In 1990, when East and West Germany were reunified, the differences between east and west were stark. The west was affluent and successful while the east had been burdened with 40 years of communist rule.
How are things going today? Do any differences remain or is it one big happy family now?
Better than before but the East still lags significantly
There were a bunch of reports during the 30th anniversary of reunification about how much of a gap still exists.
A large number of East Germans moved West first illegally and then when the wall fell, right?
I wonder how the fate of East Germans in West Germany compares?
A lot of things have changed, some for the better, some not so much, but I would not call it catch up.
In general the material situation has improved: telefones, cars, the possibility to travel… Yes. But it has improved in Western Germany too: mobile phones, better cars, cheaper travel… Still: statistically speaking, the improvement is clear and much bigger than it would plausibly have been without reunification.
Some pockets here and there are centres of excellence: Zeiss in Jena is an example photographers all over the world probably know. There are some others, but few and far between.
Many of the younger and best educated East Germans “emigrated” to Western Germany. Of course, the opportunities were there, salaries were higher, language is not a problem, no working permit required: what would you have done? The problem is that the people left behind are poorer on average and have fewer chances yet. The older generation gets lower retirement benefits because they contributed less during their professional careers. Wages were lower, of course they contributed less, wasn’t their fault. Some resent that. I understand.
In rural areas the social structure is very different in East and West Germany. In Western Germany there are numerous small and medium sized agricultural holdings, often family owned. There are many small cities, they are close to each other. Western Germany is densely populated but has few big cities. You can see that clearly when you fly at night: lights everywhere in the West, small pockets of light in the East. In Eastern Germany, by contrast, the holdings after the fall of the Wall were state owned and really big. When they were privtized the former workers either formed cooperatives, indebted themselves and bought the farm or some international corporation did. Now they farmers are not the owners of the land they work on, some resent that.
Part of this resentment is turning into support for far right parties. I am not the only one worried by that.
Another big difference is that there are markedly less foreigners living in Eastern Germany. I wouldn’t go there either if i were a Turk, for instance. The only foreigners that go there are the asylum seekers that get asigned by quota to each region. That feeds the xenophobic narrative further. Also in general more Easteners have moved West than Westeners have moves East.
That is a bit long, I’ll simply stop. Maybe I get more ideas later, when others have posted too, perhaps @EinsteinsHund has an opinion too. Or if someone has a direct question, of course.
Just to add that neither Eastern Germany nor Western Germany are uniform, Western Germany even less than Eastern Germany because it is bigger and has more inhabitants.
Sounds broadly similar to the situation in the USA South (and many other countries). There’s a more agrarian less intensively modern region of the nation, and then there’s the other part. Given the difference, ambitious young people move only one way, strong growing businesses do likewise, and the differences only grow over time unless they’re actively offset by national government policies and spending. And even then, any government effort is pushing uphill against economic and social gravity.
Western Germany has been very generous with Eastern Germany, and especially in the crucial early years. Meaning the slope of “economic gravity” is less than it would otherwise have been. But the slope isn’t zero, so the drift apart continues.
There’s lots of economic integration and social progress in the US South and in Eastern Germany. The problem from both their POVs is they’re trying to catch a moving train, not catch a stationary target. Tough to do when the train is faster than you are and still accelerating.
Phew, that’s very big subject, and you could write multi-volume books about it, but I think you already did a very good summary of the situation. I also think you are more qualified to answer because you live in Berlin, while I was born and always lived in the heartland of what was West Germany and didn’t travel much in East Germany since reunification. I have a few points though, but please let me gather my thoughts for a while until more posts and questions have come in.
Have they been able to induce a lot of new industrial development in eastern Germany? Off-hand I know that the German Tesla plant is in the former East Germany, not too far outside the former East Berlin. Are there many other factories that have been placed in the former DDR?
One interesting thing I would note, migration continues between the east and the west, but it has stabilized to a net of essentially zero for the last decade.
In terms of overall economy, here’s this from the Bundesamt:
In 2019, the economic potential of the new Länder as expressed in GDP per capita amounted to roughly 73% – 79.1% in the case of Berlin – of the German average. Eastern Germany and Berlin are making steady progress – albeit in small steps – towards attaining the level of economic performance of Germany as a whole. In 1990, after all, they had started out at only 37%. Since reunification, GDP per capita in the new Länder (excluding Berlin) has quadrupled – or tripled if Berlin is included.
So…progress, but more to go.
Clearly, East Germany hasn’t caught up to West Germany, because West Germany hasn’t stood still.
A more interesting question to me is whether the former East Germany has caught up to where West Germany was in 1990. In that year, the CIA estimated that GDP per capita in East Germany was $9,679 (roughly $23,000 in today’s US money) vs $15,300 in West Germany (about $36,000 in today’s US money). The most recent figures I can find for the former East Germany (2019) puts GDP per capita at 32,108 euros or $35,000 in 2019 US dollars or $42,000 in today’s US money. Meanwhile, the former West Germany has continued to grow so its GDP per capita was 43,000 euros in 2019 ($56,000 in today’s US money)
So yes, according to this admittedly simplistic analysis, East Germany appears to have more than caught up to where West Germany was in 1990, but unless the west kindly stops growing while waiting for the east to catch up, the east will continue lag behind for a long time.
Using those numbers, the GDP per capita in 1990 of the former East Germany was 63% of the former West Germany while the current numbers show about 75%.
So closing the gap, but still a long way to go. It’s reasonable to assume the low-hanging fruit has largely been found and consumed, so the relative growth rates will converge, and as that process goes along the time to close the remaining gap will slide waaay out to the right.
Did the gaps between eastern and western Germany begin in 1945, or did they already exist before the war? Was eastern Germany as prosperous as the country’s west during the Weimar Republic, under the Empire, or when most of it was still part of Prussia?
It will be interesting to see how things play out.
It’s more common than not for countries to have differences between regions.
According to wiki, in 2022 Maryland had a median household income of $90k while Missippi was less than $49,000.
Off the top of my head, Imperial Germany’s industrial revolution was particularly strong in the west, and much of the east was essentially agricultural (with some specialist concentrations, like Zeiss of Jena). A couple of books I’ve read on the history of the DDR - Anne McElvoy’s The Saddled Cow (that tells a story in itself) and Katja Hoyer’s Beyond The Wall - make the point that the Soviet Zone was indeed predominantly agricultural and somewhat behind the west in the first place, and held back by the Soviet Union’s removal of much of what industry they had, by the split after the western currency reform, as well as by their difficulties in raising capital compounded by not having access to the Marshall Fund (leaving aside the question of whether they were making wise investment decisions).
A relevant article on the situation today: