Social problems in Germany since the reunification

I've just recieved the go-ahead from my tutor to start work on my 'self-chosen topic' report. I decided to write about the social problems here since the reunification, possibly with more emphasis on East Germany.

I need to put a certain amount of analysis into the causes of the problems. I've already identified some of the key areas of discussion and did some research, but some more food for thought would be helpful, as some of you have lived here for a long time and will have observed some of the changes first hand.

Also, if anyone knows of any websites that would be helpful, that would be great.

Cheers

I don't think you'll get much with that opener. A more effective opener would have been to start with some devisive statement such as 'East Germans are all stupid, lazy commies who are ruining the West German lifestyle', or just 'Rebuild the Wall!', and then let the peeps get to arguing.

Biggest social problem I can see is that we (Englishmen) grew up thinking of East German women being more manly than the East German men. Then the wall came down and we started meeting real East German women. Man! There are some BABES!!! Totally steroid free, and all without a shot putt ball in their hands.

Some of the blokes aren't THAT bad either!

A Big Personal Social Problem:

"Solidaritätszuschlag" a New Tax introduced in 1995 taking 5.5 % of my hard earned money and donating it to "East Germans"...who are getting richer and richer.
Lot of people in the west are not happy abt this tax...

Try going to the nearest Public Library...Stadtbibliothek...they will have lots of books on that.

I'd rather pay that than the Church Tax cape.

But I object to paying Solidaritätszuschalg so that the government and its predecessors can pay BILLIONS to their mates in private industry to build white elephants in the eastern states.

@Cape - sympathise with your feelings, but having 75 or so German friends, with about 1/3 from former East Germany, I can see both sides. A lot of my West German friends complain about the tax, they are getting poorer and see the country as going downhill with unemployment rising etc., but none of my East German friends have got richer - far from it! Since the wall came down, almost every one of my eastern friends have lost their jobs, mostly without a hope of ever getting another one! Not only were all the factories pulled down (for good reason, I know), but some of the facilities they were used to having free of charge under Russia have either gone or now have to be paid for (such as Amateur Dramatics). Without jobs they can't afford to pay for the little pleasures of entertainment they were used to having. Then with the new "Gesundheitsreform" none of my friends without jobs can afford to pay for health care, but that's another story.

Apart from families being able to get back together and freedom of travel, it does make me question whether taking the wall down and reuniting Germany has actually done any good! None of the Germans seem to think so, East or West! (I suppose it gives them a stronger World Cup Footie Team...)

@ Alys, a lot of perfectly good factories were all pulled down to give a free run to west german firms who wanted a ready market. and to knock out competition in the opening markets of eastern Europe.

@Alys I agree...but look at the benefits they got. for example...they were allowed to change the money 1:1 ...the DDR DM was very bad as compared to the west...and after they got it they spent it all.. went on holidays and were richer than their western brothers.

What disturbs me is that once any tax is introduced in Germany...it will never go...15 Years of reunification...and we are still paying this tax? Why?
As a foreigner it does hurt me a lot...

Besides the term "Solidarity Tax" is wrong...and then why not a fixed sum. Why the hell they take a % tage from you. My heart bleeds for them and my pocket too...
Isnt one paying enough tax here already?

Interview my wife. She is from the DDR um.. neue bundeslander.

This baffles me. With unemployment at twice the rate there as here, I frankly don't see how you can consider East Germans richer than West Germans. pls clarify?

@ alala - Talking abt the past.
Just was talking to my german friend and he says that after the reunification they had a lot of money saved becoz they couldnt buy things in DDR...and after reunification they changed money 1:1 to West DM. They travelled becoz they were caged for so many years...but they didnt do anything after that and thus still are underdeveloped as compared to west.

West was happy for them...but atleast a certain percentage of west germans think that it was not right...

Well as I believe, with communisum, everyone had jobs regardless of whether you actually achieved anything or not, in the practical world that is just not substainable.

