(Non-military) alternate paths to German Reunification

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1 hour ago, seahawk said:

And strangely the East are voting for right-wing parties, not the decadent West.

I don't think this is a very accurate picture of who is voting for the far right in Germany... But even if it were so, it is merely a reflection of how much the West shafted the East during reunification. A model that was then exported to Easten Europe and Germany (West Germany) grew enormously fat (like that Polish goose) on the back of that EU expansion.

[Stuart Galbraith]

39 minutes ago, Perun said:

On Poland’s borders, Churchill says he has always favored a westward shift but not more than the Poles can handle: “It would be a great pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food it dies of indigestion.”

https://lithub.com/day-four-at-yalta-the-conference-that-shaped-the-world-the-polish-problem/

 

This is online source, my main source is from the book which I have to find in my home libray

Ta.

11 minutes ago, ink said:

I don't think this is a very accurate picture of who is voting for the far right in Germany... But even if it were so, it is merely a reflection of how much the West shafted the East during reunification. A model that was then exported to Easten Europe and Germany (West Germany) grew enormously fat (like that Polish goose) on the back of that EU expansion.

It also suggests that the policy of the DDR Regime to blame all the right wing stuff on the insufferable west, is now coming home to roost. They have no institutional memory or responsiblity for the Nazi crimes in their own minds.

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12 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

It also suggests that the policy of the DDR Regime to blame all the right wing stuff on the insufferable west, is now coming home to roost. They have no institutional memory or responsiblity for the Nazi crimes in their own minds.

I don't know, the GDR hasn't existed for 35 years. Maybe that's why they have no institutional memory. Though, of course, if you're saying that Naziism was poorly processed at the government/societal level in East Germany, then yes. It sure was. Funnily enough, it wasn't all that well handled in West Germany but many of the key people moved away and West German society was able to do a lot of the heavy lifting themselves. Which didn't happen in the East and that's entirely due to how that country was run.

Same thing in Yugoslavia. The communists worst crime (haha, maybe not... but it's definitely up there) was not processing or letting society process what had happened in WWII.

2 minutes ago, seahawk said:

It would have been better to keep the GDR.

It would have been better to keep some elements of the GDR (in particular the way access to education was organised) and to restructure GDR firms to help them adapt, rather than just letting West German capitalism run riot.

[ink]

2 hours ago, seahawk said:

And strangely the East are voting for right-wing parties, not the decadent West.

This is what I meant:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/26/wealthy-german-town-far-right-on-rise-kaufbeuren-afd-nazis

[Ssnake]

Even with hindsight being 20/20, I'm not sure how it could have been handled better. Poland did not receive lavish subsidies and its economy recovered faster, not the least because the wage level stayed low for a good while. This would have been politically untenable in Germany. Millions of East Germans simply moved west to find a job, and they rarely moved back. No financial support for the East would have meant to completely depopulate the country.

As it was, the young, smart, and flexible people moved west, and those left behind first voted for the Left (because it was the old SED in new shoes, and many of those who couldn't find a new job or didn't want to were old commie cadres; not all of them, but when I was stationed in Torgelow we had 40% votes for old commie bastards, by old commie bastards). As the old cadres have been steadily died off, a considerable percentage of their offspring still doesn't like the new Germany, but instead they're now voting far right. The East always had an elevated share of right-wing Skinheads, they were always in denial that it was a problem, and now that's come home to roost.

 

The GDR's industry was hit with the double whammy of having to deal with the hypercompetitive West German industry while at the same time their traditional export markets (Comecon) suffered a similar economic shock, and demand predictably plummeted.

The subsidies that flowed into the former GDP territory to prop them up would have bankrupted most countries, not just in absolute terms but also as a percentage of GDP. Only Germany could afford the German Reunification.

I challenge anyone here on Tanknet to show how, realistically, the reunification could have been handled better. It wasn't always pretty, but fuck me if I had to point at just a handful of decisions that would have made all the difference without resulting in massive problems elsewhere.

[Ssnake]

22 minutes ago, ink said:

This is what I meant:

long URL ...kaufbeuren...

Why am I not surprised. That town had a reputation even before the reunification.

(To clarify: I think this is a Kaufbeuren problem, not indicative of a wider trend.)

