by DIRK KURBJUWEIT
Here, the Berlin Wall still under construction in Potsdamer Platz in 1961. Despite the separation, East and West Germans remained very similar to each other and share a common mentality. PHOTO/AFP
East Germany ceased to exist following the 1989 revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But did the former communist country help shape today’s Germany? The answer is yes, and Chancellor Merkel is a big reason why.
The West will assimilate the East and transform the fruits of its revolution into profits for its companies. Nothing will remain of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and its citizens will have to submit to a foreign lifestyle. The East is taken over, an event the revolutionaries welcomed with open arms — but it’s a hostile takeover, an obliteration and eradication of what the eastern part of Germany once was. West Germany will simply expand, and that will be that.
Such were the expectations after the euphoria of the revolution — the elation that prevailed when the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989 — had dissipated. Even worse, some even feared that a newly expanded Germany would regress into a reincarnation of a former empire of evil. In February 1990, author Günter Grass said: “The gruesome and unprecedented experience of Auschwitz, which we shared with the people of Europe, speaks against a unified Germany.” Grass favored a confederation, and if it did turn into a unified state, after all, “it will be doomed to fail.”
But Germany did not follow this advice. Unless we are completely mistaken, the failure predicted by Grass was avoided. But what about the other suspicions, the fears of takeover and commercialization of the revolution? Were the courageous citizens of East German cities like Leipzig and Halle merely added to the army of consumers, without bringing any political change to their new country?
A revolution has two goals: to put an end to everything that preceded it and to create something new. The revolutionaries of 1989 achieved the first goal when the GDR ceased to exist as a country. But the second goal was a different matter. The Federal Republic, as West Germany was (and today’s Germany is) formally known, enveloped the former East Germany, and the new entity was something familiar, at least at first. The West had expanded eastward.
But now, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is clear that this is not the whole story. The revolution also created the conditions for something new, a different Germany. The institutions haven’t changed and the West German economy continues to dominate, but something has also flowed in the opposite direction. Could it be that the Federal Republic of Germany, which has been gazing westward since 1949, has become more eastern in the last few years?
Quieter in Germany
Nothing has contributed more to this change than the chancellor from the east, Angela Merkel. She is a democrat and a champion of freedom, and she hasn’t created an expanded GDR. Nevertheless, there are aspects to the way she runs the country that are reminiscent of the former East Germany.
A dictatorship fears open discourse and conflict, and it thrives on the fiction of unity. The ruler or the ruling party claims that it is executing the will of the people, and because that will is supposed to be uniform, everyone is under forced consensus. Silence in the country is treated as approval. Merkel grew up in this system.
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