(Newswire.net — September 1, 2019) — Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany’s East and West are still divided on economic and social issues, which could be highlighted in the upcoming local elections in the eastern provinces where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to win the majority.
Voters in the states of eastern Germany, Saxony and Brandenburg could take another blow to traditional German parties and further destabilize the government of Angela Merkel, according to the Associated Press.
In the weeks leading up to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election is likely to highlight the economic and social issues that still divide the country after its 1990 unification, AP reports. Many people in the German rural areas, namely the eastern periphery feel that they are neglected, the report says.
Unemployment in Saxony is not much higher than the national average, the major cities of Dresden and Leipzig have been largely restored and have attracted new companies, but the rural regions have not yet recovered from de-industrialization 30 years ago when communist companies and agricultural cooperatives collapsed and tens of thousands remained jobless.
Some of them have not yet recovered from job losses after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Promises of an equal standard have largely not materialized and wages in the East continue to lag behind wages in the West of Germany, while many young people have gone West, according to the US agency.
When the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is celebrated on November 9th, Germans will not have much to celebrate, as Germany is again divided along the east-west line, which may require a change in the historical narrative of what happened in the years after 1989. Anna Sauerbrey, editor of the German daily Tagesspigel, estimates in the New York Times.
At the time of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall and the unification of Germany, Sauerbrey points out, the mood was still victorious and hopeful, as the differences between East and West Germans diminished. After mass unemployment and losses that were suffered after the collapse of the socialist state economy, East Germany was on the path of slow and steady recovery, while differences in regional identities were mitigated.
Then came the migrant crisis when, according to Sauerbrey, the Germans reacted angrily to Merkel’s decision in September 2015 to welcome more than one million refugees into the country, but the reaction in East Germany was particularly toxic.
This, the author points out, raises the question of how many East Germans indeed wanted a revolution thirty years ago and how many sought reunification with the West. A similar thing happened during the migrant crisis when the East Germans felt they were wondering about similar topics again, but then, Sauerbrey estimates, they had had enough, and three decades of repressed anger and fear were engulfed in toxic, xenophobic nationalism.
Such a narrative exploits the AfD, which urges voters to end the revolution and to repair the injustices suffered by East Germans since 1989 in a populist uprising. So the popular 1989 slogan “Wir sind das volk” (We are the People) became the slogan of the extreme right.
The sense of pride and success today is conspicuously absent in the East of Germany, with important elections approaching and the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November. There is a growing sense that the long process of merging the two halves of Germany has not only stopped but has reversed, the Financial Times reports.