Someone made the comment that the goverment encouraged companies to open in the old east Germany, but then the problem was the skills just weren't there, I guess this is changing now, but with the whole economy of Germany, no company is now really looking to expand in Germany, in fact most are downsizing. Some companies have moved to parts of east Germany to actually reduce costs, but this has the initial point, moving costs.

Right, I'd heard that the right to travel was one of the key demands of the East Germans that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I also knew about the 1:1 currency exchange. But I recall hearing that East German factories were less efficient, and at that exchange rate they couldn't afford to pay their employees, so there were a lot of layoffs. I doubt that they had "a lot" of money saved - if there was no need to buy anything, then wages couldn't have been all that high, though I haven't found a lot of information on that yet. I have heard of East German doctors and professors whose qualifications were not recognized outside of communist Europe, so they were forced to become cleaning ladies and garbage men and such.

>>but they didn't do anything after that...

what should they have done? Sorry, I flunked economics in college, so a lot of things are not obvious to me that probably should be.

They didn't earn much, but the basics were much cheaper then (rent, basical food).
One problem with their factories was - their main customers were in eastern europe and weren't able to trade in DeutschMark, so their markets broke down - their former customers were not able anymore to buy from DDR factories.

to cut a long story short this is what happedned:

Cost of unifification underestimated (re-building work etc)
fx-rate between ostmarks and D.marks ridiculous.
east Germans assetts sold off in a "suspicous" manner sometimes (but at least they weren't dogging the state anymore)
ill-thought out tax breaks for investing in the east which effectively did little for the east and lined the pockets of investors.
east German wages were pushed ever closer to west german, despite living costs not converging.
This made it harder to encourage real private investment in the east.
14 (?) millionms exta people in the social security system (pensions ect) for which they paid nothing in .

all meant that the treasury in Germany was bankrupted. Because Germans don't like change, governments couldn't or wouldn't restructure radically. They simply raised taxes again and again and again forcing the economy into a slow but steady downward spiral.

THe rising costs meant higher taxes in the west (resentment) and the lack of efficient investment in the east coupled with no restructuring meant high unemployment in the east (resentment)

Noone is happy with how things turned out. The wessies resent the ossies cos the cost, the ossies resent the wessies because the yhave no joby. TGhe spirally unemployment in the east festers the typical socio-economic cancers like right-wing extremism (Neo-Nazism).

(sorry did i say this was the short version? I shall stop now)

Yeah, I've got an osi myself... and I've found that 9 out of every 10 women I find attractive here in clubs/bars in munich end up being from Thueringen... I swear there must have been something in the water. soooo hot. anyway...

one thing to add to Owain's great list, many companies saw the east as cheap labor for production, but then before going to east germany, they looked a little farther and saw even cheaper labor in east european countries, and they ended up bypassing east germany. For basic unskilled or semi-skilled labor, while there was plenty in east germany, there was lots more farther east, and it was cheaper still. However, a big sticking point for some companies was proximity to market and PR for moving jobs away from the market.

Another interesting tidbit... if you look at the Harz IV social aid reform stuff, the east recieves less aid than in the west (however, the difference was not very large, but I don't remember the numbers). Many would argue that this is due to the cost of living differences between east/west (and yes, it's fairly large), however, I would counter that the gov't is not helping the situation by differentiating between the east and the west in terms of social aid for the jobless. By depriving the east of that money, it hinders the flow of money through that area of the economy, and in turn also hurts the ability of the cities and states to work towards rebuilding it's infrastructure (which in some areas is very badly needed). Not many companies would like to relocate or open new locations where the infrastructure is poor. <-- all IMO... and I'm not an economist, hated econ... and ironically, my dad was an econ major... Freudian connection?

You might also look into a comparison between the sudden integration of east/west germany and the 10 year plan that Poland had. I read some info about that somewhere, but I neither remember where, nor what exactly was said. I just know that it was interesting reading... before I propmtly forgot all of it.