The Separation and Reunification of Germany: Rethinking a Natural Experiment Interpretation of the Enduring Effects of Communism

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

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A Post-World War II Tragedy: The Expulsion of Ethnic Germans From Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1945-49

the general brock university Undergraduate journal of history ◽

10.26522/gbuujh.v2i0.1484 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

Author(s):

Erica Lamontagne

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Jewish People ◽

Third Reich ◽

West Germany ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

World War ◽

East And West Germany ◽

Ethnic Germans ◽

East And West ◽

The Third Reich

Through a comparative approach, this essay examines the cruel and inhumane way in which ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in the years immediately following the end of World War II. It compares the nature of the expulsions in Poland and Czechoslovakia and how this negatively impacted the two countries in the aftermath of the expulsions. In Czechoslovakia especially, the nature of the expulsions of ethnic Germans greatly resembled Nazi policy toward Jewish people during the Third Reich. This essay also briefly examines the integration of ethnic German refugees from Poland and Czechoslovakia into both East and West Germany. As a result of ideological differences in East and West Germany, expellees had very different experiences upon resettlement, depending on where they arrived in Germany. The purpose of this essay is to break through the common misconception that most, or all, Germans at the end of World War II were criminals. Many ethnic Germans expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia saw themselves as Poles or Czechoslovaks, and did not associate themselves with Nazi Germany.

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Returning to Stay? Jews in East and West Germany after the Holocaust

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s0008938920000163 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 393-413

Author(s):

Andrea A. Sinn

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

West Germany ◽

Federal Republic Of Germany ◽

World War ◽

Jewish Communities ◽

East And West Germany ◽

The Holocaust ◽

Central Council ◽

East And West ◽

German Jewish

ABSTRACTTo better understand the position of Jews within Germany after the end of World War II, this article analyzes the rebuilding of Jewish communities in East and West Germany from a Jewish perspective. This approach highlights the peculiarities and sometimes sharply contrasting developments within the Jewish communities in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, from the immediate postwar months to the official East-West separation of these increasingly politically divided communities in the early 1960s. Central to the study are the policies of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which exemplify the process of gradual divergence in the relations between East and West German Jewish communities, that, as this article demonstrates, paralleled and mirrored the relations between non-Jewish Germans in the two countries.

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Rejecting Radbruch: The European Court of Human Rights and the Crimes of the East German Leadership

Leiden Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/s0922156501000322 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 653-663 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Russell Miller

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

World War Ii ◽

Central Line ◽

West Germany ◽

World War ◽

Military Leaders ◽

East And West Germany ◽

European Court ◽

East German ◽

East And West

The European Court of Human Rights found no violation of the Convention in its judgement in the complaints of the former East German political and military leaders Streletz, Kessler, and Krenz. All three were convicted and sentenced to terms in prison by German courts in relation to the deaths of East Germans who were killed in attempts at fleeing across the fortified border between East and West Germany. Nonetheless, the Court's decision constitutes a clear rejection of the Radbruch Formula, which served as a central line of reasoning in the decisions of the German courts in the cases. The author addresses the Court's rejection of the Radbruch Formula, focusing especially on the distinct historical and political circumstances that existed after World War II and in 1989.

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Evolution and Normalization: Historical Consciousness in Germany

German Politics & Society ◽

10.3167/gps.2012.300302 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 35-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Felix Philipp Lutz

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Political Culture ◽

Historical Consciousness ◽

West Germany ◽

Strong Continuity ◽

World War ◽

Historical Knowledge ◽

East And West Germany ◽

The Holocaust ◽

Nazi Era

German political culture has been undergoing gradual but significant changes since unification. Military engagements in combat missions, the introduction of a professional army, and a remarkable loss of recent historical knowledge mostly within the younger generations are hallmarks of the new millennium. Extensive education about the Holocaust is still prevalent and there is a strong continuity of attitudes and orientations toward the Nazi era and the Holocaust reaching back to the 1980s. Nevertheless, a lack of knowledge about history-not only the World War II period, but also about East and West Germany-in the age group of people under thirty is staggering. The fading away of the generation of victims who are the last ones to tell the story of persecution during the Holocaust and a parallel rise of new actors and technologies, present challenges to the educational system and the current political culture of Germany.

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Germany: Twenty Years After The Union

International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER) ◽

10.19030/iber.v9i4.559 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Pete Mavrokordatos ◽

Stan Stascinsky ◽

Andrew Michael

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Final Section ◽

German Economy ◽

West Germany ◽

Economic Conditions ◽

World War ◽

The Third ◽

East And West Germany ◽

The World ◽

Before And After

One of the most important events in the world after World War II was the reunification of Germany, during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The aim of this paper is to discuss the general economic conditions in Germany, before and after the reunification. This paper is divided into four parts. The introductory section provides a summative discussion of the economic conditions in East and West Germany from World War II until the time of reunification. The second section presents an evaluation of the German economy since the reunification. The third section presents macroeconomic data to illustrate the general impact of the unification on the German economy. The final section offers concluding remarks and recommendations.

