German Unification Research Articles

Geographic Inequality in Income and Mortality in Germany*

AbstractWe use data from the German Federal Statistical Office on population counts, births, deaths and income to study the development of socio‐economic inequality in mortality rates from 1990 to 2015 for different age groups and both genders. Ranking the 401 German districts by average disposable income per capita, we observe large inequalities in district‐level mortality rates in 1990, which had almost disappeared, or at least been flattened considerably, by 2015 particularly for infants, children and the very old. The most important driver of this reduction in inequality is German reunification in 1990. As indicated by more detailed analyses comparing districts in the former East and the former West, even five years after reunification there was a large gap in disposable income, with all Eastern districts considerably poorer than the poorest district in the West. At the same time, mortality rates were higher for all age groups and both genders in the East. Income has caught up, to the extent that there are equally poor districts in the East and West in most recent years (although the West is still much richer on average). Mortality rates in the East have improved considerably and are even below mortality rates for similarly poor districts in the West in the most recent data.

Thirty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall—Do East and West Germans Still Differ in Their Attitudes to Female Employment and the Division of Housework?

Abstract Previous cross-sectional studies highlight persistent East–West differences in gender ideologies after German reunification. This study examines the extent to which gender ideologies in the East and West have converged and whether differences are still relevant for younger cohorts who experienced childhood around the time of reunification, or after 1989. Using data from the German Family Panel pairfam (2008–2019) and differences in regime-specific socialization for three cohorts born before and after reunification, results reveal that different dimensions of gender ideologies have only partly converged 30 years after reunification. Attitudes towards housework and female employment converged particularly, yet, in all cohorts, views on maternal employment remain substantially different between East and West. Observed convergence occurred only partly due to contrasting trends of modernization in West Germany and re-traditionalization in East Germany. Moreover, the results highlight smaller attitude changes with increasing age, particularly for the younger cohorts, contributing to further variations in East–West differences. Overall, the findings confirm the existence of long-lasting ideology differences due to regime-specific socialization, and a persistently altered composition of society in East and West Germany. At the same time, they point towards slow convergence among younger cohorts due to a more similar institutional and socialization context following reunification.

축구를 통한 독일 통일의 명과 암

축구를 통한 독일 통일의 명과 암

Visiones utópicas y distópicas en las películas. La voz de la luna y Tiempo después

In the mid-1980s, the program of economic, political, and social restructuring —perestroika— and the new era of transparency and openness —glasnost— became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three-quarters of a century to erect Communist states. While the reforms of perestroika and glasnost instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev, were not the sole causes of the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., the forces they unleashed destabilized an already weakening system and hastened its end. The political protests and the exodus of thousands of East Germans —Peaceful Revolution— fleeing to West Germany and Austria through the Hungarian border, contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, and it also triggered the German reunification in 1990. But since the end of the Cold War (1947-1991), many disappointments such as the worsening of socio-economic inequality and global instability, have followed the initial euphoria associated with the victory of the Western Bloc over the Eastern Bloc. The resurgence of the dichotomous relationship capitalism vs communism, and the political polarization driven by a sharp generational divide, are portrayed by the Italian-French co-production “The Voice of the Moon” (Dir. Federico Fellini, 1990), and the Spanish-Portuguese co-production “Some Time Later” (Dir. José Luis Cuerda, 2018). Both cinematic approximations embrace the ideological resistance towards the ongoing process of dehumanization and its pernicious effects on society. The achievement of social justice is deliberately postponed by the technocratic power elite, and by youth generations that are disengaged with its historical past, and enslaved by digital technologies.

The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration

Does the politico–economic system affect preferences for immigration? In this study, I show that individuals exposed to life under state socialism have formed and persistently hold different attitudes toward immigration. By exploiting the division and reunification of Germany, I estimate the influence of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration. Drawing on rich individual panel data, I find that East Germans who lived under state socialism, are 15 percent more likely to oppose immigration than West Germans who spent their entire life in a democratic, capitalist country. This difference in attitudes toward immigration is persistent over time and across space, and largest for cohorts born and raised under state socialism. This gap in attitudes can be traced back to a longer-term deterioration in trust. Evidence from members of a group that opposed the authoritarian system highlights the importance of state socialist ideology for attitude formation.

