East and West Germans: A Tale of Two Cultures

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East and West GermansA Tale of Two Cultures

• VS

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How it got started

• Division after WWII into two distinct zones
• Differing types of influence form the respective
  governments
• Social structures that defined the two halves
• Consumerism or lack thereof

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Stereotypes

• Ossi's Wessi's

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Stereotypes Cont.

• Ossi's
• -LAZY
• -Work Oriented
• -Ungrateful
• -Welfare gravy trainers

• Wessi's
• -Pompous
• -Mickey Mouseinization or Americanization
• -The great providers

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Ostalgie

• Two different interpretations
• -Some think it's the longing for a totalitarian
  regime
• and its practices.
• Others believe that it is the left over yearnings
  of those who grew up in the DDR and felt that the
  change towards unification happened to quickly.
• A general sense of Foreign lands with alien
  customs after the fall.
• Most likely, the second definition would be the
  one that describes people who still refer to
  themselves as Ossi's

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Ostalgie Cont.

• Head in the Wall Syndrome
• -Dr. Peters Friend from the East had a rather bad
  case of Ostalgie during his presentation. The
  phrase Things were getting better was a give
  away.
• Explains the current cultural divide
• May be a yearning for youth, rather than the
  actual system of the DDR

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Things They forget

• Things were not getting that much better.
• Well into the 1960's there were shortages of
  basic foodstuffs like sugar
• While the DDR was the strongest of the Eastern
  Block economies, it was still lagging when
  unification came about
• People were still attempting to cross the border
  into the West well right until the wall fell.

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Why has the mental division persisted?

• The speed of which the DDR collapsed
• The implementation of Western capitalism, ideas
  and social norms
• Some preferred the older style of government and
  its guarantees (this is mostly an Eastern
  thought, the stability of work and welfare being
  the two big items)
• The quick fall meant the death of the Utopian
  Socialist Society ideal that was the mantra of
  the East.

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The New GenerationDeparting from the past

• Younger generations (especially those born after
  reunification) do not hold to the past as their
  predecessors have.
• Lack of Vergangenheitsbelastung or the burden of
  the past, in regards to what transpired during
  the war and after.
• Most younger people do not use the Ossi Wessi
  tags on their names, the closest they get is
  identifying with their town or federal state.

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Mental Reunification?

• The big question is Will the mental division
  die?
• Short answer It's dying faster than the ones who
  hold on to the separation would like you to
  believe.
• The ace in the hole is younger generations
  creating the New German Identity.

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Sources

• http//www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/programs/ces/p
  cconfpdfs/boyer.pdf
• http//www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t1180
  75.html
• http//www.gfl-journal.de/2-2005/evans.html
• http//books.google.ch/books?id33YcHsQIl74CpgPA
  84lpgPA84dqeastgermanstereotypessourceblo
  tsInJph55bM9sigciAog-NTNq_7GLT0qSue-47-Kz0hle
  neinbH1Sc3KC8iW_AbRrLTKCQsaXoibook_resultct
  resultresnum4PPA84,M1
• Hansel, Jana. Zonenkinder. Germany Rowohlt
  Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 2003
• Hansel, Jana. After the Wall Confessions from an
  East German Childhood and the Life That Came
  Next. Germany PublicAffairs Tra edition, 2008