[ink]

6 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

I challenge anyone here on Tanknet to show how, realistically, the reunification could have been handled better. It wasn't always pretty, but fuck me if I had to point at just a handful of decisions that would have made all the difference without resulting in massive problems elsewhere.

It could have been handled differently by not being made to go so quickly. East Germany needed to be given time to become a capitalist economy on its own, before being swallowed up. You're right, of course, that this is wishful thinking however. And I don't think for a moment that that realistically could have happened. But it's still ok to look back at what happened and analyse the problems that those events resulted in. 

One of the consequences, of course, is that people in East Germany are not happy with the way things are now. And maybe they have a right to be unhappy. In the same way that Trump voters have a right to be unhappy with their lot.

It's easy to shit on the little guy, especially if he is a redneck or a commie bastard. But I would rather shit on the greasy fat f***s getting rich while others are miserable (if for no other reason than that they have actual political power and little to lose by making the lives of others a little better... Yet they don't).

[Stuart Galbraith]

it struck me watching 'Goodbye lenin', quite how many of the middle class in East Germany (Doctors, anybody with skills) wanted to get the hell out of East Germany as quickly as possible. Even the semi skilled Labourers, as you can see in the third seires of Heimat.  It surely wasnt practical to maintain an East German state without retaining the wall, and the East Germans had already gotten rid of that first. And if they had, it seems unlikely they would be getting economic assistance from the West, as they continued to gun down economic refugees on the IGB.

Lets not forget, the Europeans were not universally enthusiastic about German reunification either. Thatcher we know was deeply against it. In fact, the story I heard, she want around the capitals of Europe, whom similarly were unenthusiastic, presumably perceiving it as bieng likely to dominate the EEC/EU. But when Thatcher made her unrealistic suggestion that Germany should remain divided, nobody supported her. Because in the end it was already a done deal, no matter what the British or the Soviets or anyone else felt about it.

Incidentally, there was quite an interesting article about her reasoning in the irish times, based on documents released under the 30 year rule.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/state-papers-thatcher-opposed-german-reunification-after-collapse-of-berlin-wall-1.4119052#:~:text=British prime minister Margaret Thatcher strongly opposed the,might lead to conflict and war in Europe.

 

[Ssnake]

15 minutes ago, ink said:

It could have been handled differently by not being made to go so quickly. East Germany needed to be given time to become a capitalist economy on its own, before being swallowed up.

I agree, but there were those demonstrations leading up to the first free elections where there simply was a demand for unification, pronto - and not out of patriotic fervor but simply for economic reasons:

As a consequence, the GDR Volkskammer started immediate negotiations to create the necessary conditions for a unification contract. Funny enough, Wendover just made a video about it:

 

In the 1990 west German elections just before the reunification, there was one candidate who proposed a slow integration path with two separate entities, Oskar Lafontaine. He netted the then-worst ever election result for the Social Democrats.

In short, there simply was no political mandate for taking it slow. Unless you can replace the people in your time machine, a slow reunification in measured steps just wasn't in the cards.

[Ssnake]

31 minutes ago, ink said:

But it's still ok to look back at what happened and analyse the problems that those events resulted in.

Fair enough, but what kind of conclusions do you want to draw from this? That if you had a make-a-wish machine you would retcon history? There are probably more worthy points in history (like a premature death of Ghengis Khan, Mao, Stalin, Leopold I of Belgium, Hitler, Karl Marx...).

31 minutes ago, ink said:

people in East Germany ... maybe ... have a right to be unhappy

They absolutely do, just as well I have a right to resist them pulling me into their pit of sorrow. I agree with some points that the AfD makes, actually, but that doesn't mean that I think that having them in power would be good for the country as a whole.

[ink]

26 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Funny enough, Wendover just made a video about it:

I find his political stuff to be kinda lame actually. Comes across like someone who studied engineering or STEM but got interested in political stuff later on in life. That said, I haven't seen this video yet so there's still a chance it could be excellent.

26 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

In the 1990 west German elections just before the reunification, there was one candidate who proposed a slow integration path with two separate entities, Oskar Lafontaine. He netted the then-worst ever election result for the Social Democrats.

In short, there simply was no political mandate for taking it slow. Unless you can replace the people in your time machine, a slow reunification in measured steps just wasn't in the cards.

