10 Years After Fall of Berlin Wall, Germans Still Divided

by Yojana Sharma

And many now seem to think things were better when the wall was still up, although only 10 percent of easterners, according to a poll, wish reunification had never happened and 35 percent of them are jobless -- the losers of reunification.

In the east, "Ostalgia," a kind of yearning for the past, has replaced the euphoria of the post-reunification years.

Largely forgotten is the collective disgust experienced when informers and spies for the dreaded state security were unmasked and the truth about corruption among the elite, environmental degradation and exploitation by the Soviet state were revealed.

Now, a decade later, the "Easty-Girls" pop group sings about the now defunct "young pioneers" communist youth groups. Re-runs of old children's programs made during communist times are all the rage.

Coke and Pepsi are out and the once-mocked "Club Cola" is in.

"Ostalgia" has become a sub-culture that distinguishes easterners from the westerners. Today, only 17 percent of easterners describe themselves as "German" rather than "East German."

Sixty-five percent say they do not feel like part of the united Germany, although they add that they do not wish a return to the old East German state.

But West German companies that try to sell their products in the east encounter clear differences.

"Its quite simple. Ossis are on average a centimeter shorter, fatter, and die two years earlier than his western counterpart. He speaks slower, but rather likes to tease," claimed a study of the eastern consumer by the advertising agency Fritzsch & Mackat, which specializes in helping western companies sell to the east.

"The eastern species stands in line 30 cm closer to the man in front than the westerner, he goes to bed an hour earlier and gets up and earlier -- but most important, they enjoy sex more," the study asserts.

The east has not been the consumer mecca West German firms had hoped. In fact, after the shopping spree of 1990, easterners began to seek out the old trusted eastern brands. Ten years after reunification, east and west still buy different brands.

"Western products were seen as fake and artificial. They symbolized a plumped up, hollow lifestyle devoid of depth, inner meaning and solemnity," according to Fritzsch & Mackat.

Since reunification, the number of places in selective grammar schools has been increased from 10 to almost 30 percent now, providing similar opportunities for university education as in the west. Yet youngsters in the east are still more nervous about their future than their counterparts in the west.

"They feel they are more deprived than the west even though they work as hard at school. Potential rewards are lower in the east," said Kai-Uwe Schnabel, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Resources in Berlin.

In Berlin, where a 20-minute subway ride separates Humboldt University in the former east from the Free University in the former West, three-quarters of the student body at Humboldt are easterners and 70 percent of students at the Free University are westerners.

"There is still a clear difference in perception," said Schnabel.

In particular, easterners bemoan that westerners are arrogant and have little or no interest in the east. While 85 percent of easterners have visited the west, only 40 percent of westerners have visited the east.

"We did post-war history at school. But the funny thing was, we only talked about what was happening in West Germany, as if the east did not exist, " said Dorothea Weiss, 18, a schoolgirl from Berlin.

Last week, East German politicians in the German parliament were angry that not one of the dissidents and civil rights activists who helped topple to wall -- often at great risk to themselves and their families -- has been invited to the tenth anniversary celebrations of reunification.

Baerbel Bohley, leader of the underground New Forum opposition party 10 years ago, told a local newspaper that the fact that not one of the activists who actually took to the streets in 1989 would be on the podium was an insult to all those who really brought about East Germany's change of course.

In 1989, only 17 percent had a phone in the east -- now, it is 94 percent. And more easterners own a television set than westerners.

But the overall picture is still bleak. Living standards are still only 57 percent of those in the west and 10 percent of the population has moved west in search of better lives.

Those left behind feel they are treated like second class citizens in their own land, and that their qualifications are regarded as inferior to western ones.

Above all, they are politically underrepresented. Three-quarters of top civil service jobs in the east are occupied by westerners and all but ten percent of university professors are westerners, as are almost all leading posts in industry.

Although an important voting bloc, easterner lack a voice in the government of a united Germany, still dominated by the western parties.

Eastern civil rights campaigners have hardly any profile at all in the politics of a unified Germany. Instead, the most famous easterners are the leaders of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the reformed communist party which made gains in recent elections.

"We wanted to get rid of the old government and we wanted freedom of speech and democracy and the right to travel. But we wanted it within the old German Democratic Republic," said Pastor Albany of the Gethsemane Church in Berlin, once a center for dissent.

"We did not want to be part of West Germany. We hoped we would have a community of two equal halves, in which we would have time to transform the GDR into a democratic state," he added.

The East German leadership believed the country could still survive separately from the West. "The autumn of 1988 was not the start of a change of course towards German unity," said former East German leader Egon Krenz.

Now retired and living as a private citizen in a Berlin suburb in the East, Krenz said that "autumn 1989 was an attempt to change course within the German Democratic Republic, towards a reformed socialism along the lines of Gorbachev's reforms."

But many in the east realize that without reunification, the East German state may well have suffered the same economic troubles as Russia.

Nonetheless, a decade of reunification has still not produced the "blooming landscapes" promised for the east by former chancellor Helmut Kohl. One-third of all jobs in the east disappeared in the years after reunification. Unemployment is double that of the west and much hoped for investment has not materialized.

Special economic measures for the east will continue at least until 2004.

The German institute for Economic Research (DIW) and the Kiel Institute on the World Economy agree the east is catching up but say it could take another 5-10 years before the east it achieves parity.

For the west, things will never be the same. Uninterrupted prosperity has given way to cuts in public spending so that more can be spent in the east. As they see it, a large proportion of the national wealth is poured into an eastern "black hole."

The "temporary" income tax of 8 percent on westerners is still being levied. Every year, 150-200 billion marks are transferred from west to east. Yet, as westerners see it, the east stubbornly refuses to flourish or be grateful.

Some regeneration is evident, particularly in the cities. New roads are being built, buildings modernized, gleaming shopping malls erected and modern telecommunications systems installed.

"We are only two-thirds of the way," said the DIW report. But culturally and socially, the gap may be even wider.