Jacques Réda's ‘Le Noir et l'or de Dresde’: Ethics and Aesthetics in War's Wake

In ‘Le Noir et l'or de Dresde’ ( Europes, 2005), Jacques Réda's quixotic project is to excavate a Dresden that is no more. Fully aware of this paradoxical aim as he walks through its martyred cityscape ‘vers la Dresde du XVIIIe siècle en sachant qu'elle n'existait plus’, he reflects on images present and past: sun-drenched spires remembered from eighteenth-century paintings that stand as witness to what no longer exists, the brutal bombings by American and British forces during the Second World War, and the commercialized aftermath of German reunification. As Réda moves beyond assessing tragedy through a historical lens, his poetic prose commemorates trauma by accentuating chromatic, lexical and aural textures and intensities in order to open avenues towards shared subjectivity. He establishes an ethical and aesthetic trajectory that responds creatively to war's destruction, and concludes by reframing the city's heraldic colours, black and gold, within sunset's unifying transit across a poetically reconstructed skyline

Dental trauma characteristics in the primary dentition in Greifswald, Germany: a comparison before and after German unification

BackgroundThe data on the distribution and pattern of dental trauma in the primary dentition are very rare.AimTo investigate primary dental trauma patterns in relation to gender, age, time and cause for a recent paediatric cohort and to compare this with a historic one before German unification.MethodsThis retrospective study compared the patterns of dental trauma injuries at the trauma centre at Greifswald University/Germany for a recent paediatric cohort (2014–16, 103 children) with a historic one (1974–1989, n = 120). The data contained details on etiology, injury types and treatment delivered for 450 injured teeth (247 historic, 203 recent).ResultsIn both cohorts, the occurrence was more common in males than females (63%/55%, resp.) with an age peak from 2 to 6 years. Maxillary incisors were most affected (89.6%/88.6%, resp.) and periodontal ligament injuries dominated (77.8%/90.3%, resp.).Almost half of the injuries occurred at home (46.6%), mostly due to falling (48.5%) or during playing (37.8%) in the recent paediatric cohort which provided better forensic data due to insurance issues and potential concern about child abuse. Advice and follow up was the most common approach in the recent paediatric cohort (76%).ConclusionEven after 30 years and a change in the health care system due to German unification, the patterns of dental traumatic injuries in the primary dentition were similar.

Does Regime Change Affect Intergenerational Mobility? Evidence from German Reunification

Abstract This study uses the natural experiment of German reunification and a difference-in-differences approach to test whether the political and economic transition in East Germany in 1990 affected intergenerational occupational and educational mobility. Results obtained using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study show that German reunification did neither strongly affect occupational nor educational mobility. These findings are robust to operationalizing social origin in various ways. Admittedly, reunification may have had small or long-term effects on occupational and educational mobility that cannot be uncovered with the data and research design employed in this study. However, the findings rule out that there were large, short- or medium-term effects of German reunification on intergenerational mobility. These findings are at odds with theories that argue that institutional change has strong, immediate causal effects on intergenerational mobility.

A sociologia política de Max Weber na interpretação do nazismo

O objetivo deste texto é analisar alguns elementos da sociologia política de Weber, sob uma perspectiva conceitual e empírica, por intermédio de uma sociologia histórica da ascensão do Nazismo na Alemanha. Iniciando com escritos políticos de Weber sobre a unificação alemã, nosso destaque maior está voltado para os conceitos de dominação carismática e liderança carismática, recompondo-os em aproximação com elementos históricos da ascensão de Hitler e do Terceiro Reich. Guiando-nos por historiadores especialistas no Nazismo, nossa hipótese é a de que a sociologia da dominação e liderança carismática de Weber nos parece inteiramente adequada para compreender o papel específico de Hitler, particularmente aquele da natureza de seu poder diante da sociedade alemã. A pesquisa é orientada por uma questão metodológica, que pretende ir além do mero contexto histórico e operar uma autêntica passagem da ação social sob certas circunstâncias (generalização de conceitos pela sociologia do carisma) para o transcurso efetivamente dado pela ação, sob circunstâncias parecidas ou singulares (a ascensão do Nazismo), num exercício de adequação

