Quiz: what happened 20 years ago? (or On Reunification)

[gelbes_gilatier]

Wrong answer: a bag of rice dropped down in China.

Right answer: German Reunification.

Yes, people, that's right, today Germany celebrates exactly 20 years of being reunified since the Reunification Treaty came into effect this day today 20 years ago. Ever since then, October 3rd is Germany's most important national holiday... like, the national holiday (think Fourth of July, only without the private fireworks and a lot more official celebrations) and today we celebrate it for the 20th time. Am I the only one who's thoroughly amazed by that, out of various reasons?

Becauses think about it... it's been 20 years since The Two Germanies ceased to exist and became one country. 20 years since the world was irrevocably changed... 20 years of The End Of The World As We Knew It. With the German Reunification, the Cold War had truly ended and the world ceased to be parted into two massive blocks. Suddenly, "us against them" didn't work like it used to do (but don't worry, humans are creative... since then, we found various new forms of "us against them") and 16 million people suddenly changed citizenship (and a lot of them, including myself, my parents and my sisters, lost the country they were born in, even if they kept living in the same place).

Formally, there were no East Germans and West Germans anymore, only Germans... didn't quite work out like that, though and that's a great example for how 20 years are nothing in the scope of world history (however... in personal history... 20 years is a really big chunk and it makes me feel old that kids born up to two years after Reunification are adults now). Even today, a lot of Germans having been born before Reunification do distinguish between East Germans and West Germans (yes, myself included now and then). But as entchenmv pointed out: as long as people are paid less simply because they work in East Germany or get less welfare support because they live in East Germany or get less pension money because, yes, they live in East Germany, people will keep on distinguishing, and probably rightfully so.

However, we do have made great strides forward... how many of you (and by this, I mean mostly the Germans on my flist) are always conscious of the fact that chancellor Angela Merkel is from East Germany and grew up and was socialized in a communist state? How many of you do automatically separate their circle of friends in "from East Germany" and "from West Germany"? Not a lot, I betcha, and that's a good thing.

Also, personally for me an important sign is that I don't really distinguish into East Berlin and West Berlin anymore (because, in truth, sometimes those two parts still appear like two different cities, even to me). I distinguish into Ku'Damm and Alex, into Potsdamer Platz and Wilmersdorfer Straße, Neukölln and Marzahn... you get it. I do realize that for people from East or West Germany who do not live in Berlin, things are different (I did live in a smaller East German town for seven years, you know) because Berlin has always been... special but I'm confident that in another 20 years, things will look different, even with all the injustices and the touchyness of certain topic that still exist today.

Personally, the fall of the Wall in November 1989 and the following reunification on October 3rd 1990 are still burned into my mind, even though I was only eight and nine years old, respectively at that time. I remember massive protests and an overall excitement and the feeling that something very important was going on... I also remember standing in line with lots of other people with my mom at Oberbaumbrücke a few days after the Wall fell because we wanted to see West Berlin and how fucking cold it was and that we had to wait ages for the 100 Deutschmark "Begrüßungsgeld" every East German got when entering West Germany for the first time... and that my first impressions of West Berlin are fuzzy and dark because it had been late evening when we finally had the money and could do some sightseeing. And oh, I also remember my very first election campaign, since my parents were and still are active members of the left-wing/socialist party DIE LINKE.

In the following year, my dad lost his job which was my first real encounter with capitalism. He found a new one pretty fast (seeing as he's an IT guy...) and never changed companies again... while my uncle also lost his job that year but has been unemployed ever since because he lived (and still lives) in a village near Leipzig and Reunification also meant that a massive amount of factories etc. were shut down and hundreds of thousands of people were laid off all over East Germany, meaning the end to entire towns because a lot of them depended on those factories. So, in my family, both positive and negative aspects of Reunification clash and yes, as an East German, I do have mixed feelings toward what happened over the last 20 years to me and to my country... but for the life of me I would never want to go back to how it was before. Not because everything is sunshine and roses in the country I live in today (last week's Stuttgart 21 events and the 5€ welfare raise are proof of that) but I want things to improve, not simply to be reverted to something that didn't work, anyway.

Anyway... I'd love to know how you (and by that I mean everyone on the flist, not just the Germans) experienced the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the Reunification in 1990 (that is, if you're old enough to have actually been alive at that time ;)). Anyone still have any memories of that time they'd like to share?

PS.: And here's the rest of the On... Germans tag:

On friends.

