably leads to radical changes. Whether this hasty reunification, with its mass unemployment, impoverishment and further depopulation and neglect of entire regions, was such a clever thing to do? This will be a very interesting aspect of history.
Ja, dass Wessis wie selbstverständlich in den Osten kommen und dort Ossis die Jobs wegnehmen, vor allem im Management, ist leider die Realität. Und der Trend verschärft sich sogar.
When you said you were born in 1988 and for you there is no difference between East and West it was immediately clear to me that you must have grown up in the West. I was born in 1992 in the East and I feel the difference, disrespect and disinterest to this day. I was made fun of for being an "Ossi" by "Wessis" all my life. Some Wessis still see the East as a cheap option for a weekend house at a lake. If you are interested please watch documentaries from MDR about the life of Eastgermans after the reunion, how the Treuhand destroyed the industry, forcing whole villages into suicide, how the Professors at Universities were replaced by Westgermans which is still having a huge impact on Academia in the East to this day. So much happened in the east that westgermans just turn a blind eye to or are even still complaining about having to pay for it all.
@@Lilly3oo4 ich bin Jg. 1985 und an der Uni in Thüringen, an der ich studiert habe, waren meines Wissens nach 100% aller Professoren Wessis. Die Oststudenten wurden meistens implizit diskriminiert, wenn sie sich nicht mit westdeutschen Neurosen gemein machen wollten. Ich habe meinen Master dann in den USA und Kanada gemacht, wo es plötzlich 1,0en hagelte. War keine Überraschung.
lol..."very well paid jobs"...yeah, because they don´t know shite. I do very little in my job and still outperform any of your oh so educated professors and graduates...by far.
@@Hunne2303 naja es ist einfach so, dass zugezogene Wessis den Ossis die Jobs wegnehmen. Für gut bezahlte Jobs werden Ossis oftmals nicht mal in ihren eigenen Bundesländern in Betracht gezogen und der Trend verschärft sich. Der Menschenrechtsreport zeigt auf, dass Ossis in ihrem eigenen Land de facto nicht alle Menschenrechte haben.
Thank you so much for talking about this. I was born in 2006 in the former DDR and many of the societal struggles that divide us from the people of the former BRD are still very impactful for us. It's crazy that I, someone who was born 17 years after the german reunion, still sees the struggles of the "other side". I see many western germans talk about how we are united again and how good it all is, but we are still othered. And even though I don't support the AFD, I kind of understand where their voters are coming from. We need change because we are the ones that were forgotten and left behind by our successful twin brother.
Saxony before the GDR was more industrialized than the Rheinland and was one of the richest regions in Germany. After having to deal with two deindustrializations (one after the war and one after reunification) its to be expected that the region is doing worse than the west
Yeah but you're not East. You're Germany. It's all mindset. You're no longer Nazis or Communists. You're free. Get on with being German.
@@redtobertshateshandlesIf only western Germans would think like this as well, it would be much easier.
@@mg4361 East germans tend to use Ossi and Wessi more than west germans
"free" 20% unemployed doesnt seem free to me@@redtobertshateshandles
Because West Germans do not think about *the German people* at all, except in the context of condemnation for 1933-1945@@FranconiaForever
In the early 80's I worked on a project for a company that was founded by two men from Germany. Their first names were Bertholdt and Wolfgang. Both were originally from East Berlin. Bertholdt decided one night to stay in the west, hearing rumors of the border being closed. He never went back. Wolfgang however was still in East Berlin. Wolfgang however was one of the first to scale the original wall making it over alive. He was shot though in one of his ankles. He even showed me the wound. He said he was never particularly athletic and was never able to scale a wall that high after he made it to the west. He said what helped him over was being shot at.
Sure... right. B.S.
I was born in 1993 so I honestly didn’t know much about east Germany. When I moved to Berlin, I lived on a street right by the park where there’s a memorial to the wall. Staring at the images of my own street just 30 years ago and realizing that even for most of my parents lifetime, you wouldn’t have been able to stand where I was standing. Thats when it really hit home to me for the first time how recent all of this was.
As an American born in 1981, I remember it all being a big deal in 1989 and then the fall of the USSR, but I had no context. In 1997, I went on a three-week trip across Europe and stayed in Berlin for a few days. Even then, Berlin seemed so different than it does today. Remnants of the wall still stood in some places, mostly museum/monuments I imagine, but I remember a sense of unease by the guards of the place and the fact there still were people watching over it says something. A lot of unresolved feelings.
There is a very interesting book, "Who Owns the East?", which describes in great detail how the East was flattened and the unspeakable role the trust played. Companies that still had a chance of surviving were either bought up cheaply as possible competition and then ruined or flattened outright. Some properties were formally given away for a “symbolic” 1 D-MARK. Then came the government's biggest blow against the East with the "restitution before compensation" regulation. Overnight, many people in the East lost their roofs over their heads because many properties and houses were returned to their former owners from the West. If you look at it that way, the West has plundered the East. To this day, Ossi has remained a second-class citizen in many areas. Whether it's salaries or pensions. In political terms, the East itself is described by the government as "Dark Germany" and as politically backward. The federal government is firmly convinced that the enemies of democracy live in the east. The fact that Germany is still separated can be seen from the fact that there is still a representative for the East in the government, so people are also officially denying the East its independence and self-determination from the government level. Even in official language, the German administration still calls it the “new federal states” or “accession area”. Even the economic, energy and sanctions policies of the current government disadvantage the East more than the West. The inaction in the "NS 2" case hit Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the current government's policies destroyed jobs. Or the petrochemical plant in Schwedt, the government's sanctions policy is destroying jobs there and endangering the industrial location there. From there, 90 percent of the East and its gas stations are supplied with diesel and gasoline. Even a large part of the heating oil for the wider area comes from there. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt have had an unemployment rate of 20 to 23 percent for years
"Politically backward"? So much so that they collectively picked their leader from that "Dark Side" and kept re-electing her for 16years (and more if she had wanted to)... Yea, that sounds about what one would do when considering a person "policitally backward".