The persistent pay gap between Easterners and Westerners in Germany: A quarter‐century after reunification

AbstractA quarter of a century after Germany's reunification, Eastern Germans still earn substantially less than Western Germans. This paper revisits the German wage differential and isolates the effect of differing returns to human capital endowments, the possibility of a location effect, and human capital depreciation on the regional wage gap. While the endowment effect, location effect, and human capital depreciation jointly account for the wage differential between Easterners and Westerners living in the West, the same does not hold true for individuals settled in the East, where part of the wage gap remains unexplained.

<i>Celestina</i> – a Spanish Novel on the East German Stage before and after German Reunification

Este estudio compara dos adaptaciones alemanas de Celestina —una escrita antes y otra después de la reunificación de Alemania en 1990. Las dos adaptaciones cambian el argumento de Fernando de Rojas de diferente forma. Mientras Karl Mickel introduce dos miembros de la Inquisición, los cuales planifican y dirigen la trama, Manfred Wekwerth introduce un cura hipócrita y, por otra parte, intensifica la codicia y las habilidades comerciales de Celestina, para lo cual añade diálogos entre ella y sus cómplices referentes al «dinero». En los dos casos, las razones de los diferentes cambios son socio-políticas. Mientras Mickel usa el texto de Fernando de Rojas para criticar la realidad de Alemania oriental antes de la caida del Muro con su policía secreta omnipresente, Wekwerth usa el mismo texto para expresar su descontento sobre la introducción del capitalismo en esta parte del mundo.

Co-integration and control: assessing the impact of events using time series data

Control groups can sometimes provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. Fitting a time series model to target and control series offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of the controls. More importantly it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control and in doing so suggests ways in which these assumptions may be tested. Our focus is on time series models that are both simple and transparent. Potential gains from fitting such models are analysed and their relative performance is investigated using examples taken from the literature, including the effect of the California smoking law of 1988 and German re-unification. At the same time, some of the draw-backs to current methodology become apparent. It is argued that a time series strategy for the selection of a valid set of controls is to be preferred to one based on data-driven regression methods.

NVA a upadek muru berlińskiego

Nva and the fall of the Berlin Wall Contrary to the arrangements from Potsdam, the remilitarization of both German states began as early as 1950. In 1956 the East German army was officially created under the name of the National People’s Army. The NVA was organized into four branches: Ground Forces (Landesstreitkräfte), Navy (Volksmarine), Air Force (Luftstreitkräfte) and Border Troops (Grenztruppen). In the years 1956–1990 they were the third largest (after the Soviet and Polish army) armed forces of the Warsaw Pact. As in other armies of the Eastern Bloc, the NVA was subject to strict party control. However, when the Berlin Wall was overthrown, this army remained a passive observer of events. After the reunification of Germany, only a few of its officers and soldiers were taken over by the Bundeswehr.

Fall of the Berlin Wall: Reflection of the Historical Event in the Newest German Drama

In this article, the authors refer to the play “Kein Schiff wird kommen” (“No ship will come”), 2010, by a young German playwright Nisa-Momme Stockmann, in which “historical events are refracted in the context of personal events of the characters”. In the center of the play is a young man, a writer, who was commissioned by the theater to write about the fall of the Berlin Wall. The protagonist of the play is a representative of an indifferent generation, far from politics and history. In 1989, he himself was a child, and the reunification of Germany, at first glance, had no effect on him. However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that the fall of the wall turned out to be an important event for him and his family. Only an appeal to the history of the country and the family helps the character to resolve the internal conflict. This shows the relationship with the tradition of German literature after World War II: German writers often refer to historical facts in their works. The key topic is of guilt and responsibility, which has been rethought in the literature over the past 60 years. Analysing the drama allows us to conclude that modern young people reject their past, which causes the character's personality crisis, and it also leads to failure in communication. In addition, alongside with ousting the past, the problem of German identity arises.

