07/11/2014
Roberto Inclán is a Germanist
Sunday November 9 will mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A day earlier, a communication error by Günter Schabowski, spokesman of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED by its acronym in German), had led to the unexpected opening of borders in East Germany, thus ending 28 years of division in Germany's most important city. The GDR was assuming its failure as a collective project, both economically and socially and, unable to maintain their own citizens locked up, it decided to put an end to its short life and manage the end of a regime qualified by many as an "unfair" State (Unrechtsstaat), a term that the president of the Republic, Joachim Gauck, referred to in his speech commemorating the mass demonstration in Leipzig this October 9. This process is commonly referred to as die Wende (the change).
Thereafter, the country assumed its reunification as one of the greatest challenges in its history. Under the watchful eye of the world, this process was a demonstration of democratic success in the difficult task of uniting two societies as different as the capitalist and the communist one. The desire to close wounds and look to the future together generated the necessary determination to make this period as short as possible and, on October 3, 1990, less than a year after, the accession of the five new states to the Federal Republic of Germany – Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, plus the eastern part of the city of Berlin – was officially proclaimed.
However, during this period numerous obstacles had to be overcome, including the shooting of the then Domestic Minister in the Government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Wolfgang Schäuble, and the stabbing suffered by the SPD Chancellor candidate, Oskar Lafontaine, after a rally in Cologne on April 25, 1990.
In spite of all this, the reunification went ahead, to the disappointment of its detractors, as the then Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who uttered the famous phrase "I love Germany so much that I prefer to have two of them."
Throughout these 25 years, the various federal governments have tried to reduce the existing differences at the time of the reunification of the two countries. Economically, numerous initiatives have been undertaken over these years to alleviate this contrast. The most important of these is the so-called Solidarity Pact (effective until 2019), whereby each year the new eastern states receive millionaire transfers financed by their western neighbours.
But far from realising these desires, reality is stubborn and all data indicate that there is still much work to do. Despite all efforts, today we can continue speaking of the existence of a two-speed Germany. With a scarce and increasingly ageing population, the eastern Länder barely manage to reach two-thirds of the income of their western neighbours – 2 691 euros of gross monthly income on average compared to 3 577. The lesser development of the East does not work as an incentive for large companies in the country, most of which are headquartered in the western part. Therefore, employment opportunities are far from similar, and according to the latest figures available, the East suffers an unemployment rate of 9%, while in the West it only reaches 5.6%, with the state of Bavaria at the head of employment, with a scarce 3.4% unemployment rate.
As for the per capita property, every citizen of the East has on average less than half than one of the West – 61 200 euros compared to 140 600, according to figures from last year 2013.
The short-term future does not look as bright as it was recently thought for the country as a whole. Recently, the Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister, Sigmar Gabriel lowered growth expectations for this year from 1.8% to 1.2%, and figures for 2015 have also fallen from 2% to 1.3%.
Furthermore, the social and political climate is not at its best either. The celebrations for the fall of the Wall will be held in the coming days concurring with the largest railroad strike the country's history, with a dispute between Deutsche Bahn and the German Union of Train Drivers (GDL), which has paralysed a large part of the country. To this we must add that this week, the way for the red-red-green coalition in the Land of Thuringia has been cleared, which will enable Bodo Ramelow to become the Prime Minister-President of a German region on December. Ramelow belongs to the Die Linke party, heir to the former Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, still counting among its ranks several former leaders of the communist regime and even several former members of the Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi.
It's been 25 years since the German people decided to end the embarrassment represented by the Berlin Wall, but the differences between East and West are still more than evident. There is currently no physical impediment to achieve this unity, but as the writer and citizen of the former GDR Christa Wolf expressed in her novel, it seems the sky is still divided.