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The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#41

Post by vegedor »

KobaQ wrote: post #28

I'm always annoyed that while pointing out that the right-wing extremist parties are stronger in the east than in the west of Germany, they really don't matter at all. Look at their numbers[1]. However, the left-wing extremist party "Die Linke" is a direct successor of the SED, which was the communist party of the DDR, is surprisingly strong [2]. Clearly, it shows the disappointment of the reunion of quite some peopl…

A lot of people who vote for Die Linke might either be too young to really have experienced the GDR in full bloom, or are compelled by actual arguments, of which they occasionally feign a few good ones, as politicians usually do.

BTW: I met a lot of people who'd been incarcerated mostly for their political motivation, but I've never met anyone who was murdered. Although I see how that might be difficult, I haven't even as much as heard about it. So, either the Secret Police really kept it secret or you are being overly dramatic.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#42

Post by vegedor »

rapidally wrote: post #24

Why is this on Hacker News? Is this site going to use its popularity to preach about social issues now, like so many other tech sites have? That's a huge turn off for me.

It's kinda relevant economically, and in spirit since Berlin has a thriving culture of hackers and startups.

A bit defocus and diversion don't hurt either. It's not the kind of breaking news I come here for, agreed. Social issues are everyones responsibility, anyway, so it's a fruitful basis for comments.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#43

Post by dantheman »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15
brc wrote: post #5

25 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. Just like the street light bulbs, they'll get replaced as the old ones die off. On a related note, I've never understood how you could live in West Berlin and yet travel freely to the rest of west Germany, because the city itself was deep in East Germany. I know the city was supplied by airlift during the bloc…

> 25 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. And yet, the GDR only existed for 40 years.

It's much easier to destroy than to create.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#44

Post by emsy »

jboynyc wrote: post #36
emsy wrote: post #35

I'm from Germany (born shortly before the fall) , and I always found it super weird that this "us vs. them" mentality existed. Compared to the enormous timespan east and west Germany was considered the same nation, those 40 years seem to pale in comparison. Besides that, there wasn't a civil war or anything that divided the population intrinsically, but it was forced upon us. On the other hand, Germans are known for…

"Enormous timespan"? I think if you take some history into account you will reconsider that. We tend to project the existence of a construct called Germany backward in time, but Germany did not really come into existence until a bunch of small states were united under Prussian leadership in 1871, and even then it remained a pretty fragile construct. Lots of tribalisms remained. Still, if you count the timespan betwee…

A nation is not defined by borders and politics.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#45

Post by emsy »

lispm wrote: post #39
emsy wrote: post #35

I'm from Germany (born shortly before the fall) , and I always found it super weird that this "us vs. them" mentality existed. Compared to the enormous timespan east and west Germany was considered the same nation, those 40 years seem to pale in comparison. Besides that, there wasn't a civil war or anything that divided the population intrinsically, but it was forced upon us. On the other hand, Germans are known for…

WWII was wiping out a lot of German history. In the west some restauration of old elites took place. In the east, a new political and economic system replaced what was there before. 40 years means roughly two generations of socialism under soviet leadership. Both parts of Germany were developing into role models for their political systems. A lot of structural change took place in the east. It's also always astonishi…

By "thinking what they're told" I mean that they believe everything they hear and see little to no reason for political activity. In caricatures, Germans were and sometimes still are depicted as a "Deutscher Michel" with a nightcap, because of their political inactivity and lethargy.

So what I actually meant was that in German media, the cultural differences between east and west are still heavily emphasized, there are special shows about it and thus the people tend to think about eastern Germany as "them". The differences do exist, but you could take any 2 Bundesländer and they'd have almost or even more differences to each other, than any western Bundesland has with an eastern one.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#46

Post by antocv »

dantheman wrote: post #43
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 25 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. And yet, the GDR only existed for 40 years.

It's much easier to destroy than to create.

Unless you wish to create ruins.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#47

Post by antocv »

emsy wrote: post #44
jboynyc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Enormous timespan"? I think if you take some history into account you will reconsider that. We tend to project the existence of a construct called Germany backward in time, but Germany did not really come into existence until a bunch of small states were united under Prussian leadership in 1871, and even then it remained a pretty fragile construct. Lots of tribalisms remained. Still, if you count the timespan betwee…

A nation is not defined by borders and politics.

Oh please then do tell what it is defined by.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#48

Post by danbruc »

Besides the still visible difference between eastern and western Germany you should not forget that we are really well off in comparison with other countries. And not everything in eastern Germany is worse, for example daycare availability as a leftover from the GDR or infrastructure like roads and the fiber network due to the heavy investments after the reunion. When DSL became common it was hard to get it in eastern Germany because there were no copper cables.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#49

Post by danbruc »

antocv wrote: post #47
emsy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nation is not defined by borders and politics.

Oh please then do tell what it is defined by.

That is the distinction between nation and state - nation just means people sharing language, culture, history and so on but does not imply living together in one state. So even while Germans lived in two states while Germany was divided they still were one nation. And I just want to explain the difference, I don't want to make any statement whether this distinction is relevant or not for the parent comment.

Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided

#50

Post by bewo001 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #20
fosk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I never understood is that in order to make this happen, planes had to fly above the USSR controlled East Germany, what prevented the soviets from just shooting down every plane since it was their airspace at the time?

The agreements put in place regarding the partition of authority over Germany after the war did not require keeping the roads and railways open, but did require keeping air access open along certain corridors. So the East/Soviet leadership was able to close the roads and railways without violating any agreement; the Western/US/UK/France leadership had simply not anticipated originally that this would happen. There we…

Western intelligence services used the flights in those corridors for arial photography. So the Soviets had reasons for harassing planes that tested the limits of the corridor.
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