‘Another brick in the wall’. On the origins of nationalism in the ‘new’ federal states of Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-125
Author(s):  
A. V. Belinskii ◽  
M. V. Khorol’skaya
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Local Population ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
East German

A relatively broad support enjoyed by the populist and nationalist parties and movements (AfD, National Democratic Party of Germany, PEGIDA), as well as a higher rate of hate crimes in the eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany raise a question on the nature of nationalism in this region. The present paper examines the causes of widespread xenophobic and nationalist sentiments in the ‘new’ federal states. To this end, the authors address a wide range of social-political and psychological factors, focusing on the historical roots and causes of the recent rise of nationalism in East Germany. Particularly, the authors show that the right-wing parties took advantage of popular frustration caused by the collapse of the East German economy after the country’s reunification and massive unemployment by putting all the blame on migrants. Nevertheless, the causes of growing xenophobia in East Germany were far from being solely economic. For example, the authors underline the role of the politics of memory in the GDR and primarily the approaches of its leaders to the issues of the Nazi past and their attempts to draw on the country’s history to shape a new national identity. However, the failure of the state to provide an unbiased view on the national history, rigid official ideology and its alienation from the popular demands have led to the growing nationalism in the GDR. Besides, a number of other aspects is pointed out which have also fostered xenophobic sentiments in this part of the country. Unlike West Germany which started to accept labour migrants from Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia back in 1950s, the GDR saw few foreigners and contacts between them and local population were limited. As a result, the paper not only helps to create a more detailed image of the East German nationalism but also to identify the underlying causes of the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties and movements in the FRG, most notably, the unfinished process of the country’s reunification and structural imbalances between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ federal states.

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.

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.

Der ostdeutsche Citoyen. Beobachtungen zu Tiefenstrukturen der Demokratieentwicklung in Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Generationen, Erfahrungen, Erkenntnisschranken

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 701-729
Author(s):  
Raiko Hannemann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
East German ◽  
Collective Process

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel versteht sich als Forschungszwischenbericht sowie Kritik an bisherigen Erklärungsansätzen zur bisherigen Demokratieentwicklung in Ostdeutschland seit 1990. Am Beispiel des Ost-Berliner Bezirkes Marzahn-Hellersdorf wird auf der Basis qualitativer, narrativ-biografischer Interviews mit Bürger_innen des Bezirkes thesenartig zum einen eine Kritik traditioneller politiktheoretischer Begriffe wie privat und öffentlich, sozial und politisch am Material entfaltet. Dabei erscheinen die in der Bundesrepublik epistemisch ‚erfolgreichen‘ politikwissenschaftlichen Begriffe von Zivilgesellschaft, Engagement und Politik für Ostdeutschland unzureichend. Zum anderen wird auf der Basis des qualitativen Datenmaterials die These von der Entstehung einer ostdeutschen Öffentlichkeit, einer Ost-Sphäre vorgestellt und historisch hergeleitet. Sie verdankt ihre Existenz einem kollektiven Entfremdungsprozess des Citoyens dem Gemeinwesen gegenüber. Dabei wird festgestellt, dass populäre Diagnosen über eine unterentwickelte Zivilgesellschaft in Ostdeutschland, verursacht durch die DDR-Vergangenheit, nicht aufrechtzuerhalten sind. Abstract: The East German Citoyen. Notes on Deep Structures of Democracy Development in Marzahn Hellersdorf. Generations, Experiences, Frontiers of Perception This article is intended as an interim research report as well as a critique on previous explanatory approaches to the democracy development in East Germany since 1990. Based on qualitative, narrative-biographical interviews with citizens of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, a critique on traditional concepts of political sciences such as private and public, social and political is developed. Applied to this East Berlin district, it is shown that epistemically in West Germany ‘successful’ notions of civil society, political activism and the Political are not suitable enough for a deeper understanding of East German terms. Moreover, based on the qualitative data, the hypothesis of the emergence of an East German public, an Eastern-sphere, is presented and derived historically. It owes its existence to a collective process of alienation between the citoyen and the polity of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is claimed that currently popular notions of an alleged backward civil society in East Germany, caused by the GDR past, cannot be sustained.

scholarly journals The Federal States of Germany – Analysis and Measurement of Development Using Taxonomic Methods

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Jurkowska
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Demographic Situation ◽  
Federal States ◽  
German States ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
New States ◽  
East German ◽  
Taxonomic Methods

This article presents an analysis of the socio-economic development of the 16 federal states of Germany as compared to the whole country. The main goals of the analysis are to measure the development with the use of selected taxonomic methods, to examine the similarities and differences between the states inasmuch as that development is concerned, as well as to illustrate the distance existing between the new eastern states (Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia) and the remaining states of Germany. The analysis is preceded by an illustration of the present socio-economic situation of the German states. Germany is characterized by internal diversity as regards the socio-economic development, and the policy of supporting the East German economy has failed to reach its goals. An unfavourable demographic situation is a factor that effectively inhibits the development of the new states. A falling birth rate, an increasing population beyond retirement age, as well as great numbers of people emigrating to West Germany all contribute to the depopulation of the eastern states. The taxonomic analysis of the level of socio-economic development of Germany has provided information about the diversity of that development level, but it has also made it possible to determine and set the direction of development for particular states.

