Unresolved division: Lasting impact of German reunification on national and European identity

On October 3, Germany commemorates its Unity Day, a national holiday dedicated to the reunification of the country. This year holds particular significance, as it also marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that not only unified Germany but reshaped Europe and paved the way for the formation of the EU. However, amid growing economic challenges and the rise of far-right parties—especially in the Eastern part of the country—questions are surfacing about Germany’s current role in Europe.

Studio Europa Maastricht spoke about it with Aline Sierp, Associate Professor in European History and Memory Studies at Maastricht University and co-founder of the Memory Studies Association. Prof Sierp will be one of the speakers at the panel discussion “35 years of a unified Germany in the EU: From Iron Curtain to integration challenge​​”, where together with other experts she will try to answer the question “Is Germany slowing down European integration?.”

You can register for the event here.

Memory shaping identity

While the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, Germany’s Unity Day is celebrated on October 3rd. Why? Sierp explains: 

“Thinking about it at first, you might be surprised because the 9th of November is the day habitually associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the celebrated date is the 3rd of October 1990, which is a year later and is the day when the Unification Treaty was signed. But thinking about what happened on the 9th of November in other years, it becomes quite evident that it is not a good day to choose for a national celebration, simply because other events like Kristallnacht in 1938 and also Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch happened on the same day. It’s often called “Schicksalstag”, the Day of Fate for Germany, and therefore it was simply not possible to choose the 9th of November as a national day of celebration. Instead, a very bureaucratic day was chosen—a neutral day, almost a bit arbitrarily. Of course, the issue with that is that people don’t associate very much with that day; the emotional connection is not there.”

The fall of the Berlin Wall is undoubtedly one of the major events that shaped German society. Yet, apart from joyous memories, it also reminds the nation of the divisions between East and West that are still in place, Sierp says: 

“The event itself was experienced by the local population in a very similar way regardless of whether they were from the East or the West. I think people remember it as a very surprising, joyous day. We all know pictures and video recordings of people who don’t know each other, hugging and celebrating together, being very happy. The divisions appeared afterwards. Eastern Germany experienced the process of reunification very differently compared to the West, and we can still feel repercussions of this today. The difference between the official level, which continues to stress the positive element of reunification, and the individual and social level, where you have very different perceptions , is becoming bigger and bigger over time.”

“Eastern Germany experienced the process of reunification very differently compared to the West, and we can still feel repercussions of this today.“

Germans or Europeans?

However, people’s memory and the official interpretation of history are not always in sync, especially since the broader European context has entered the picture, the expert underlines: 

“If you look at how official celebrations have developed, they have also changed over time. At the beginning, they were very local, stressing the success and pride in reunification. To a certain extent, celebrations were also focused very nationally on what happened. Then, over time, a much larger transnational focus emerged, especially after the Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU. This became not only Germany’s story but also the story of the end of the Cold War and the division between East and West in Europe. If you look at more recent celebrations, you can see that more general transnational values are being emphasized: democracy, human rights, and integration. This is often connected to contemporary issues, like the war in Ukraine or the Syrian war. If you look at the official celebrations, the narratives have also shifted slightly. This might be one of the reasons why the division I mentioned earlier has grown. The celebrations seem more detached from what people had experienced at the time.”

“This became not only Germany’s story but also the story of the end of the Cold War and the division between East and West in Europe. “

In a way, European integration helped Germans form a new national identity following reunification, Sierp adds: 

“Germany has always had a very complicated relationship with its national identity due to the legacy of the Nazi regime. This became particularly evident during the World Cup in 2006 hosted by Germany, when everyone was commenting on how many people were waving flags. This was something that hadn’t happened before, and many were saying that Germany is finally normalizing and developing a healthier relationship with its national identity. But if you think about European integration and the effect reunification had, then the fact that reunification was embedded in the European process allowed Germans to engage with their national identity through that process. It became almost a second identity, allowing them to attach their national identity to their European identity, making it to a certain extent more acceptable.”

However, recent developments in German politics show a backtracking trend that is putting post-reunification achievements into question, the expert notes: 

“There is a growing difference between East and West. The East is retreating much more strongly into nationalistic tendencies, but you can also see it a little in the West. It mirrors a European trend of moving away from a transnational, open way of defining oneself and retreating into a national shell. You can see this reflected immediately in policies—the hesitancy regarding migration issues, the recent closing of borders, and other nationalistic measures. These obviously played a big role in recent elections. It became a major topic—not just the question of who we are, but also of who we want to be, how many people we are willing to let into our country, and whether we can still accept that or not. I think Germany is clearly moving away from what Angela Merkel, who was an Easterner, stood for—a more open, multicultural society. This vision is certainly becoming less popular than it used to be.”

