Human Capital, Job Tasks and Technology in East Germany After Reunification

2007 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 97-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Spitz-Oener
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Job Tasks ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
Surprising Finding

At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, employees in East Germany were at least as well educated as employees in West Germany in terms of formal educational qualifications. However, it is unclear to what extent the skills and knowledge acquired through the East German education system, and through employment in a socialist labour market, are transferable to the new market-based economy. This study aims to shed light on this issue by giving a comprehensive description of the work of those employees who remained employed after the first phase of restructuring (i.e. in 1991) in East Germany, and comparing it with work in West Germany. Overall, the similarity between workplaces in East and West Germany soon after reunicication is striking. In addition, the patterns of task changes between 1991 and 1999 were very similar in both parts of Germany. Neither the level of task inputs in1991 nor the changes in task inputs between 1991 and 1999 were driven by cohort effects, a surprising finding given how differently the age groups were affected by the historical event. The Largest difference between the east and the west exists in terms of workplace computerisation. Although East Germany has caught up rapidly, it was still lagging behind the west in terms of computer use in 1999.

Post-unification (East) German Documentary and the Contradictions of Identity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barton Byg
Keyword(s):  
West Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
Innovative Enterprise ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Individual

This chapter focuses on the three major themes that have helped make the integration between East and West German documentary filmmakers successful and have contributed new strengths to German independent documentary as a productive and innovative enterprise. It first illustrates the phenomenon of collaboration between filmmakers from both East and West Germany, which preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall and provides the basis for unique accomplishments in documentary. Then, partly based on these East–West collaborations, it discuss examples of German documentary's frequent explorations of non-European topics, which challenge the clear separation of European and non-European in both politics and film art. Here, the film collaborations between Helga Reidemeister and Lars Barthel will serve as a case study. Finally, also as a result of decades of experimentation with the nature of the film medium's presentation of ‘reality’, ‘history’, and the individual human subject, Thomas Heise's German ‘portrait film’ Barluschke (1997) is explored as an example of this defining quality of independent German documentary filmmaking in the context of the post-Cold War.

Wage Adjustment, Competitiveness and Unemployment – East Germany after Unification

2009 ◽  
Vol 229 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Smolny
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
East Germany ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
East German ◽  
Wage Adjustment

SummaryNearly 20 years after unification large differences of the labor market situation in East and West Germany persist. Wages are still considerably lower, the unemployment rate is about twice of the West German level, and the competitiveness of the East German economy seems to be low. This paper analyzes the process of (relative) wage adjustment in East Germany and the resulting development of competitiveness and unemployment differentials. We present estimates of the wage adjustment in East vs. West Germany based on wage convergence and effects of unemployment on wage growth. The central focus of the paper is the empirical analysis of the interaction of the development of competitiveness and the labor market situation. The results reveal large equilibrium gaps for wages and unemployment which are based on the wage-setting process, the behavior of competitiveness and the adjustment of unemployment.

1989 in European Vernacular Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Breuer ◽  
Anna Delius
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Social Integration ◽  
Special Section ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
National History ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Made In

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak In our contribution, we examine the vernacular memory of the end of Communism and the year 1989 in Europe. Analyzing sixteen focus groups conducted in Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, we concentrate on the question whether the events related to 1989 might have the disposition to become a transnational European lieu de mémoire. We show that 1989 is not a salient historical event for British and Spanish participants, while Polish and German respondents do connect it with patterns of national identity building. Differences between vernacular and official memories could be revealed as respondents hardly mentioned the democratic achievements made in the course of the transitions. A transnational dimension was only found in Poland, where respondents articulate a feeling of neglect toward their own national history. The Solidarity movement is being interpreted as a motor of liberation and Europeanization of Poland and as a pioneer of democratization on a European scale. German respondents remain in their national frame, focusing on flashbulb memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the issue of social integration of East and West Germany after 1990, which they evaluate as imperfect. The strong national bias of Polish and German focus groups raises doubts as to whether 1989 can become a transnational basis for a shared European memory.

Moving against Disappearance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Pedestrian Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.

East-West divide will persist in Germany

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
National Level ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ruhr Area ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Skills Shortage ◽  
East West

Subject Differences between East and West Germany. Significance Considerable investment notwithstanding, the economy in East Germany is still weaker than in the West. This is compounded by demographic change. Moreover, voting behaviour and the distribution of political attitudes in the East are markedly different from the West. These factors will continue to shape political processes on the national level. Impacts The skills shortage in the East is unlikely to be alleviated by migration as the anti-immigration sentiment persists. The necessary reallocation of tax funds to East Germany will remain a bone of contention. The continuing decline of some industrial areas in the West (particularly in the Ruhr area) will exacerbate this conflict.