@robbypolter6689@ Für mich als Pole ist das, was Sie schreiben, schockierend, denn wir haben Deutschland immer als national und sozial sehr stark integriert gesehen.
Neoliberale politische Ideen haben Deutschland wahrscheinlich mehr geschadet als Polen, denn hier gibt es zwar auch eine scharfe politische und kulturelle Spaltung, vor allem im Osten (bei uns auch Osten ! 🙃🙂 ), aber ohne die gleichen Folgen wie in Deutschland, wo der Identitätscharakter des Konflikts ein bisschen an den des US-Bürgerkriegs erinnert.
That level of unemployment is very hard on a society
Returned the houses to original houses of 50 years before? 😯😯😯
🥺😯1:07 the attitude to flu vaccn explain everything the difference between capitalism and communism, in capitalism you know you can't trust other people because everyone need to make profit doing bad things to others, that's why you can't trust medicine.
In communism the medicine was for the people not for the profit.
Certainly sounds like the reunification was done with little to no consideration for the People. Poorly planed and executed. Was there Any time for the East to "Acclimate " to the laws and/or ways of the West? Seems illogical to ignore the education and degrees of the East Citizens. Should have been a Happy time. Sounds rather punitive instead.
Germany has some dark pages in its history but its history is never boring and is always instructive. Great video!
Which European country doesn't? How was the extension of Europe into North and South America, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tasmania achieved? I doubt if the original inhabitants welcomed their enslavement.
"Some"
@@Valdore1000 Yeah its quite a few for a nation not that old...
Yea the sad thing is that ppl outside Germany only ever think of Nazis and WW2 (and Schnitzel and Lederhosen). But those were just 12 years. That's not even remotely all of its history. There's a debate as to when "german" history starts, but if I had to throw a dart on a board full of dates, I'd aim at Charlemagne. To whom present-day Germany has a more or less unbroken cultural connection. Which gives Germany's history a length of abt 1200 years from the entirety of the HRE via 19th century shenanigans to the north-german confederation founded in 1866/67, which through all of the changes in name, government type and political ideology is still the same legal entity as today's Federal Republic of Germany.
And the 12 years of Nazi dictatorship were just one percent of this history. Granted, a terrible, bloody and despicable percent that NEVER should repeat if I had any say in the matter, but still just one percent. In the 30-years-war germans bashed each others' heads in for, you guessed it, thirty years, for religious and later political reasons, with other nations chiming in. This could easily be called the zero'th world war considering the devastation caused, but hardly anyone ever talks about it.
@@invalid8774A nation was not allowed to form for over a thousand years.
The people are very old. Our ancestors repelled the Romans.
Other nations in Europe look down on several hundred years of colonization and slavery.
It's the balance between Freedom and Security. People who are free want security. People who are secure want freedom. I met a Czech actress in 1980 named Magdalena Buznia - a striking, dark-haired lady with big eyes and a great singing voice. She'd been a member of a theatre in Prague where she played different parts continuously throughout the year. She was never out of work. Always performing. But she had to play the parts assigned to her - not always the best parts - and yearned to be a star. But in Communist theatre there no stars. Everyone was "equal." She defected to the West - risking her life - and wound up in France...and then London, England, where she ended up singing for money on underground tube stations. She was granted asylum in England but, of course, found it almost impossible to get work as an actress. After several years, thoroughly disillusioned by Western society, she went back to Czechoslovakia.
That one anecdote doesn't change the fact that most people are better off in the West.
She thought she was special, but found out she wasn't really.
It's not those who have security that want freedom. It's those who don't have freedom that want freedom, same with security. This is a fundamentally flawed premise. Freedom and security aren't a zero-sum game. Absolute freedom is something that's exclusionary with security, but absolute freedom isn't also what people want, because absolute freedom is hell for 99.9999999999999% of people.
Communist society wasn't about "Security", it was about absolute, totalitarian control over everyone's lives. Are breadlines freedom? Is getting your life ruined if you accidentally say something someone doesn't like security? Is your neighbors snitching on you security? Is constant, unrelenting lies about what life could be if you could move out security? I personally wouldn't say so.
@@greghauser742are they?
@@muslimcel4581 Yes.
99% of the video is NOT talking about the question in the title, why it is STILL divided
Good video, but it’s pretty much a TLDR version of the book - which is great, by the way, and I definitely recommend the reading.
Two things that you could have shown to exemplify the remaining differences of the two Germanys still today, when you show the demographics maps: the public transport map of Berlin - building tunnels and U-Bahs was too expensive, so the DDR prioritised trams, which are still predominant in the east side of the city -, and a satellite picture of the city. The street lights have different colors in the east and the west due to the different lamps the DDR and the FGR used
No, insignificant.
Just wanted to say the same :) the video itself is great, but from its title I expected more details about how Germans feel about that period now and how exactly that past affected the people of today. Though once again, the video is still interesting, just not what was expected, imho
If you’re talking about that “Beyond the Wall” book, I agree with you there. It’s a pretty good read, but I’m NGL here: it’s also gonna take me quite a while to finish it because it’s pretty hefty too.
@Vesta_the_Lesser Beyond the Wall, by Katja Hoyer
I was half way through university here in Canada when the Berlin Wall fell, and even here it was breathtaking and unbelievable to see. I hope it doesn't sound frivolous to say that, as a young person at the time, I was jealous. A moment in history that would be remembered for hundreds, maybe thousands of years was going on, and I wished I could be there and be part of it. It's still inspiring to watch, all these years later. If the Wall could come down and Germany be reunited, what _isn't_ possible?
This is probably my favourite thing you've ever done.