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Introduction: Burdens and Beginnings: Rebuilding East and West Germany after Nazism

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s0008938920000102 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 275-293

Author(s):

Karen Hagemann ◽

Konrad H. Jarausch ◽

Tobias Hof

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Family Policy ◽

West Germany ◽

East And West Germany ◽

East And West ◽

New Beginnings ◽

Nazi Past ◽

German Jewish ◽

And Gender ◽

The Cold War

AbstractThe introduction discusses the state of the current research on the post-1945 history of East and West Germany, explains the agenda of the special issue and discusses its main topics. The focus is the politics of survival in the chaos of collapse and the controversial debates about the agenda of the reconstruction. In these discussions different visions competed, from the restoration of traditions to efforts of a post-fascist modernization. The introduction questions the postwar success narrative by discussing the “burdens” of the Nazi past, such as Nazi perpetrators, displaced people, expellees and refugees, including the returning German-Jewish survivors. It also engages with the problems of the Cold War division by exploring the “new beginnings”, which were debated in relation to the past of Nazi, Weimar, and Imperial Germany, among them: cultural diplomacy, welfare policy and eldercare, family policy and gender roles, and popular culture. The essay calls for more comparative and transnational research of the postwar era, especially in the areas of the integration into the Cold War blocs, the postwar shifting of borders and peoples, narratives of victimhood, and memory tropes about the war and postwar.

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Psychiatry in former East and West Germany since reunification

Psychiatric Bulletin ◽

10.1192/pb.18.10.637 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 18 (10) ◽

pp. 637-639 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Manfred Bauer

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Mentally Ill ◽

West Germany ◽

World War ◽

East And West Germany ◽

The Social ◽

Conservative Christian ◽

The Government ◽

Expert Commission ◽

First Time

Discussion of the need to reform psychiatric services in former West Germany started relatively late. It was only in the late 1960s, when the government changed from the conservative Christian Democrats to a coalition of the Social Democratic and Liberal Parties, that psychiatry became a public issue for the first time since World War II. Parliament appointed an expert commission, which after four years gave a comprehensive report in which the inadequate care of mentally ill patients was criticised.

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Terminal decline in well-being differs between residents in East Germany and West Germany

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025415602561 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 115-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nina Vogel ◽

Denis Gerstorf ◽

Nilam Ram ◽

Jan Goebel ◽

Gert G. Wagner

Keyword(s):

Life Satisfaction ◽

Natural Experiment ◽

East Germany ◽

Late Life ◽

Well Being ◽

West Germany ◽

Individual Development ◽

Age At Death ◽

East And West Germany ◽

East And West

Lifespan research has long been interested in how contexts shape individual development. Using the separation and later reunification of Germany as a kind of natural experiment we examine whether and how living and dying in the former East or West German context has differentially shaped late-life development of well-being. We apply multi-level growth models to annual reports of life satisfaction collected over 20+ years since German reunification from 4,159 deceased participants in the Socio-Economic Panel ( NWest= 3,079, Mage at death = 73.90, 47% women; NEast= 1,080, Mage at death = 72.23, 48% women). We examine differences between East and West Germany in levels, rates of change, and onset of terminal decline in well-being and the role of age at death, gender, education, disability and time spent in reunification. Analyses revealed that West Germans reported higher life satisfaction than East Germans, and that these differences get smaller both with passing time since reunification and in late life. The gap between East and West Germany diminishes over the last 10 years of life by more than 25%. Taking into account key individual characteristics only slightly attenuated this pattern, with education and age at death moderating late-life well-being level and decline in East Germany. Our results are consistent with long-standing notions that contextual factors shape individual development and illustrate the plasticity of human development. After having experienced disadvantages in life circumstances for up to 40 years through living in East Germany, effects of this natural experiment diminish considerably with passing time since reunification.

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“New Citizens” or “Community of Fate”? Early Discourses and Policies on “Flight and Expulsion” in the Two Postwar Germanys

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s0008938920000126 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 314-334

Author(s):

Peter N. Gengler

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Public Discourse ◽

Forced Migration ◽

West Germany ◽

World War ◽

Humanitarian Crisis ◽

East And West Germany ◽

Forced Migrations ◽

Social Agendas ◽

Social Recovery

AbstractThe historiography of the postwar Germanys often examined the Nazi legacy and the remarkable efforts needed for economic and social recovery after 1945. In both the FRG and GDR, the consequences of the war and resulting “flight and expulsion” featured prominently in public discourse and were among the most pressing challenges in the early postwar years. Examining how the competing regimes in East and West Germany attempted to solve the humanitarian crisis caused by the forced migration of 10 to 12 million German refugees in the first years after World War II reveals that the discourses and policies started from common points of departure yet diverged into competing narratives underpinning the states’ political and social agendas. Reconstructing the evolution of how the forced migrations were discussed and leveraged in the neglected period immediately after the war opens new perspectives on how Germans shouldered the burdens of dictatorship and defeat.

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