East Germany - Ostalgie

Ostalgie

The end of the Cold War division of Germany and unification in 1990 inspired initial euphoria.

But for many East Germans, this joy quickly turned to dismay. West Germans often acted as if they had "won" and East Germans had "lost" in unification, leading many East Germans (Ossis) to resent West Germans (Wessis). Barnstone finds that, "East Germans resent the wealth possessed by West Germans; West Germans see the East Germans as lazy opportunists who want something for nothing. East Germans find “Wessis” arrogant and pushy, West Germans think the “Ossis” are lazy good-for-nothings." Additionally, the dislocations, especially the closure of obsolete factories in the east, the end of Communism, the disappearance of East Germany and German unification were hardest for East Germany, where unemployment skyrocketed and many East German professionals quickly fled for better jobs in West Germany.

These and other effects of unification led many East Germans to begin to think of themselves more strongly as "East" Germans rather than as simply as "Germans". In many former GDR citizens this produced a longing for certain aspects of the former East Germany, such as full employment and other perceived benefits of the GDR state, termed "Ostalgie" (a blend of Ost "east" and Nostalgie "nostalgia") and depicted in the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin!.

Danish historian Feiwel Kupferberg (2002) argues that the real difficulty in German reunification was the sharply different ways the West Germans and East Germans interpreted their Nazi past. The West Germans confronted the past and atoned for it, and meanwhile transformed the FRG into a prosperous, free democracy that expressed the values of both individual freedom and responsibility. By contrast, the East Germans took hold of Moscow's official interpretation that East Germany was the "victor of history" and represented the successful opposition to the Nazis. This myth, Kupferberg argues, allowed the GDR to attack the West Germans as historically complicit in the Nazi crimes because it had the same capitalist economy which had produced Hitler in the first place. East Germany was now pure, because it had rejected fascism and its twin, capitalism. This attitude, Kupferberg argues, allowed middle classes that had supported Hitler to often retain powerful roles in East Germany. Granville concludes that Kupferberg, "articulates well the thesis that the rigid communist system in the GDR inculcated passivity, helplessness, and amoral pragmatism in its citizens."