Linguocultural Aspect of Language Transformations in the Language of Eastern and Western Germans in the Period after the Reunification of Germany (on the material of a literary text)

Linguocultural Aspect of Language Transformations in the Language of Eastern and Western Germans in the Period after the Reunification of Germany (on the material of a literary text)

Cointegration and control: Assessing the impact of events using time series data

SummaryControl groups can provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. We argue that fitting a multivariate time series model offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of controls. More importantly, it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control, suggesting ways to test these assumptions. Gains from simple and transparent time series models are analysed using examples from the literature, including the California smoking law of 1989 and German reunification. We argue that selecting controls using a time series strategy is preferable to existing data‐driven regression methods.

Kultura w programach Jerzego Giedroycia

The article aims to present the cultural matters from Kultura Paryska (Paris-based Culture) in the context of the cultural-creative function of the media and media strategies of cultural diplomacy. Kultura Paryska was published in 1946-2000 as a periodical of the Institute of Literature in Paris, its creator and editor was Jerzy Giedroyc. Due to its program distinctiveness (the stake in contacts with the country) and high publicity effort, it was perceived as a centre of political thought pursuing the independence ideals through the concepts of good neighbourly relations between Poland and Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus and Germany in the conditions of geopolitical changes in Europe after the dissolution of the USSR and German reunification. The programme articles were written by Juliusz Mieroszewski, Jerzy Stempowski, Bohdan Osadczuk, Leopold Unger, among others. Giedroyc paid attention to the balance of political and cultural content in the issues of the magazine, and what is more important, he let authors from Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus to publish in the magazine. He was the originator of a series of chronicles, including ones concerning Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Germany, and press reviews, which were the basic source of information about the lives of emigrants and life in their abandoned homelands. Giedroyc, through Kultura, pursued a strategy of influencing public opinion by combining political and cultural matters because he was convinced that in this way he would contribute to the rejection of stereotypes and make it possible to learn about common history and culture.

Und wo sind die Wahlfrauen? Defizite deskriptiver Repräsentation bei der Wahl der deutschen Bundespräsidenten

Since German reunification, the average proportion of women in the Federal Convention, which elects the Federal President, has been just 32 per cent . To present a nuanced assess­ment of the lack of gender parity among electors, a new data set is used that includes all members of German Federal Conventions from 1994 to 2017 . The low proportion of women can only partly be attributed to the existence and implementation of gender quotas (that are not always binding) within parties . Differences in intra-party pressure and further restrictions in form of ties to external organizations mean that parties do not use the poten­tial to increase the proportion of women by nominating non-parliamentarians for that pur­pose . Quota regulations aimed at increasing the proportion of women in the Federal Con­vention quickly come up against practical and constitutional limits, which means that coming closer toward equal representation might begin by first raising public and party­internal awareness of the problem .

Discussions About the Fate of the Ministry of State Security of GDR and its Employees During German Unification

Discussions About the Fate of the Ministry of State Security of GDR and its Employees During German Unification

Formation of College Plans: Expected Returns, Preferences and Adjustment Process

We exploit a large exogenous shock to study the determinants of college attendance and the role played by one's environment. We analyze whether, and how quickly, adolescents' college plans are adapted, explore factors leading to the adjustment, and examine how these factors ultimately impact later educational attainment. Using differences across East German cohorts induced by the timing of the German Reunification (a change for the East from state socialism to capitalist democracy), we show that shortly after relative to before that time, college plans among high-school students increased substantially, which was followed by sizable increases in the completion of the college entrance certificate five years later. Our analysis sheds light on the elasticity of beliefs and preferences of different cohorts of youths in the case of a large shock. Perceived educational returns, economic preferences (consumerism) and sociopolitical attitudes (individualism) adapt quickly in response to the shock and are directly linked to changes in plans and outcomes. Cohorts closer to critical educational junctions at the time of Reunification, however, adjusted their plans to a much lesser extent. While they similarly updated the expected returns to education, they exhibited a slower adjustment in their preferences relative to younger cohorts.