History of two Neighbors: Poland - Germany Interrelations

@Dougpol1

You are obviously a troll. There is a deep rift in Germany since 2015 and i absolutely identify myself as east German. Im from Thüringen, which is eastern Germany. There is an enormous ideological rift between east and west Germany. I was born after reunion but this rift also is in younger generation like me.

We are anti migration, more anti Nato, anti Merkel.

Dougpol1
Happy to humour you (sarcasm off)
First and foremost for an economy to grow you need stability which PiS can give (also compared to Ukraine which started better off then Poland in 1989 economically I don't think it's only about rebuilding from scratch. One has to want to rebuild too.

@Weimarer,

....and anti-everything else, so it seems:-)
Tell us, apart from a mythically pure "white", native Germany, what DO you like anyway?
LOL

The AfD is not anti-NATO!

Look at page 59


afd.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/111/2018/01/Programm_AfD_Druck_Online_190118.pdf

Weimarer is indeed uninformed about many such matters and also appears to have revisionist views of history, albeit ancient!
:-)

The is why I have always advocated, following the opinion of the unforgettable Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, that East Germany (former DDR) should not unite with West Germany, but remain an independent state.

The rift is not only ideological, but it is a deeply-rooted historical and economical one. Is it true that one German chancellor was prepared to exchange West Berlin for certain western areas of Thüringen as he along with his country men in the Bonn Republic felt that the whole Berlin belongs to the East and western Thüringen belongs to the West?

From the historical perspective East Germany is the "new" Germany, whereas West Germany is the "old" Germany. If we moved back in time to, say, the year 1100, we would see that East Germany was basically not Germany yet and German was either not spoken at all or spoken by the few there. Thus, the rift is much older than 'die Grenze zwischen der DDR und der Bonner Republik'.

...still an unrealistic vision. Totally disregarding the fact that East Germany never was an independent state...forty years of communist indoctrination couldn't it make it so in the mind of the people.

It always was only a soviet zone of occupation of Germany cut out forcefully, against the will of the people, only kept alive with a stone wall and the military.


But then please do so with all of Europe...good luck with reshuffling the borders.

Just look back before WWII...East Germany was then not the "far" East but Mitteldeutschland...in many ways the scientific and cultural german mainland.
Bavaria for example was only rural, agrarian backyard.

It became the wild East after 40 years of isolation...not of free will!

Ziemowit, this is one of my favourite topics! I've done a lot of research on the unification process, and I broadly agree with you on this one.

If I could go back and run things as an absolute dictator, I would have found a way (similar to Poland) to get debt relief on the huge amounts of money that they owed, while implementing Polish-style shock therapy to dismantle the old SED structures. It would have been painful, but with West Germany pushing quickly to reform the DDR and get them into the EEC/EC/EU, it's likely we would see quick economic recovery.

The two Germanies would be free to cooperate, while Berlin would become a kind of free city - under dual BRD/DDR ownership, but with an elected city government responsible for the whole city and with their own institutions. There's a parallel with the modern day Brcko district in Bosnia-Hercegovina as to how this can work.

For me, West Germany effectively looted East Germany.

Still unrealistic...but coming from foreigners excusable! :)


Oh please!

@Lyzko

What im not against?

Im pro technology. Pro nature ect.

As for east and west...today East Germany saves all of Germany. West Germans are very ignorant and usually not very educated. They believe evrything Merkel tells them. Its the east that stands up and crushd that rubbish.

Also Bratwurst seems to have some democratic issues? Most in eastern germany are against NATO. I dont have to agree with evry point in AfD program.

I want fight migration. Thats my core issue. Evrything else is bla bla.

How else could you do it without keeping border controls?

I've read so much on the topic, and in all fairness, it's impossible to see how the DDR could have survived unless the BRD agreed to close the door in some way.

The only ones against NATO are the crazy lefties from Die Linke....I would never had pegged you as such.


No Berliner wanted a free city! We wanted to take back our rightful place as capital of a re-unified Germany...

(My "Oh please" was meant sarcastic, just in case we had a misunderstanding)

I know, I know ;)

But I like these alternate-history scenarios, and I've spent way too many hours contemplating what would have happened in 1989-1990 if the SPD were ruling in West Germany and if the Allianz didn't win in East Germany in 1990. Would an SPD-led government in East Germany be so quick to move towards unification?

I think you are underestimating how run down the East German economy was at the end, and how attractive West Germany was for East Germans. The problem was not simply down to debts, but the rotting infrastructure and antiquated production processes. The Politburo was warned in the middle 1980s that unless there were heavy investments into the crumbling ancient parts of the cities, they would literally rot away until the early 1990s.


I have quite a lot of respect for Thatcher, but it is obvious that she really dropped the ball during the negotiations for the German reunification. She was completely irrationial, unlike her usual calculating self. No wonder she was ousted shortly afterwards by her own party.


That sounds very unlikely. Besides West Berlin was not under the authority of the FRG, but the occupying powers, so legally speaking it would have been impossible for him.