Other topics have been more novel and urgent for me to learn about, but this documentary and the way it was put together (interviews on different levels, maps, time-specific video footage, on-location filming, etc.) succeeded in putting me, the viewer, in the shoes of the East Germans under and post the GDR. -Something I never realised I should have known I needed.
Lastly, I just have to praise the nuance with which you treat the topic of ideology and economic systems without downright singing the praises of the capitalist turn or drowning in Ostalgie. The street interviews also really help with that.
Thanks so much, means a lot!
@@ThePresentPast_ Roman Empire had Germania, to the West of Rhine. So it might be the same continuation.
I visited East Germany and Berlin with my little boy this Christmas. It was gorgeous. The people were kind and wonderful. All of Germany was really. I found it interesting that East Berlin was far cleaner than West Berlin. East got the lion’s share of problems just because they were East. But the beauty of the place was stunning.
I've read countless books and watched countless docus about the old DDR. Its highly facinating. But what is most interesting is that every time i read and watch something made by people that didnt actually live there its always ONLY negative. Its all just Stasi, Police, Communism is bad, everyone was poor and so on.
There is a german couple running the grocery store not far away and they both grew up in DDR. They both said the same thing, it was a worry free life. They had a place to live, family values were highly regarded, education, work and such was all there for everyone. The intensive care doctor i had once to grew up outside of East Berlin, her only complaint was that she couldnt get a book she wanted as a kid.
I highly reccomend reading the book "Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?" if you are interested in the story. It is written by two people that lived there, one englishman even. Its the most nuanced non biased litterature about life and inner workings of the state i know.
Странно было бы ожидать чего-то другого от западных немцев..
ha. People still say that about in Poland and the PRL. Everyone did have a job and a home and family unit was closer.... but everyone was poor and oppressed together and that's why the family and community were so strong. In the end communism was never a paradise but capitalism has enough shortcomings for some people to think that it was.
Thanks for the book recommendation!
So far, my knowledge about DDR has been limited by Lindemann Sr.'s book and "Good bye, Lenin", but I really want to know more.
It was so great they had to build a wall aorund them to protect them from imigrants flooding their country...
Yes there where a lot of loosers of the systemchange and naive people after the wall came down...But no!
Die DDR war am Ende!!!!
@dozyproductions3969 the difference is socialist Poland was light years ahead of Bootlicking America Poland 😅
I lived in Leipzig for a few months and I saw this division clearly in people. I'm used to this concept because in Italy there are similar dynamics (North vs South for example), but it still rose a lot of questions for me.
I'm glad I found this video which answered to a lot of my questions, thank you man!
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SO DON'T BE AFRAID DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE EXACT WORDS YOU SHOULD SAY BUT JUST PRAY AND ASK GOD CHRIST JESUS INTO YOUR HEART!!!! JUST SAY IT AND MEAN IT FROM THE HEART WITH YOUR WHOLE HEART "GOD JESUS IF YOU ARE REAL REVEAL YOURSELF TO ME SO THAT I MAY KNOW IN MY HEART OF HEARTS THAT YOU EXIST AND THAT YOU ARE REAL AND LOVE IN THE NAME OF JESUS I ASKED AND PRAY AND DECLARE AND DECREE THIS LORD GOD! AMEN AMEN!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!! IN JESUS'S NAME!!!!!!!"😇✝️❤️🙌👏🙏👍🙂😊👍🙌❤️✝️😇😊
Bit weird that the word rape had to be censored as if it shouldn't be talked about.
Say that to UA-cam 😭
I thought the same thing.
This comment is funny to read only a year later. The censorship is much worse and will continue to get worse
@@DeadHawk23 it is not ad-friendly. I you want to make the maximum money out of your video, you have to censor it. But it is not too bad, this video is of little quality anyways.
@@choosetolivefree Yeah, it's pretty fucked up seeing "unalived" being used instead of saying killed or murdered in videos.
It should be remembered that the FRG Government heavily subsidized West Berlin as well as financially incentivize those who volunteered to live there? I was in Berlin in the Spring of 1984. Extraordinary. I traveled through 'Checkpoint Charlie' from the FRG West into the GDR East. What a sight to behold. Remarkable. Where the FRG had 'quickly' reassembled and rebuilt what appeared to be a prefabricated modern city, the GDR rebuilt much of its destroyed infrastructure painstakingly, brick by brick from the ground up. They had cleaned the 'brick and stone' rubble and reconstructed each building brick by brick and stone by stone. Many of them built back to their once previous splendor. It was a sight to behold. Inspiring. The truly memorable thing for me however, which they both share, is the exquisite fragrance drifting from further East in the spring time. The 'Berlin Air'. I shall never forget it and for that alone, I would return. Sublime. One last thing ... Blue Jeans? They were the symbol of the 'Working Man' in the United States. They were intended as strictly utilitarian cotton clothing made to withstand hard work and toil. They only became fashionable in the '60's. I still have 2 pairs which are almost 20 years old. I still wear them!
I’m American & I had a friend who was an East German university professor. When the wall came down the East German teachers all lost their jobs & west German teachers were brought in. She had to return to university in the West & receive western education & degrees to teach again. She decided to get psychology training & became a therapist instead. It was many years before she was allowed to practice.
Which I find normal.
Some communist indoctrination lingered in me for years after "89.
I hated it, and still do.
Yet now, remembering the long hours of waiting in ques for bread , or sleeping with frozen windows on the inside, etc I wonder whether hate or pity is appropriate.
That is not true!
I was born in East Germany and went to school when the unification took place. All of my teachers continued working and there was not a single West German teacher at my school ever.
Also, my father was a teacher for higher education ("Erweiterte Oberstufe - EOS") and he also did not face any problems when continue working for his school.
And since there had always been a shortage of teachers, it would have never been possible to replace all the East German teachers with ones from West Germany anyways.
