Topic: Need feedback from ou German friends.

[Touti]

I was reading a news on internet about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.  According to them, a survey published in Berliner Zeitung back in 1989 said that 71% of the people in East Germany believed that their lives would get better.

However a new survey says that only 39% feel their situation is better, 71% think not, 1 out of 4 actually says that the situation is worst in their region.

I'm curious to know what our German friends think of that !

[Tom]

I do not know. I have never lived in East Germany. But Karsten can probably say more to this.

[Touti]

I do not know. I have never lived in East Germany. But Karsten can probably say more to this.

Actually the strange part of this survey (which is why I have my doubts) is that they asked over 1000 people but 502 of them actually live in West Germany 

[Tom]

I do not know. I have never lived in East Germany. But Karsten can probably say more to this.

Actually the strange part of this survey (which is why I have my doubts) is that they asked over 1000 people but 502 of them actually live in West Germany 

Those probably feel, that their living condition was compromised by blow the economy took from the cost of the reuinification.
Here is an article on this. I haven't read it, so I cannot say, how biased it is, or if it really explains the situation properly.

[DJ Doena]

The situation is complex.

I - personally - can't complain. After the fall of the wall I came in touch with computers, I learned to love them and decided to study information technology. But sometimes it's also hard. Shortly after the reunion my mother became unemployed for about a year and then again between 2002 and 2006. In the GDR there was no unemployment - even if you did the stupidest of jobs, at least you had one. My grandparents were pensioned at the age of 60 and 57 because there weren't any jobes for them anymore. My one uncle has been wandering from job to job ever since.

The main problem with the reunion happens outside the bright centers - outside Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden. When the GDR (DDR in german) still existed there was a pun that called it "Der doofe Rest" (the dumb remnants). Now this becomes more true with every year. Every one who has a chance to leave and start over elsewhere, leaves and starts over elsewhere, especially young, qualified woman. Those who stay behind are either old or young, but uneducated. The unemployment quota is up to 20%, in some regions even higher - and that is the official quota that does not include the people who have given up all hope. Look at me, I was born and raised in Berlin, I studied in Berlin, but I have worked in Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe - all west germany. I'd like to go home one day, but there aren't any jobs.

And now fascist parties like the NPD have an easy game. Young, uneducated, frustrated men who were born shortly before or after the reuninion are blaming everyone but themselves for their fate. And aliens are always a good enemy when it comes to blame - even when you have a hard time to find any alien in east germany.

So all in all, the former chancellor Kohl (1984-1998) has promised the east germans "blühende Landschaften" (flourishing countrysides) and some did get it but many feel like second-class citizens who have gotten the bad end of the deal.

Lack of Women in Eastern Germany Feeds Neo-Nazis

The Price of a Failed Reunification

German Mayor in Hiding after Far-Right Threat

[Achim]

Well, I am German too, but can contribute even less than Tom. I have been living outsode of germany for the past 12 years and have lost touch with those kind of issues.