I do believe I already said that I didn't think it was realistic. The pressures for the other path were too great.

18 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Fair enough, but what kind of conclusions do you want to draw from this? That if you had a make-a-wish machine you would retcon history? There are probably more worthy points in history (like a premature death of Ghengis Khan, Mao, Stalin, Leopold I of Belgium, Hitler, Karl Marx...).

So, what? No lessons can be learned from history because any suggested alternative of a better path or outcome is just wishful thinking? 

18 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

They absolutely do, just as well I have a right to resist them pulling me into their pit of sorrow. I agree with some points that the AfD makes, actually, but that doesn't mean that I think that having them in power would be good for the country as a whole.

Well, that's fine. That's what democracy is supposed to be all about, right?

What's more worrying - and I'd be interested to learn if this is the case in Germany too - is that in Europe and the States (and elsewhere) big business-affiliated media have spent decades being determined to stamp out any vestige of a socialist political option that they've only left room for the far right as an outlet for dissatisfaction.

[sunday]

38 minutes ago, ink said:

stamp out any vestige of a socialist political option

Sorry, but not. If anything, Socialism has evolved into Ecologism/Wokeism.

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16 minutes ago, sunday said:

Sorry, but not. If anything, Socialism has evolved into Ecologism/Wokeism.

Has it evolved or was it pushed?

Anyway, I wasn't talking about wokeism, just trying to establish why dissatisfaction is resulting in support for far right options rather than a push for better conditions.

[seahawk]

Or is it the same, just using a different disguise? Because in the end it is also about controlling opinions, speech, resources and  economic possibilities.

And interestingly the socialist leaning (well kind of) freshly founded alternative to the AfD (with a similar stance on migration and the Ukraine) also preformed extremely well in Eastern Germany.

[ink]

7 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Or is it the same, just using a different disguise? Because in the end it is also about controlling opinions, speech, resources and  economic possibilities.

Not the same thing at all, in my opinion. The rich and powerful are laughing all the way to the bank on the back of all this woke bullshit. But that's a much broader discussion. Do we really want to go there?

7 minutes ago, seahawk said:

And interestingly the socialist leaning (well kind of) freshly founded alternative to the AfD (with a similar stance on migration and the Ukraine) also preformed extremely well in Eastern Germany.

Tell me more, I don't know anything about it.

[seahawk]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lower-taxes-higher-pensions-new-leftist-party-wins-over-germanys-disaffected-2024-06-10/

https://www.kas.de/en/election-and-social-research-monitor/detail/-/content/analysis-of-the-european-elections-in-germany-on-9-june-2024

 

[Ssnake]

1 hour ago, ink said:

So, what? No lessons can be learned from history because any suggested alternative of a better path or outcome is just wishful thinking?

Well, when do ypu think the next Reunification will come where "lessons learned" can be applied? The two Koreas? Taiwan and China?

South Korea did, BTW, sent a lot of observers to Germany. It is no accident that enthusiasm for a reunification with the north dropoed sharply after the late 1990s.

 

Should these countries ever reunite, conditions will hardly be transferable. That's the general problem with the social sciences - a mess of uncontrolled variables when you deal with superficially similar situations. Unsurprisingly, things just never play out right when you try to apply lessons of the past.

[urbanoid]

55 minutes ago, ink said:

Tell me more, I don't know anything about it.

Quote

BSW: Germany’s new leftist party and AfD rival makes strides in EU election

BERLIN, June 10 (Reuters) - A party founded just five months ago by an icon of Germany's hard left has gone from a standing start to seemingly automatic coalition partner in three eastern regions where elections are due later this year.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), whose eponymous leader quit the ailing Left party last year, promised voters less bureaucracy, lower taxes and better pensions, and called for an end to arms for Ukraine.

That eclectic pitch won it 6% of the vote in Sunday's European Parliament elections, while in some eastern states, strongholds of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the BSW took a comfortable third place on as much as 15%.

"There are many people who didn't know who to vote for and now they have found a political home again," a jubilant Wagenknecht told reporters on Monday. "Our aim first of all is to give a new home to people who are furious and angry and despairing about Germany's bad politics."

With the AfD leading in polls across much of eastern Germany, and most parties ruling out governing with them, the BSW may end up the key to forming regional coalitions together with more mainstream parties later this year.