The only East German teachers who might have faced problems were those who worked as former Stasi informants (spying on their colleagues) or those who were ideologically compromised (still holding on to socialism/communism).
@@AndeRabe I only tell you what my friend told me. I’ve never been to Germany. She is the only person I knew from East Germany. Maybe I misunderstood, but I don’t think so. She spoke very little English & I speak no German. We used an English-German dictionary to communicate or her son translated. I sponsored her son for a year as a foreign exchange student. This was the 1997-1998 school year. She stayed with us for a week. She was going to university in Kuln at the time. She was originally from Leipzig where she taught; her son still lived there with his dad.
@@AndeRabe Thanks for telling the truth. Socialism has many supporters, but because socialism does not work, they can not tolerate the truth.
@@TrixRN On university teachers, aka professors you are right, but it's more all the economists, philosophers, historians, all the subjects with political influence, not in nature science. Math professors could stay. If you talk about teachers and school years, people think on elementary and junior high. I think that's just a missunderstanding. A Professor is not called a teacher in german, and a university is not called a school.
Very informative and thought provoking. I travelled across Germany in September 1993, there was a stark contrast when crossing the old border. I remember there was what would've been a very pretty, small town near Jena, but it looked like nothing had been tended to since the end of the war, making it look grubby and unloved. You could tell where the border had been by the watchtowers that still stood. There was a lot of road building going on at the time. There were few places to stay in the former East Germany, but when I found an English speaking resident of Jena, I found the family group really friendly. My girlfriend and I ended up staying in a 5 star hotel, there wasn't anything else really.
I can still recall being there as a student in 1988. We were hosted by the Hoch Schule Fur Economia and a member of the East German Planning Committee, Peter Krueger. Peter and I had great idealogical debates and the merits of our economic and political systems. I know he died a few years after the breakup and it was a lesson on how much of a challenge it must have been integrating the ideologues of the DDR. For years I attempted to contact Krueger’s widow who was living in West Berlin however she would never communicate with me. I guess memories of Peter and the past were just painful to recall.
I lived four several years in the DDR, just before the fall of the wall. For me being a young adult I entered a world like an adventure. Worked, lived and got befriended with east germans of my age, Helped several people flee the country trough Hungary. Nowadays I still work for a German company and meet east and west Germans. I can confirm that up to today they still don't like each other. In my opinion east germans had a better way of life. More social and more adventures. They had to get creative because of the system. A lot of bad things happened after the fall, initiated by rich people from the west. About that you can't find so much on the internet. It shaped the situation from today were there is a rich and poor part of Germany.
I landed in Berlin in 2017 and was shocked how depressing that city was. After 1.5 years, I had to move to other cities to really experience the rest of Germany. Even today, I am in shock how Berlin as the capital is still underperforming comparing to other cities. I am not optimistic for that city to change.
Berlin is underperforming because its governed by the leftists (SPD / LINKE) for ages, secondly since some years it has a massive issue with eastern-arabic Clans and thirdly its infrastructure is very old and rarely gets modernized. Its the capital but still, ancient metro system, no up2date internet access in every building, highest crime rates in the country and very likely highest homeless rate too.
compared to east german states and cities its actually overperforming. berlin is attracting a lot of young well educated people. the growth rate of the real estate prices is the largest among all german cities, during the past years. most german unicorns are from Berlin.
i can totally undesrtand that some parts of berlin can give you a depressing vibe but the citys performance is not that bad. the gdp per capita is about the german average and the gdp grew by 4.9% in 2022, so its basically outperforming any city or region in germany.
@@supernanny8375 it's actually not the most dangerous City in germany, its Frankfurt am Main, but still they have a lot of crime goin on no doubt about that
@@supernanny8375sounds like London.
@@supernanny8375was ein bullshit
I'm English and have lived in East Germany for 18 years, I like the the community spirit that is here, people I find are less materialist.I have found something that would exist in the UK .
Don't forget that East Germany had a wonderful national anthem that should not have gone unused after unification!
If you haven't heard of it yet, you should to listen to it.
Auferstanden aus Ruinen, Deutscher unser Faterland.
"Standing on the Ruins", it's a beautiful yet sad song about finding the national way again after destruction. A much better anthem for a new kind of Germany than that silly thing about Germany #1 (vs the State for context) and verses about their great wine and girls.
It fits so much better than the current anthem
@@brianmead7556 The fact that the uninspired and simplistic anthem won over, low key makes sense. Like McDonald's version of an actual hamburger.
Whatever the quality of it was, it is on a fundamental level not suitable as an anthem
This is simply because it would define Germany solely in relation to WW2(the ruins).
Ideally an anthem should have somewhere that describes the country in a better way, something that transcends time. Eg. the United Kingdom defines itself by it's king.
And yes saying your country is number is pretty cool.
Oh it has been used after the unification of germany. For example in 1995 when BRD President Roman Herzog visited Brazil. To compare: Imagine the US President visits Brasil and as a welcome the Confederate States Anthem is played.
I lived in west germany when the wall came down. They very next day, the roads were flooded with 'Yugo' model cars. They majority of east german drove these clunkers. There were hundreds of them broken down and abandoned on the autobahn. It was a huge culture shock for most of them. They lived in a rationed world, drove crappy cars, if any at all, and had trouble finding work. So many of them returned to east germany, were the culture shock wasnt as severe, as it took time for east germany to adjust to a new way of living. The first taste of capitalism that some of them got, was selling pieces of the Berlin wall. There would be dozens of people setting up stands just to sell chuncks of concrete, anywhere they could set up a stand. That went on for a long time after the wall came down.
Gosh, I was almost tearful watching those scenes again from November 9th 1989. On that day, I remember coming home from work, putting on the TV and watching it all unfold over the course of the evening - whilst opening a lot of bottles of wine. I was born in the UK in 1955 and had never known anything other than a divided Europe. It was a very, very big deal.
