The Price of German Unity: Reunification and the Crisis of the Welfare State, by Gerhard A. Ritter.

Abstract

The Price of German Unity: Reunification and the Crisis of the Welfare State, by Gerhard A. Ritter. Translated by Richard Deveson. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011. xxviii, 481 pp. $125.00 US (cloth). The reunification of Germany in the context of the East Bloc's dissolution and the end of the Cold War marked a major turning point in the history of that country and paved the way for the emergence of the European Union. It is not surprising, then, that these developments fueled the growth of a massive historical literature focusing on the East German revolution of 1989, on the process of German unification, and on the enlarged Federal Republic's central role in the shaping of post-Cold War Europe. Most historians agree that, in general, despite the considerable hardship experienced by many East Germans as a result of the economic upheaval caused by the transition from communism to capitalism, the process of reunifying the two German states proceeded remarkably smoothly. It was a success made easier by West Germany's enormous economic wealth and its readiness to transfer extensive resources to the newly absorbed eastern territories. Gerhard A. Ritter's new book, ably translated by Richard Deveson, provides the most thorough treatment to date of the real costs of unity to the Federal Republic's economy and polity. The author of many books on social and political history, Ritter concentrates on the five-year period from the collapse of East Germany in 1989 to the consolidation of the new unified social welfare system in the mid-1990s. He has done prodigious research in the archives and in the secondary literature and provides a thorough and compelling picture of an exceedingly complex set of processes. Ritter divides his study into three sections: Part I examines the political, legal, economic, and social framework within which unification unfolded; Part II focuses on the policy decisions by the East and West German governments, culminating in the State Treaty of May and the Unification Treaty of September 1990 that forged the creation of the new political and social union; and Part III analyzes the changes to the German welfare state after unification. Ritter argues that, once the political switches were thrown in favour of the German Democratic Republic's rapid ascension into the Federal Republic without the writing of a new Constitution approved by the people of both states, there was no realistic alternative to the extension of the West German social welfare system into the East. As a result virtually all aspects of the East German social state were swept away and some--such as state subsidized day-care for young children, workplace-based polyclinics, and a unified system of social insurance for blue and white collar workers--may have been worth preserving and extended nationwide. In his exhaustive analysis of the negotiation process, Ritter shows how, in the rush to unity, East Germany's deepening economic crisis placed its decision makers at a distinct disadvantage in negotiating treaty arrangements with their western counterparts, whose resources they desperately needed. …