On walls.

On soldiers.

On heroes.

On elections.

Comments

[ladyhalbourne]

I was two years old, so much for that ;) But my sister was always one of the few in her class who were still born in Karl-Marx-Stadt.
And there has been recently a hilarious letter in the local newspaper in which someone who had not really an idea of it complained that she had K.-M.-Stadt standing in her ID because she believed Karl Marx was evil (or something along the lines). As if it was bad that Chemnitz was called differently.

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

And there has been recently a hilarious letter in the local newspaper in which someone who had not really an idea of it complained that she had K.-M.-Stadt standing in her ID because she believed Karl Marx was evil

&hearts for so much... stupidity ;) Funny enough, I knew someone who was astonishingly proud of that fact that he still had Karl-Marx-Stadt in his passport (which is equally stupid... most of all if you know that guy... blergh).

[ladyhalbourne]

That's also idiotic, yes. But I think it's interesting to be born in city which doesn't exist anymore by name. And the Nischl is still an interesting monument.

[entchenmv.livejournal.com]

I was 3 when the wall fell and almost-4 when the reunification happened. So not much memories from there :-P

But I remember in primary school how a friend proudly told our teacher that his sister got a job in "the new federal countries" and I totally didn't know what he meant.

I couldn't distinguish East and West Berlin alone for the fact of not knowing which parts belonged to west and east (except for Marzahn, because my uncle lives there) ich wüsste ganz ehrlich nicht mal, welcher Stadtteil wo überhaupt liegt... außer Marzahn. ;-)

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

(except for Marzahn, because my uncle lives there)

That's... creepy (guess who also lives in Marzahn...) :D

ich wüsste ganz ehrlich nicht mal, welcher Stadtteil wo überhaupt liegt... außer Marzahn. ;-)

Das wissen selbst die meisten Berliner nicht ;) Und es gibt echt viele, die in ihrem Leben aus ihrem Bezirk noch nie rausgekommen sind. Aber na ja, Marzahn-Hellersdorf (vor ein paar Jahren wurden die Bezirke zusammengelegt) zum Beispiel hat etwa 50.000 mehr Einwohner als Erfurt und kann schon als Kleinstadt gelten... insofern ist das schon fast verständlich ;)

[entchenmv.livejournal.com]

Ahaha. Next time I visit my uncle, we go out and have a coffee. :D right in Marzahn. (mein Onkel wohnt Allee der Kosmonauten, das und die nähere Umgebung is alles was ich da kenn)

Uhm. Bützow, also der Ort, wo ich geboren wurde, hat gerade mal 8.000 Einwohner *hust*

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

(mein Onkel wohnt Allee der Kosmonauten, das und die nähere Umgebung is alles was ich da kenn)

Ja, Kaffee trinken gehen \o/ Wobei ich das eher nicht in Marzahn machen würde, sondern zum Beispiel bei Barcomi's (http://barcomis.de/filialen/berlin-kreuzberg-bergmannstrasse/) in Kreuzberg oder die Tempo-Box (http://www.tempo-box.de/) in Friedrichshain (oder dat kleine Café in der Simon-Dach-Str., an dessen Namen ich mich nie erinnern kann...)... aber wir können uns S-Bahnhof Springpfuhl treffen, da kommste gut von der Allee der Kosmonauten gut hin ;)

Uhm. Bützow, also der Ort, wo ich geboren wurde, hat gerade mal 8.000 Einwohner *hust*

Mir is erst klar geworden, wie groß Berlin ist, nachdem ich sieben Jahre woanders gewohnt hab... bis dahin war mir das ehrlich gesagt nie richtig aufgefallen *hust

[entchenmv.livejournal.com]

Also ich kenn mich ja wie gesagt in Berlin mal sowas von gar nicht aus, von daher schlepp mich hin wo du willst.
Springpfuhl kenn ich. 5min gerade aus gehen (mein Onkel wohnt in einem der Hochhäuser, wenn's dir was sagt) :D Nachdem ich letztes Jahr kurz nacheinander 2x von dort aus nach Tegel bin, behaupte ich auch mal, dass ich mit dem Nahverkehr mittlerweile gut klar komme :D

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Ja, das sagt mir das :D Meine beste Freundin aus Schulzeiten hat in einem dieser Häuser gewohnt. Okay, ich denke, ich muss dir mal ein bisschen was von Berlin zeigen, wenn du nur Marzahn und Tegel kennst ;)