A POST-LIBERAL ORDER? HANS ZEHRER AND CONSERVATIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING IN 1950S WEST GERMANY

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCUS M. PAYK
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
West Germany ◽  
New Order ◽  
Consensus Building ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Specific Mode ◽  
Sociopolitical Context

While it is well known that German conservative intellectuals were skeptical or indifferent to the Federal Republic of Germany established in 1949 and to its democratic founding principles, this essay shifts attention to a specific mode of right-wing acceptance of the new order. Focusing on Hans Zehrer, a renowned journalist and notorious opponent of democracy in the Weimar Republic, I will demonstrate how right-wing intellectuals interpreted West Germany's political system as a post-liberal order after the “end of politics”. But this vision of transcending societal and intellectual conflicts in a meta-politics was neither entirely new nor simply raked up from the late 1920s but reshaped to fit the postwar sociopolitical context. The essay illuminates several intellectual connections between Weimar-era neoconservatism and the specific conservative consensus formed after 1949, but it also explores personnel continuities within a network of right-wing journalists as well as continuities in the field of journalistic style.

Journalists’ Misjudgement of Audience Opinion

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110522
Author(s):  
David Nicolas Hopmann ◽  
Andreas R.T. Schuck
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Support ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
The Right

Prior studies have reported a right-leaning bias in the media’s reporting of how the public thinks of political issues, raising the question: Why, and to what extent, is this the case? One reason in particular has been discussed in this regard: Journalists judge public opinion to be more right leaning than it actually is (Beckers et al. 2021; Lewis et al. 2004). This paper therefore studies to what extent journalists misjudge audience opinion. The analyses are based on large-scale representative surveys of journalists (1993/2005) and the voting-age population (1994/2005) in Germany. Results show that German journalists (mis-)judge audience opinion to be more right-leaning than the audience sees itself. The results also show that journalists judge audience opinion to be to the right of their own stances, and that journalists in federal states with a right-leaning government and in West Germany judge audience opinion to be even further to the right. Audience feedback does not push journalists’ judgements of their audience towards the right, however. These results are discussed vis-à-vis research showing that there is a consistent bias in the depiction of opinions expressed by ordinary citizens, and research documenting that political elites overestimate public support for right-wing policies.

Transit to East Germany: The Distribution and Reception of Once Upon a Time in the West in the German Democratic Republic

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Stott
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
The West ◽  
Nation States

This chapter examines the relocation, transition, and appropriation of the Spaghetti Western in a hitherto under-researched context: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), prior to its unification with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1990. It explores the selection, distribution and reception of Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, Sergio Leone, 1968) in the German Democratic Republic as a case study of how international cultural transfer causes objects of cultural production to be repositioned as they enter a new reception context. It also examines the ideological, economic, and sociological concerns underpinning the decisions of those who facilitated the movement of film across the political, cultural, and linguistic boundaries of nation states. In East Germany, the facilitators involved in the selection, censorship, dubbing, and promotion of films were mainly government administrators rather than film business professionals, because film was a state-controlled industry. The chapter focuses on the ‘official’ reception of the film on the basis of available censorship protocols and government policy papers, as well as print media sources.

Salts, Sewage, and Sulfurous Air

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-158
Author(s):  
Astrid M. Eckert
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Ecological Restoration ◽  
Industrial Waste ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German States ◽  
East German

This chapter addresses a typical borderland environmental problem—transboundary air and water pollution. During the 1970s and 1980s, rivers carried eastern industrial waste and sewage into West Germany; the wind blew sulfur dioxide both ways. Their environmental interdependency forced both German states to the negotiating table, eventually producing the ineffectual Environmental Accords of 1987. The western encounter with eastern pollution through the interface of the inter-German border confronted West German authorities with early signs of East Germany’s dissolution. While they failed to grasp the message, their experience with East German pollution and the futile diplomatic efforts to curb it nonetheless generated the knowledge about the nature and extent of the GDR’s environmental problems that became the prerequisite for the post-1990 ecological restoration of East Germany.

scholarly journals The Effect of the Post-Socialist Transition on Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Evidence from German Unification

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473
Author(s):  
Bastian A Betthäuser
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
Inequality Of Educational Opportunity

Abstract In 1990, German unification led to an abrupt and extensive restructuring of the educational system and economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as the latter was reintegrated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). However, the consequences of this large-scale institutional change for the educational inequality between children from different social class backgrounds in East Germany continue to be poorly understood. This article seeks to shed new light on this question by using a quasi-experimental approach to examine the difference in educational inequality between East and West Germany before and after German unification. We compare changes in the class gradient in the attainment of comparable school and university qualifications in East and West Germany across six birth cohorts, including three cohorts of individuals who completed their schooling after unification. We find that before unification, inequality of educational opportunity at the mid-secondary, upper-secondary and tertiary level was substantially lower in East Germany than in West Germany and that unification led to a substantial and sustained convergence of the level of inequality of educational opportunity in East Germany towards that of West Germany.

Two Paradigmatic Views on Right-Wing Populism in East Germany

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Jonas Rädel
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
Geographic Space ◽  
East German ◽  
Right Wing Populism

In German public perceptions, right-wing populism is cast as a specifically east German problem. This article critically examines how this assumption is located within the debate on German unity. In order to clarify the sometimes-confusing arguments on German unification, two paradigmatic perspectives can be identified: German unity can be approached from a perspective of modernization, or through the lens of postcolonial critique. When it comes to right-wing populism in eastern Germany, the modernization paradigm suffers from a lack of understanding. Hence, the arguments of the postcolonial perspective must be taken seriously, particularly as the postcolonial reading can grasp the complex phenomenon of right-wing populism in east Germany, and prevent the discursive and geographic space of the region from being conquered by right-wing political actors.

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