Quite heavily. The Americans don’t stage their forces at the border any more, but the North and South Koreans do. Well, nearby - like I said, there’s a DMZ in the middle.
He asked about the Chinese-North Korean border, not the DMZ.
Gah. This is why I should not type before coffee.
How true! I can remember my friend Wolfgang in East Berlin mentioning that East Berliners were not supposed to tune into West Berlin television - and as we were walking down the street, he said, “Look up and see where most of the TV antennas are pointed towards…” Sure enough, they are almost ALL pointed towards West Berlin…a legal no-no, but obviously not enforced.
One night, sitting at Wolfgang’s, his elderly neighbor came banging on door - quite hysterical - and asked if we could help her. “Dallas is about to come on and my TV isn’t working!” We went over and got her TV to work just as the opening song and picture of JR showed up on the screen. Both Dallas and Dynasty were huge hits in West Berlin at the time, and equally (if not more) of a hit in East Berlin! The funny thing was - often they were not even paying attention to the story as much as they would comment, “Look at that blender in the kitchen! Oh - look at that dishwasher! Wow - that is a beautiful color TV in the background! What - they have cordless phones!?”
They were far more interested in the goods and luxury items and clothing and hair styles and cars - and this only made the dismal selection of goods in their own economy seem even worse.
Back then, there were only three TV channels in West Berlin, and two in East Berlin - and almost nobody ever watched the East Berlin channels - nothing but crap - but the West Berlin channels had Hollywood movies and television series, as well as some good German shows, and most importantly, the West German news broadcasts. To say that this influenced public opinion in East Berlin would be an understatement.
And yes - people who lived further into East Germany - where TV reception from the West was harder to get, felt like they were being cheated.
BTW, this also became a huge sore point for West Germans after the Wall came down - East Germans were given the same pensions they had had from East Germany - and many were getting paid quite nicely (in crappy East Marks) and thus suddenly got a princely sum in West Germany. Many West Germans thought it was unfair as some of those getting the higher rates of Social Security payments did not have equivalent jobs in West German to warrant getting paid that much - but the West German government kept those higher rates for them anyway.
There was also a general period of euphoria immediately after the Wall came down, but within a short period of time, the West Germans looked down on what they considered to be the lazy, money-hungry, country bumpkins from the East.
To a certain extent, it was somewhat true - East Germans didn’t quite have the work ethic as their West German counterparts - they went to jobs because they had to go, and most could not be fired from those jobs, so they got used to doing the bare minimum, with no enthusiasm whatsoever, and yet demanded high salary, vacations and benefits. Needless to say, many were not prepared for the long hours and real “work” of West jobs, and the concept of getting fired for not doing good work was foreign to them!
There were more than a few West German jokes about “build that Wall up again!” regarding the new influx of neighbors. It has taken a very long time for the integration of East and West Germany…and there are still some pockets of resentment, but no longer anywhere near as bad as it used to be.
One of the key problems in the integration of East Germany was that the West German Prime Minister (who shall remain nameless unless you look it up in Wikipedia because I can’t type his name without vomiting) decided to be “generous” and translate OstMarks into WestMarks at a 1-1 rate. He warned about why this was a terrible idea, but he thought it a grand, statesmanlike gesture.
Weeeeeeeellllll…
The thing about East Germany is that, despite being the most productive and economically advanced Communist state, it was a Communist state. It was basically a madhouse kleptocracy run by incompetent boobs chosen for their political loyalty to party doctrine. Which meant it was grossly unproductive. And basically only made goods that nobody really wanted as other posters explained above. Except, now everybody suddenly had Westmarks. Had it been done a deep discount, it might have looked ugly, but it would have made government Marks exert more leverage and sparked a mini economic boom - it would have been very profitable to invest in the former East Germany, while giving existing industries a chance to refit while keeping costs low. As it was, it basically destroyed the local economy, as very little could compete with western goods on price after translation, let alone quality.
In contrast to DMark, I would suggest that integration still isn’t complete, and there’s more than pockets of resentment. it’s not anger, exactly. Just a general sense of being ill-used on both sides.
That might just be normal Tuetonic grumpiness. Some folks there are very provincial. You think some folks in the US get grumpy about Texans? What I heard some Germans say about Bavarians or Rhinelanders was…not complimentary.
Never said it is complete - but considering the Wall came down in 1989, that would mean any German kids under the age of about 25 don’t even remember the Wall and have pretty much integrated into the “West” as well as their counterparts born anywhere else in Germany. Plus, especially in Berlin, the East is often the “hip” part of town, with new cafes, restaurants, shops and clubs and even the occasional new apartment buildings and fully renovated old buildings. Sure, some still remember those areas as dismal East Berlin ghettos, but urban sprawl has removed a lot of the stigma.
And if what I hear from my German friends is true, the average schmuck on the street is more pissed off about the immigrants coming in from Russia, Rumania and Poland and the mafia from other old East Bloc countries. Even the Turkish population - long the biggest gripe of Berliners - no longer gets the brunt of animosity in comparison to the older East Bloc newcomers.
My point was that time does heal most wounds, and the bitterness of West vs East German has dissipated in comparison to a decade or so ago. Even their current Chancellor - Angela Merkel- was raised and educated in “East Germany” back when the Wall was up.
All forgiven and forgotten? No. But by now it is not really a big deal if you live anywhere in what used to be East Germany. Then again, the Berliners make fun of Munich, Northern Germans laugh at the Southern Germans, everyone makes fun of the low-German, Saxon accent and well, there are, and always will be, enough regional rivalries and distrust to last many lifetimes.