Thing is, on the surface Germany looks socially accepting, but there is still prejudice with others who are different. If you don't speak German, look different or came from a different background, you will never, ever be totally accepted. Of course, nobody will say that to your face. We were in a group with mostly Germans. Someone introduced someone as from East Germany. I thought that was odd, they never introduced everyone based on where they came from but they had to point out that someone was from East Germany, even after decades when East Germany doesn't exist anymore separately. That shows that there is still a divide. The physical wall came down, but it did not came down mentally and psychologically.
That has been my experience, as well.
The exception is if you speak Arabic or Turkish, then you'll be accepted with open arms in the West. If you speak Arabic you'll even get free shit!
So, if you want to be accepted, grow a beard, learn Arabic, convert to Islam and try to blend in with the middle Eastern and African refugees.
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 Thing is - you might also be introduced as "From Bavaria" in Northern Germany (at least at the time when I grew up there), or "From up North" when in Bavaria - it's not just an "East vs. West" thing. Being unified to the German empire comparatively late in history from various basically independent smaller realms, the regional spirit is very strong in many parts of Germany.
That being said, a lot of Germans tend to be rather xenophobic. They tend to stay aways from things or people unknown to them. It can be overcome, but in comparison to other nations or cultures, it does take some time.
They are currently trying to change the law to protect east germans from discrimination as atm they fall legally through the cracks of protection, as they are neither a different ethnicity nor a different sex or religion. Its pretty bad.
If you find them so "xenophobic", why don't you find somewhere else to live? And how do you think white people that settle down in the third world typically get treated? Hell, even just white people backpacking through third world countries routinely get robbed, r@ped, kidnapped, or murdered. I'm sick of these double standards whereby only white people are scrutinized for their behavior while you lie by omission by neglecting to mention that there is no civilization on Earth as welcoming to outsiders and people living in unnatural or strange ways as the West, for better or for worse.
My West German professor said the West basically views the East like Northerners in America view the South.
As a southerner who attended a university in the north, this sounds about accurate to me.
As a west German, I don't hope it's that bad and future generations get better conditions.
The division in the USA appears much deeper and more violent, especially seeing how it's generationally perpetuated beyond infrastructure debt.
Best case the next generation of Germans will stop judging each other that way, thanks to resumed family contact, exchange programs and shared experiences from the evening stop motion to educational access.
А разве Юг еще не ориентализировался, как Север? Вроде бы уже более ста лет прошло..
@@fionafiona1146 Нереально. Восточных немцев можно было ориентализировать, если бы сохранилась промышленность. Но западные немцы уничтожили все, поэтому восточные немцы сейчас - это бичи, которые не смогут стать частью восточной деспотии, потому что они не способны к предпринимательской активности. Они даже как рабочую силу могут продать себя только западным немцам..
@@Koroleva_O_A oriyentalizirovalsya?
I remember my dad going to a tech convention in West Germany, it was the mid 80s. My father was in his late 20s. His company created not just a prototype, but a functioning lightbulb that could work for 24 months non stop. His management expected a great success. And the interest was there, people came , looked at the specs "Interesant, interesant..." and walk away. My dad was devastated after 2 days with no contracts or sells. So much that it must have shown on his face, because an older dude from a BASF stand came to him and asked what was going on. So my father, throwing councious to the wind (and drinking a few Korns) layed it all out . Great product, cheaper then western counterparts , high standard and yet no one wants to buy it. And then the BASF employee explained to my father the stores are not interest in selling one great light bulb (or a box of them) once every 2 years. That efficient use of resources is not the goal in western economy. That they would rather have a light bulb that last 2-3 months, and my dad just couldn't get his head around the idea . And the dude just laughed. Bought a few boxes of the bulbs for magazines with fertilizers they were just finishing building, by which he saved my dads ass. Or rather he was less punished and sent to work in Marocco 84-88.
I hate how much you cut her off, dear lord. If you could release your whole talk with her, that would be amazing.
might as well just read her books tbh
There's a lot of misguided information in this video. It attributes the decline in agricultural outputs to "collectivization", completely ignoring the tens of millions of people who had just died in WW2, most of them rural peasants from both the Soviets, and the Germans.
East Germans had more peasant after the war then before
Thanks to all the expelled Germans from the east
Wow, you spend 90% of the video talking about the history and almost no time actually going over the point of the video... It's literally in your titlecard. Why is Germany still divided? Is this some kind of clickbait?!
I see a lot of those analysis videos with an interesting concept but it falls short, because it then procedues to take up so much time talking about something that isn't really to the point of the video. I understand that you want to explain the historical background to lead into your question, but I think it would be better to focus more on the problems facing Germany in the modern day. Why do people feel the country is still divided? What might be possible reasons for resentment between east and west?
Or did you just want to make a history video about East Germany? If so I think its a good video, but maybe change the title :3
I think the title refers to the legacy of the divide in today's Germany.
I've been bingeing your videos for the past few hours and lemme tell ya, it's definitely reignited my want to understand history. The stories that led to the events unfolding on the news today. I know it seems silly but you do it so effortlessly.
"They got to understand, people really want GENES, so you got to give it to them." - the captions
Nice deep dive! Ever since I saw the movie “Goodbye Lenin” in school I’ve been fascinated by the phenomena of reunification. This covers so much more than the niches of Ampelmännchen 🚦 and Ostalagie for pickles or other odd groceries that disappeared.
Researching this was a blast, so many interesting stories I'd never heard of!
@@ThePresentPast_Where did you get the number that Soviets r@ped 2 million German women, Fascists propaganda? Fascist Germans actually did that in the Eastern Front and it was illegal to commit that in the red army, not saying it didn't happen at all but it was punished in the red army.
It was annexation rather than reunification
I see some Germans try to excuse the deaths of 17 million soviets by mentioning the death of barely a million German civilians
Does this mean 1 German is worth 17 soviets?
yup
when russia comes to germany at some point in the near future, i wonder whose side these scheissossis wil be on@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan
i mean it cant be fun to be a second class citizen in your own country
Interesting video. I was a British soldier based at Bergen Hohne during the mid 80's to 1990. I was driving on the Autobahn late at night, when I encountered a pair of dimly lit red lights ahead of me, I pulled over to pass the car and did not recognise it or the plate? This was the Trabant, when I got back to camp, we were told that the wall had fallen! Es war unglaublich!
same experiance as a us berlin brigade 86 to 92 4/502 inf
Small correction - monument of the soviet soldier in Berlin isn't "crushing nazis" with its sword - it is symbolically lowering the sword on foreign land.
It's a memorial to the fact that the war has ended, not the glorification of its results.
The Soviets/bolsheviks were literally controlled by Zionists lol….
You can see his boot crushing a swastika behind the sword. That's what he was referring to. I think you are right about the sword position
Are you a red ruzzian sympathizer?
The Russians were no better than the N*zis
I was stationed in Berlin when the wall came down. The younger generations in West Berlin ages from 16-35 were living a fun spirited party life. And I still have contact with people from when I was there many years back. I was there 88-90 and was some of the most memorable times of my life.
I was in high school (in the US) when reunification happened. I remember thinking it was a bad idea, since the two countries must have been so very different - I thought it simply wouldn't work. But somehow it seems to have produced a functioning society. It's nice to see some of that discussed here, showing some of the difficulties with squashing these two places together. I suppose it may have been for the best in the long run but it's not without its issues.
ok how tf are u verified you have 6 subs
(I always click on verified channels that I've never heard of btw)
@@eeeee11235yes fr how
@@eeeee11235 No idea. I don't remember ever doing anything to verify myself - I don't make content or anything. Maybe because I've had this account for so long?
This is such a fascinating topic. I feel like focusing on Germany, from a German perspective would be a great direction for this channel. I'm fascinated by the GDR and how it managed to maintain a relatively good standard of living within a communist system and as much as we focus on the repression and stagnation, there were some undeniably positive aspects of that society.
Maintaining "a good standard of living" in communist East Germany worked as long as the people practiced self-censorship, minded their own business, and didn't ask difficult questions.
I grew up in the region of the former GDR in the aftermath of the reunification. The problems after the reunification had a significant impact for my family and my upbringing. There is a lot of problems in the East today which are a direct result of the events of reunification. Also, even though I am born after the wall came down, I still faced discrimination due to the fact that I am an East German Woman, not just in the west also in the east when it comes to career paths. However, thank you for that video as it reminds me of my stay in the US where I also shared and explained that backround to a lot of people.
i was on a three week program as an intern in east germany a couple years ago and worked at a Mercedes dealership. Something the old time mechanics told me was to look for how many newer and better models were around. Their explanation was that the people during DDR who didnt have access to luxury items would sometimes go a bit further than just to meet their needs when making bigger purchases. spend that little extra if you know what i mean. It was interesting, but i never heard much about that mindset since
You could have also shown one of the pictures from berlin seen from above at night.
East and west Berlin still use lamps with different colours, you can perfectly see the separation even today.
Can you tell which side used what color of light so I could research more about it?
I think the east has warmer light and the west colder light. There's pictures if you google it@@sparkgrid
I was born in 1972 and visited Berlin, both east and west the year behore the wall fell. This video is unique in such a way it probably is the first to 'use' the people a point of view.. Thank for you for making it. It's like reliving history I saw happen when I was much younger. Congratulations!
Imagine what would happen to north and south korea after a reunification. The economic and education disparity between the two is off the charts compared to germany
Ironic that your mobile phone is now an electronic stasi tracking device to where people go.
But not the state is tracking but private owned companies who want to use the data to sell you even more shit you actually dont need.
People forget that West Germany was also a surveillance state and unlike with East Germany, that one was never reconciled. It's actually amazing how little information there's about West Germany compared to East Germany. And vast majority of material on West Germany focuses exclusively on economic miracle.
It is just hilarious if not tragic to realize East Germany had it all only to throw it in the trash for jeans and iPhones lmao
@@CantoniaCustomsjeans and money
Comparing the Stasi to a cell phone is really an insult to the people the Stasi followed and persecuted.
East German national anthem >>>> Current German anthem
absolutely: the East German anthem is an absolute masterpiece of extraordinary beauty, while the Western anthem that was imposed upon reunification (annexation) is just censored rubbish....
Only proves how one short sjghted this story is!
The book "Stasi State or Socialist Paradise" is a great resource for learning about the GDR and its annexation by the West.
@@maxgedeminas2904 yes, annexation
@Dummigame But it categorically wasn't an annexation, do you know what that word means? It was a reunification, with the support of the common German in both states.
@@titanomachy2217 It is de facto an annexation though. East Germany was not a succesor state, but rather absorbed into West Germany. Everything about the East was exterminated and replaced by West German ones. Sure the East Germans were ecstatic when so called reunification happened, but soon enough they were tremendously disappointed at how it was carried out. People lost their jobs, the country was deindustrialized, their voices got ignored as they were collectively called the "Jammerossis". Regardless how you see it, "die Wende" (as how it is still commonly called) was never an equal merge of two states, but an annexation of a defeated state by a victorious one.
Finally found a glimmer of truth in a sea of propaganda
@@cuongpham6218Both west and east Germany were annexed by Americans and Soviets anyways.
You forget about Austria. Germany got chopped up and divided into three states.
This is complete nonsense. Before the war, Austria was an independent state. It was a former part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which disintegrated into successor states such as my country (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Austria, etc.
@aleszitka Austria consists of German people. All the Germans voted for the Anschluß. Since then we have a united Deutsches Reich. The Deutsche Reich was split into three states with mainly Germans in them: the BRÖ, the BRD and the DDR.
