Germany: West VS East

Each autumn in Germany celebrates the Day of People’s Unity – the anniversary of the country’s unification. Everyone who at least once saw the frames of the documentary chronicle of the fall of the Berlin Wall, understands which role it was played by this event in the history of modern Germany. The rest are aware of this on textbooks.

In 2019, the country will celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in the next – 30 years since the unification of Western and East Germany to a single state. That’s just whether Western and eastern Germans managed to "germinate each other" so far so that we could talk about them as a single nation, without specifying, Wessess ("Western") or Ossey ("Eastern")?

West Germany richer east

New Year’s Fair in Cologne, Western Germany

This is true. Stable Forthwest Germany continues to boast a higher standard of living, the growth rate of the economy will be higher here than in the East. The eastern Germans indignant that the western wages (for comparison, in 2015, the average wage gross in East Germany was € 2449 per month, and in Western this figure was almost € 800 above, – € 3218) and pensions, and unemployment and the level of poverty is significantly lower. In the former GDR, this difference cannot neither understand nor forgive.

Western Germans are steadily guarded personal life

Residents of Dusseldorf, Western Germany

Not so long ago, Eastern Germans considered their Western counterparts with richers and snobs suspended on their own right. Restracted by their desire to maintain a distance and achieve success in the profession. The same, in turn, thought about Eastern Germans as a lazy and familiar people who seek a stranger to enter the paradise.

In the west of Germany, very scrupulous in conversation in matters of salaries, health, personal life. In the east, the distance between people, including during a conversation, less, and the level of rectinity – above. Ask a neighbor how much he gets, will not be considered tactless. And in West Germany, this question will be perceived exactly. (More about how the German mentality differs from Russian – in the article "My Planet").

Until now, the topic of the mentality difference appears in the press in the form of polemical articles, fellietones, copyright columns. Sometimes it seems that residents of East Germany are much more angry, trying to prove that they are not worse, not to a lesser degree of the Germans than in West Germany, which is also relatives, and not reception. At the same time, it was in the Western Germany to train with refugees several years ago met with plush toys, flowers, arms. And in the east of the country for such a case broke out protest demonstrations.

East Germany – problem?

Yes, it is unofficially believed that East Germany is also a kind of "hot spot", it is here most of all contradictions and protests. And the residents themselves are expressed much more radically than in the West. If in Munich or Stuttgart, a group of people under a transparency will be gathered somewhere on the central square of the city, read the report, will make a coordinated organized procession, then, for example, in Dresden, it is hardly no fireballs and collisions with the police. Even football here does not always pass without incident. In the days of important matches, the city fills the trucks with the cordon, and it is possible that the desperate football fans will accelerate the local riot. For comparison, in the same Munich, the metro trains are twice as often on the desired branches, and the landing at the central stations is controlled by police or metro officers to avoid indent or accidents.

In the east of Germany, the Russians do not like

Russian district in Potsdam, East Germany

It is difficult to say whether it is, but experienced tourists not advise not to "shine" knowledge of the Russian language in those eastern cities of the country, which are known for their extremist sentiments – for example, in Leipzig or Dresden. At the same time, the Eastern Germans meets the author with pleasure, they connected their forgotten knowledge of the Russian language, remembering rare, but useful words ("Thank you", "Good", "Bluebone"). Funny fact: Men brought up in the GDR, more often than others congratulate their women on March 8 and even give flowers (overall to give flowers without a reason and even on the occasion of the holiday in Germans are not as common as we have).

The conflict between the West and East of Germany appeared during the Cold War

Alexander von Verner. Proclamation of the German Empire

Unified Germany exists only for some 100 years, divided by the era of the Cold War. Up until 1871, Germany in modern understanding did not exist. There were militarized, feudal Prussia, conservative, Catholic Bavaria, the Sacred Roman Empire (later – the Rhine Union), which made a lot of diverse state and folk entities, the Northern Independent Cities Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Independent Lands Baden and Hessen, Other Principles. At the end of the XIX century, with the active participation of Otto, the Bismarca background that consistently conducted the policies of the Association of Iron and Blood, Germany became a single state that united 22 monarchies, three free cities and Alsace Lorraine (today as part of France). Despite the overall boundaries, the inhabitants of the newly minted empire still considered themselves primarily shvabs or prussians, Bavarians or Saxons. After World War II, Germany was divided into Western and Eastern. Some historians believe that the Germans were not used to.

Youth is no important, from the east you or from the west of Germany

At the Berlin Wall

This is true primarily for youth of West Germany. Today, the problem of OSKI and Wessey is still sharper in the eastern part of the country, where residents still feel the second grade. And this is felt even at the level of the new generation – those who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall and can judge the divided country on the memoirs and experience of parents. According to statistics, this is how 70% of Youth of East Germany thinks aged 18 to 29 years. At the same time, which is surprising, modern Western young people are primarily about social well-being, and the East is more engaged in the growth of material well-being.

Course on rapprochement

Western city Darmstadt

The authorities meaning hope and insist that the split of the last century has long ceased to influence today’s inhabitants. And indeed, the course for unity and the rapprochement of two regions gives its results. Thus, West Germany caught up with the eastern number of workers, the mass outcome of the Eastern Germans to the West, and among the most promising cities in Germany is called both Western Darmstadt and East Leipzig. It is there that they advise today to buy real estate in order to have time to purchase it at spent prices. But, according to sociologists, to talk about a truly single state, you need to wait until at least one generation will grow. Will it be just the Germans – without clarification, Western them or Eastern, – time will show.