BERLIN AFTER REUNIFICATION

Berlin after Reunification

Berlin after Reunification

Introduction

Germany was divided into East and West by the allies' right after World War II. East Germany remained under Soviet control for a number of years, and then under Soviet influence until 1989, whereas West Germany was under western control and financial support until 1948, and since then under western influence. Numerous developments took place in both Germanies during those 40 years, but perhaps the most crucial one took place in 1961, when the East German government built a wall to separate East and West Berlin. In 1989, this wall opened as a result of a mass exodus of East Germans to the West, as well as many demonstrations in a number of East German cities. Finally, by October 1990, the two German States were reunited, and in June 1991, the German seat of government was moved to Berlin (Kolinsky, 2003, p. 27). In the next section, we will conduct a critical analysis of the current situation in Germany; Twenty years after reunification.

Discussion & Analysis

The division of Germany

The East and West Germany came into being in 1949, after almost 80 years of running as a joint state. During the Cold War, FRG and GDR swerved in their social experiences for the first time from 1871. While the economic and social rebuilding of the FRG was directed by the self-governing consumerist west, the reconstruction of GDR was strongly administered by the Soviet Union. Progressively, while the Cold War attained its peak, the Soviet Union established it essential to build up an “East German national identity” like a way of maintaining power over the region. Therefore, the Germans were no more assumed to share the similar experiences and values and adherence to the identical territory, but rather undergo alienation because of the ideological differentiations of the Soviet Union and the U.S (Welfens, 1991, p.75).

The crisis of conferring national and cultural dissimilarities among East and West Germany is in the mock superimposition of the political differentiations among the people of the corresponding cultural and historical past. Regardless of the lately created separate political characteristics, the citizens of West and East Germany were from the same place, and their belief and values systems were basically identical. The new socialist distinctiveness created by the socialist heads of East Germany was a simulated body, and it might not obtain strong seize with those citizens who came of age in the years prior to 1949. The cohort born in the years following the division of Germany was very inclined to the modern ideology; however, the system was not ready for an extended adequate time for these values to begin (Library of Congress, Ch. 3). This was extra provoked by the differentiations in the living standards among the people of West and East Germany, and a particular extent of jealousy undergone by the East Germans towards the enhanced economic circumstances of the West, therefore, the falsely formed national characteristics of the East Germans were somewhat detested by the bulk of the inhabitants, ...