“the fact that reunification was embedded in the European process allowed Germans to engage with their national identity through that process. “

From Berlin to Brussels

According to Sierp, in today’s realities, it’s becoming increasingly hard to distinguish what is a German trend and what is a European one:

“Germany has always had a very strong voice in Europe, so whatever happens there also gets picked up on the European level. Generally speaking, I think this backtracking—focusing on your own national needs—is something we see everywhere. It’s not just a German phenomenon, but because everyone is always watching what Germany is doing, it has more influence, especially when we think about the rise of the extreme right. For a long time, people were saying, ‘It’s not happening in Germany, so we’re safe,’ but now that it is happening there as well, people see it as particularly worrying. In other countries where these developments occurred earlier, or where we already see extreme right parties in government, like in Italy, people are also concerned, but it is perceived to be much less problematic compared to when it is happening in Germany.”

“Germany has always had a very strong voice in Europe, so whatever happens there also gets picked up on the European level. “

Still many EU member states are looking at Berlin when it comes to important decisions:

“Germany has always been seen as upholding certain values, and now this image is crumbling. It does have an impact. If we look at concrete policies, everyone is watching what Germany does in terms of defence and foreign policy. Hesitancy there is seen as particularly burdensome for the rest of Europe. Other countries seem to be much less willing to engage if Germany isn’t leading the way. The same is happening with the migration debate. In 2015, Germany was welcoming immigrants . Now, the exact opposite is happening—borders are being closed, checks are being implemented, and asylum seekers are being sent back. This has a huge impact, much more so than if it were happening in another country. This is, of course, due to the economic power Germany still holds, the fact that it’s the most populous country in the European Union, and that for a long time, it was the driving engine of European integration alongside France. There are all sorts of reasons why what’s happening in Germany is being watched much more closely than what’s happening in other countries.”

“Germany has always been seen as upholding certain values, and now this image is crumbling.”

United but still apart

Recent electoral success of the far right in Eastern Germany can also be linked to the lasting effects of its history behind the Berlin Wall, Sierp believes: 

“It very much has to do with what happened before the fall of the Berlin Wall—40 years of communism and the kind of narrative that was put forward then about fascism and National Socialism. It had a huge impact on how people perceive certain ideologies now. There is quite a lot of research on countries that have not come to terms with their past, and there are clear correlations between the rise of extreme right actors, parties, and ideologies and this incomplete process. This is clearly the case in Eastern Germany, where the Nazi past has not been properly addressed. The communist system kept saying—everywhere in Eastern Europe but especially in Germany—that ‘we were on the right side; we were anti-fascist from the beginning.’  East Germany was framed as an anti-fascist state. The process of questioning and coming to terms with collaboration and perpetration happened slowly and painfully in Western Germany, but it did happen. It didn’t happen to the same extent in the East. When reunification occurred, Eastern Germany suddenly had to adopt a narrative developed in Western Germany. As a result, extreme ideologies are now perceived as less dangerous in the East than they are in the West.”

The fact that the struggles of the post-reunification process still haven’t been resolved makes people long for the past, Sierp adds: 

“Eastern Germany feels like the West is moving forward, and they have never been able to properly catch up. There are huge social and economic problems, but there is also the issue of perception. In certain areas of the East, unemployment rates are not higher than in the West; on the contrary, there are parts of Western Germany where unemployment rates are extremely high, much higher than in East Germany. But the perception remains, and this feeling that arose right after reunification—that the West took over, that the East was sold out, that Eastern Germans lost everything—still persists. They were told that what they had believed for 40 years was suddenly wrong. They were also often accused of being part of the system and collaborating with it; even if it wasn’t true in some cases, people were still judged. There is still a very strong sense of inferiority compared to the West, and a strong feeling of nostalgia. There’s even a term for it — Ostalgie. These are all feelings that are being very successfully exploited by extreme parties, both on the right and the left.”

“There is still a very strong sense of inferiority compared to the West, and a strong feeling of nostalgia. There’s even a term for it — Ostalgie.“

New times, old narratives

Reflecting on whether these divisions between East and West will pass with time or continue to affect Germany’s and Europe’s political life, Sierp doesn’t offer a comforting forecast: 

“Many young people have never experienced the division, and they don’t have this very strong feeling of East and West. For a long time, the idea was that it’s just a matter of time—generations would pass, and everything would grow together because the differences were clearly diminishing. But now I’m not so sure any more. I think the divide is actually getting bigger again. If you look at the election results, you see that many young people are voting for extreme parties. I think they are particularly susceptible to the narrative: ‘All the economic problems we have are particularly pronounced in the East, and we will take care of that.’ There’s also a strong anti-establishment narrative. We already had that during communism. At that time, the West was the enemy; now, it’s Brussels. I thus have doubts that it’s just a question of generations. The division runs much deeper than people initially thought, and as long as there are actors who build on and exploit that, I don’t think it will diminish.”

However, German division is not the only divide the EU should be worried about, the expert concludes: 

“We have this difference between East and West in the EU as well. I think many of the issues that come up—the feeling people have of being left behind, of not being full members of the European community—are present there too. What you see in Germany on a small scale is what you actually have on a European level.”