@@maxsievers8251
Long lives to idiots on the net...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
@@maxsievers8251 Free elections:
...a day later, Austria was incorporated as the so-called East Mark into the German Empire. In a referendum held less than a month later, 99.7 percent of the population approved this move. However, the vote was held in an atmosphere of intimidation of the opponents, with more than 70 thousand people inconvenient to the regime already being arrested as a precaution before the vote, another 200 thousand Austrians were deprived of the right to vote.
it reminds me of the current russian elections in eastern Ukraine
@@aleszitka Lol the elction in Austria is nowhere near the Russian election in Donbass. Search for Saar Protectorate referendum, a referendum in today German State of Saarland in the aftermath of WW2 on whether Saar was to join France or Germany. Conducted in an area that are dominated by ethnic German people. And that is exactly what happened in Ukraine
Eastern Ukraine ever since the inception of 'Ukraine' as a country, the area has been dominated by ethnic Russian people. So stop kicking a dead horse cause even if the referendum was held neutrally by independent observers, the Russia still has a higher chance to win
0:20 “this man’s state is already dead, he just doesn’t know it yet”
Lol
Another thing the DDR did to show superiority was build the Fernsehturn. They purposefully built it so tall to dominate the Berlin skyline as symbolism that socialism dominates. But the most interesting GDR/DDR fact of them all...the Palast der Republik lives on through the Burj Khalifa in Dubai! About 35K tonnes of steel from it was shipped to the UAE for the Burj Khalifa. The Palast der Republik opened in 1976 and was the main gathering place of the DDR in East Berlin. Besides parliament, it also had restaurants, a performing arts center, a post office, a casino, galleries, a bowling alley, and even an indoor swimming pool! The Palast was demolished in the 2000s to rebuild the old Stadtschloss.
The Palast may be gone from Museum Island, but across from the former site is the former State Council Building, which houses the ESMT Berlin campus. They've been quite passionate about preserving its history. The interior has a large glass socialist mosaic by Walter Womacka. The interior also has a ballroom with a preserved GDR emblem made of one million mosaic stones. And the building's entrance is actually a balcony kept from the ORIGINAL Stadtschloss and was added to the State Council Building. The balcony is significant because it was the balcony Karl Liebknecht, who led the Spartacist uprising declared a new socialist republic in 1918. It's also the same balcony the Kaiser declared war against Russia
Dark from space Korea = best Korea
When you got to the part about the blue jeans, I was reminded of the time back in... probably 1989 or 1990 when a Soviet ship put into port in Boston (which in and of itself was a big deal). I remember a newspaper article about how the sailors were allowed to go ashore, and all they did was eat McDonald's and go to the mall - where they bought out the every store's entire stock of jeans. No reports of anyone trying to defect; they just wanted Big Macs and Levi's.
Bin Wessi und lebe (+arbeite) seit 2015 in Ostberlin. Danke für die emphatische Dokumentation. Ja - ich habe Freunde im Osten gefunden und Menschen kennengelernt, die die Stasi verteidigen. Ich kenne Westberliner die Events und Besuche im Ostteil der Stadt vermeiden; ja auf mich herabsehen, dass ich mich so gut eingelebt habe. Immer noch "komisch". Wenn man jemanden neu kennenlernt, wird innerhalb der ersten 15 Min. klar, ob Ossi oder Wessi, durch "ganz normale" Konversation 😂.
To be honest, the characterization of Katja Hoyders book as "brilliant" is an opinion which is quite exclusively held by you and Katja Hoyer. German historians have almost unanimously given devastating reviews of the book.
Are there other books covering the topic with different conclusions?
Sie stellt die Deutungshoheit in Frage, die der Westen für sich beansprucht. Das gefällt natürlich einigen nicht.
Es gibt aber auch positive Kritiken.
@@cumuluscloud3854 Sascha-Ilko Kowalczuk ist z.B. kein Wessi. Die Kritiken, die ich meine, beziehen sich ganz klar auf ihre historische Methodik und nicht auf Hoyers These, dass es in der DDR vielleicht doch ein bisschen schöner war als allgemein angenommen.
Actually North Korea wasn't living that bad when USSR was giving them money. And before 80s, North Korea had better life quality than South Korea. So North Korea and DDR are quite similar.
The fact you couldn't travel probably brought down DDR more than anything.
And women were working cause DDR lacked working force.
As a Bavarian living close to the border its crazy how you an spot the differences - Small ones like fewer stores and places to eat than in bavaria but also large ones like fewer people, less industry, smaller streets and older houses. I only recently learned that a big part of real estate and industry in the former east is actually owned by people from the former west. This and the low wages are reasons why many people move. But fewer people also lead to fewer workers for existing or new businesses. Fewer businesses slow or even stop local development. Sadly the politicians somehow could not really fix this issue. The big cities are booming, but mostly "West-germans" profit as they bought properties at low prices for many years.
this is basically how you could describe whats happens in the US and those affected by socioeconomic factors because of their race and the struggle to make it out of low income neighborhoods
Watched from Old Harbour Jamaica 🇯🇲 and I remember when the wall 🧱 came down and have a relative visiting Germany at the time and he carried home a piece of the wall 🧱.
In 2019 a court decided that being eastgerman is not a type of discrimination according to german/european rules against discrimination.
Can you give me sources so that I could look it up and read about it?
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 They more specifically said that east german isnt a distinct ethnicity from west german so it doesnt trigger the protection against discrimination. They are working on adapting the defining clauses to protect east germans now.
Beeing something, is never discrimination. Something you might have got, or expressed wrong.
Very cool. I'm old enough to remember seeing the Berlin wall come down on TV. I was a teen at the time. I've been to Munich in 1990 with my girlfriend and her parents. Jeremy Clarkson went to Germany in a series called "Jeremy Clarkson meets the Neighbors". He contrasted the difference back in the 90's. Thank you.