The debts were not really the problem, because even though the GDR could no longer pay them back by 1989, they were relatively low. The GDR needed investments instead, and who would have invested into a country that just failed to uphold their debts?

@Bratwurst Boy

Nothing to do with Die Linke. We are very much anti american here. Thats a simple fact.

As for Berlin...ever went there? I was in 2015. Its a pathetic s. I hated every minute there. There is no city i hate more than Berlin.

Agreed, it looted them of part of their population. If the East remained independent, the migration would not have been as big as it was. On the other hand, the process of de-communisation would not have been as thorough as it actually was. And Merkel would not have been raised to the post of Bundeskanzlerin, but she would have remained in the DDR from where she wouldn't have been able to announce her famous 'Wir schaffen das" political agenda.


Of course, something had to be done with Berlin. Berlin would have been a problem. A free city could have been a solution, yes, and even under the European "ownership" rather than the dual BRD/DDR one or the city could become fully independent. A fully independent Berlin could have been an interesting option as one day it could have been transformed into an EU capital, replacing Brussels in that role after new member states joined the EU.

The problem of finding a new capital for the transformed DDR would have remained, however. Brandenburg would do, in my view, as sort of centrally located place and once upon a time having been replaced by Berlin in as a major town in that region.

But that option of territorial exchange of West Berlin for western Thüringen intrigues me a lot. Can anyone of our German friends confirm it? If it really was deliberated at one time, it would mean people in West Germany must have been firmly conscious of that historical background which I have outlined in my previous post.

I usually do too. But we are still living in a Europe of nation states (and probably will do so for the next decades).

An independent East Germany would had IMHO only viable in a Europe of Regions...as an federal region of Central Europe. But even for this the Bundesländer Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Thüringen, Sachsen und Sachsen-Anhalt would had better chances if they unify to one region.

For example Mecklenburg-Vorpommern would be not be viable on its own, no matter the alternative scenario....


Well...I'm an Ossi too and I'm very grateful for the Amis. They were on our side all the way as even our own brethren cuddled with Dictators and licked the boots of the Politburo.

I don't forget that!

Again, there are no worse anti-Americans than those on the hard left! (But they adore Putin).


NEVER! :)

I never heard of this.....


I LIVE HERE...born and raised in East Berlin...and I still live here, heh:)

I still like it to much to relocate to the baltic coast...well...maybe later...

The GDR was bankrupt in 1989. The whole country was run down and polluted, the industrial base completely outdated and unable to compete with western companies, the infrastructure sh*it. That was the reason why so many East Germans took off to the west at the first opportunity. That and the fear that the border will be closed again, of course.


I've never met an East German who was anti-American, unless he was a former SED member.

After USSR dissolution Ukraine lost 70% of its manufacturing and 50% of economy in total very soon. Not so Poland which wasn't as much dependent on USSR economically. Also manufacturing production potential of Ukraine was much weaker than that of Russia. Thus Ukraine didn't have a full scale production of passenger planes or passenger vehicles, many factories supplied parts to other USSR republics.

Especially in Berlin. All anti-americanism in Berlin was imported with west german Anarchos, Kommunards, Junkies and Hippies and what not...

Even in West Berlin there was hardly any anti-Americanism before the wall came down. You guys must've imported a lot of anarchists from Hamburg's Hafenstrasse...

....probably! :)

@TheOther
How is it possible to explain GDR was in such drastic state in 1989?

Many factors: negative effects of central planning and lack of competition, polluted environment, oversized military, prohibitively expensive border, hardly any freedom to travel, and others.

In short: Socialism

Well, pretend socialism ...

And what is 'real' socialism? USSR? Cuba? North Korea? China? Laos? Vietnam? PRL? GDR? Angola? Yugoslavia?

Lemme guess. All of them got it wrong or are getting it wrong, but your version of socialism will definitely work.

@Vlad1234

GDR was still the richest out of the satellite nations and USSR. They definitely lived better than Poles during PRL

The one according to the theory of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Nice idea on paper, but won't work. The system they had in the USSR or GDR for example was a simple dictatorship. The leading political caste exploiting the people. Except for the dictatorship part similar to the Trump administration.; only here the fat cats are billionaires who tell you that social democracy is evil. They call it socialism though, because they want to scare you and your ilk.


Depends how you look at it. Unlike the East Germans, Poles were able to travel to western Europe and work. I remember the Polski Fiats filled to the brim with western merchandise on their way home.


If I had my own version, I would patent it and be filthy rich Now I'm only rich ... :)

Alot of bullshit is talked here.

1. Yes, Thüringen was first american sector and then exchanged for west berlin by the americans.

2. Yes, anti americanism is much stronger in eastern germany and for good reason. USA is not a partner, its a leech and parasite.

3. Putin is not left, he is very much far right and one of the biggest supporters of the right. I see Russia as a natural partner for Germany and believe US influence has to be culled back drastical.

In the end it is like it is. And btw eastern Germany was not as eun down as some suggest. West Germans took out billions and enriched themself with it. It was a big theft.

In the end the positive aspect of german division is, that in eastern Germany men got not weaklings like west germans.

Stick to the topic, please