Catching-up of East German Labour Productivity in the 1990s

2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Barrell ◽  
Dirk Willem te Velde
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Foreign Firms ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
East German ◽  
East And West ◽  
Organization Of Production

Abstract We provide empirical evidence for exogenous and endogenous catching-up of East German labour productivity to West German levels. We argue that labour productivity in East Germany has caught up faster than has happened elsewhere. The sudden formation of the German Monetary Union was followed by large transfers to East Germany, migration of workers to West Germany, reorganization and privatization of East German firms. This has quickly led to a partial closing of the organizational, idea and object gaps that existed between East and West Germany. This paper analyses labour productivity in East and West Germany using both aggregate German data and unbalanced panel analysis of developments in East and West Germany. Factors affecting the organization of production, and especially privatization and `foreign' firms, are found to be particularly important in this context.

How Udo Wanted to Save the World in ‘Erich's Lamp Shop’: Lindenberg's Concert in Honecker's East Berlin, the NATO Double-Track Decision and Communist Economic Woes

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORENZ M. LÜTHI
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
East German ◽  
Peace Activist ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
Double Track

AbstractThe concert given by the West German rock star Udo Lindenberg in East Berlin on 25 October 1983 links cultural, political, diplomatic and economic history. The East German regime had banned performances by the anti-nuclear peace activist and musician since the 1970s, but eventually allowed a concert, hoping to prevent the deployment of American nuclear missiles in West Germany. In allowing this event, however, East Germany neither prevented the implementation of the NATO double-track decision of 1979 nor succeeded in controlling the political messages of the impertinent musician. Desperate for economic aid from the West, East Germany decided to cancel a promised Lindenberg tour in 1984, causing widespread disillusionment among his fans in the country.

scholarly journals Hidden Behind the Wall: West German State Building and the Emergence of the Iron Curtain

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagi Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
German Economy ◽  
State Building ◽  
West Germany ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
German State ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German

It is widely accepted that the inter-German border was constructed by East German authorities to halt the emigration to the west, which had damaged the East German economy and undermined the East German state agencies' power. This article argues that this is an inaccurate understanding, which mistakenly treats perceptions and insights gained from studying the Berlin Wall as representative of the mostly rural border between East and West Germany. It emphasizes crucial transformations of frontier society during the 1950s, highlighting the important role of western as well as eastern policy in shaping them.

scholarly journals Denying Difference to the Post-Socialist Other: Bernhard Heisig and the Changing Reception of an East German Artist

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
April A. Eisman
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Before And After ◽  
East German

This article traces the reception of East German artist Bernhard Heisig’s life and art—first in East Germany and then in the Federal Republic of Germany before and after the Wall. Drawing on post-colonial and post-socialist scholarship, it argues that Heisig’s reception exemplifies a western tendency to deny cultural and ideological difference in what the post-socialist scholar Piotr Piotrowski calls the “close Other.” This denial of difference to artists from the eastern bloc has shaped western understandings of Heisig’s life and art since reunification. Once perceived as an intellectually engaged, political artist, both in East and West Germany, after the fall of the Wall and German unification, Heisig was reinterpreted as a traumatized victim of two dictatorships, distorting not only our understanding of the artist and his work, but also of the nature of art and the role of the artist in East Germany.

scholarly journals The Berlin Wall after Fifty Years: Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hope M. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
East And West ◽  
East West

Fifty years ago on 13 August 1961, the East Germans sealed the east-westborder in Berlin, beginning to build what would become known as theBerlin Wall. Located 110 miles/177 kilometers from the border with WestGermany and deep inside of East Germany, West Berlin had remained the“last loophole” for East Germans to escape from the communist GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR) to the western Federal Republic of Germany(FRG, West Germany). West Berlin was an island of capitalism and democracywithin the GDR, and it enticed increasing numbers of dissatisfied EastGermans to flee to the West. This was particularly the case after the borderbetween the GDR and FRG was closed in 1952, leaving Berlin as the onlyplace in Germany where people could move freely between east and west.By the summer of 1961, over 1,000 East Germans were fleeing westwardsevery day, threatening to bring down the GDR. To put a stop to this, EastGermany’s leaders, with backing from their Soviet ally, slammed shut this“escape hatch.”

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