Thank You! This video offered a look at East Germany that was not offered to Americans in school. When I think of Germany, I think of masters in automotive engineering and manufacturing. My best built cars were German (Ford) and or Japanese. I have never had an opinion on East Germany because I had no information to form an opinion. While I vividly remember the wall coming down, it was little more than major news story to me.
@kevinsellsit5584 I don't recall being told anything about East Germany. The media addressed such topics, but there was no real effort in the schools the way it was in Communist countries.
So, you're saying everything I do remember about East Germany is from the James Bond movies Dad took me to that mom felt we shouldn't see...You may be correct Dennis. ;)
Although, if you were lucky enough to be in my 5th grade California public school class, I was the kid that brought de-classified films of missile testing at white sands. Dad had one of those jobs that "I'd tell you but then I'd have to..." Thinking back, you have to wonder what the mothers thought when little Jenny was asked "what did you learn in school today"?
That being said, I can't think of any violence whatsoever at that school.
Strange how things have changed.@@dennisweidner288
Ford is American. Henry Ford was born in Michigan and founded the Ford Motor Company.
@@chaosXP3RT Who does not know that? Ford was also a key player in building American industry that became the Arsenal of Democracy--a key factor in the destruction of the great totalitarian powers in World War II.
7:30 really? i mean, at least use some real sowiet music like "The hymn of the defender of the fatherland" or the "national anthem". the Lyrics of the C&C song are just rediculous and in the context of such an important topic kinda in a bad way.... just my two cents.
There's a lot more to unpack on the reunification, like the massive deindustrialization of the eastern block for example.
Wow! Such an amazing video! I born in '97, am East-German and I can still feel the wall in the head, even in my own. If you're growing up in the East, like me, you get told the narrative and the teachers "help" with their own history. This development will be still going on probably for a long time, until there are no generations, who knew the wall. All the economic force that was taken out of East-Germany, needed and needs to be rebuilt. If you're looking outside the bigger cities in the East, a lot of times, there is almost nothing, just agriculture and people who are moving to the cities. So no economy there. That was destroyed, when West-Germany took over the East
~8:44 Funny extra detail about that photo, that soldier wasn't actually wearing looted watches; part of the kit for Soviet soldiers at the time was a wrist-mounted compass, so that's why it looks like he was wearing two watches. However, Soviet higher-ups didn't realize this, hence the image being edited.
It's not a compass. it's obvious.
@@optikum100 It's factually a wrist mounted compass that was part of the equipment for Soviet troops, what seems "obvious" to you doesn't really matter lol
Its the government, NOT the people.
Thank you very much for this Jochem. My uncle told me stories of when he visited East Germany on his Triumph Bonneville, from England and noted how the differences were very stark. For instance, he went to book into a hotel, that looked like something out of a 1950's spy/detective movie - as was the desk manager. Ordinary streets looked tidy, quiet and deserted, and very noticeably stuck in the 1960's - especially seeing the cars.
East of Checkpoint Alpha, I've always felt this area was both fascinating and scary, especially as an outsider that could be viewed with some suspicion. Even today, I get the feeling that those who are not German - particularly East German might get a hard time. However, post-war Eastern Europe has always had me intrigued, and its always been interesting to see how far the different regions progressed.
I am East Germany, born in 1976. Something raised my attention in the video: "A third of the working class gets to go to university". How can that be if 95% only had 10 year school education (POS) and only 5% were able to get an "Abitur" at a 12 year school (EOS)?
Community college or some equivalent?
7:28 I did not expect to hear Red Alert 3 music in a documentary
I agree. After this music, I turned off the video, realizing not the competence of the author.
@@egro_chapliaI presumed it was supposed to be a joke.
Same😂
I believe it's called *The Red Menace*.
More Soviet than anything actually Soviet.
Ich bin in der DDR aufgewachsen, zum Zeitpunkt der Wiedervereinigung war ich noch bei der NVA. Die Wiedervereinigung wurde meiner Ansicht nach, nie richtig aufgearbeitet und der 2WK auch nicht. Nach der Wiedervereinigung wurde die Wirtschaft durch die Treuhand noch mehr ruiniert. Gewinner / Profiteure waren andere.
Wow they made Dance Dance Revolution into a country? Awesome!
I'm glad you referenced the war refugees and how they were dispersed between West and East Germany following the war.
My mother was a refugee from Danzig. Her mother died near the end of the war, while her father was somewhere else working as an electrician. The surving family members fled west and were separated along the way.
There were five children in her family. My mother ended up in West Germany and was raised by the family she fled west with from Danzig. Two of her siblings ended up in Leipzig, East Germany and reuinted with their father in 1949. My mother was also reunited with her father in Leipzig but after a short time returned to the family that was raising her as their own kn West Germany even though she retained her family name. An older brother was hung as a deserter in February, 1945. Her oldest brother was also a soldier in the whremacht and ended up in Hamburg, West Germany.
My mother ended up working on an American Army base were she worked as a translator and met my father.
As an American, painting Soviets as bad people when Germany in WW2 invaded Soviet Union is trying to revise history. Pls read more before trying to revise history.
It was a wild way to frame that, considering it was Germans who started a massive genocidal war against them
what a nice easter egg to hear one of the speakers of simplicissimus at 23:30
FEELINGS, Not FACTS
So why Germany is still divided? Just a few minutes cover opinions on this topic, the rest of the video just illuminates the surface of the storyhistory which is already known. I was hoping for a more thorough analysis to gain a better understanding of the current situation
Spot on
True, it requires a part 2 of equal length addressing this issue on different angles using various perspectives from the local people there and how things still remain bifurcated. This video does not do the title justice.
Clickbaity video. ngl learned like nothing new. Didnt show my germany is still divided.