To some extent, exit polls bear Wagenknecht out: her party drew some 500,000 voters from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, 400,000 from a near-moribund Left party and 140,000 from the AfD, according to public broadcaster ARD.

Born in 1969 in then-Communist East Germany to an Iranian father and German mother, Wagenknecht has been a lightning rod in German leftist politics for almost two decades.

She has used her rhetorical gifts to establish a cult following but often angered colleagues for whom she was not enough of a team player.

The outcome of the European Parliament vote, held after a bout of inflation that crippled many on lower incomes and at a time of deep anxiety over the state of Germany's economy and the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was also shaped by a broad sense of disillusionment with mainstream parties.

ARD's poll found that a full 44% voted for the AfD out of disappointment at other parties.

In many respects, Wagenknecht's populist brew differs little from that of the AfD, with which she has said she will not enter a coalition. Both want tighter migration controls and better social benefits, and both are ambivalent on the war in Ukraine.

"We naturally condemn this war," Wagenknecht told reporters, without mentioning that Russia started it with its full-scale invasion in February 2022. She added that arming Ukraine would not end the war and that the West should "test (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's stated willingness to negotiate".

"(Germany) used not to take sides in conflicts around the world but played a mediating role and was respected by both sides."

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lower-taxes-higher-pensions-new-leftist-party-wins-over-germanys-disaffected-2024-06-10/

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, ink said:

What's more worrying - and I'd be interested to learn if this is the case in Germany too - is that in Europe and the States (and elsewhere) big business-affiliated media have spent decades being determined to stamp out any vestige of a socialist political option that they've only left room for the far right as an outlet for dissatisfaction.

I don't think we'll find common ground in that debate. In Germany, most journos and papers are left leaning. They aren't owned by big business - Axel Springer being the biggest, but no match for Murdoch - but in the majority of papers you'll find the Social Democrats owning a substantial minority share.

After 100 million deaths, I wish that Socialism could finally be buried, but it's the turd that just won't flush.

Last Sunday I spotted the following left parties on the ballot, ranging from Stalinist commies to Socialights, in no particular order and without attempting to make it a comprehensive list,

MLPD, DKP, SGP, Die Linke, BSW, Volt, Piraten, Mera25, BIG, Klimaliste, Letzte Generation, PdF, Menschliche Welt, V, Grüne, SPD.

I don't think it's for a lack of options. Maybe their ideas are being rejected.

[Pavel Novak]

1 hour ago, ink said:

Has it evolved or was it pushed?

Anyway, I wasn't talking about wokeism, just trying to establish why dissatisfaction is resulting in support for far right options rather than a push for better conditions.

I think that problem of social parties is that they were succesfull and achieved everything they originally wanted. And thus reason for their existance cease to be. The green thing (part of it with real basis) and wokeism is searching for new meaning.

[Ssnake]

Just some background info:

Sarah Wagenknecht joined the SED while the GDR collapsed and became head of the "Communist Platform", the Stalinist wing if the PDS which then mutated into Die Linke. Oskar Lafontaine, mentioned as the failed 1990 SPD candidate, threw a hissy fit during Schröder's chancellorship and resigned as minister of finance, then co-founded Die Linke together with the PDS, and married Wagenknecht. Truly a match made in heaven.

In the end Wagenknecht split Die Linke and made her own thing, BSW, literally a one-man party.

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1 hour ago, seahawk said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lower-taxes-higher-pensions-new-leftist-party-wins-over-germanys-disaffected-2024-06-10/

https://www.kas.de/en/election-and-social-research-monitor/detail/-/content/analysis-of-the-european-elections-in-germany-on-9-june-2024

 

Ta very much.

[ink]

14 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

I don't think we'll find common ground in that debate. 

Yeah, we won't. Because you seem to conflate socialism with communism, while enjoying the benefits of actual socialism in your daily life. So probably best if we just drop that line of discussion.

[seahawk]

It really has nothing to do with socialism. The main topic is immigration, which unites AfD and BSW.

[sunday]

22 minutes ago, ink said:

Yeah, we won't. Because you seem to conflate socialism with communism, while enjoying the benefits of actual socialism in your daily life. So probably best if we just drop that line of discussion.

German welfare state has its origins in one Otto von Bismarck, not quite Socialist.