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Germany is reeling under the strain of immigration, sky-high energy prices and industrial decline

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By former Dutch MP and MEP Derk Jan Eppink 

With state elections looming this coming Sunday in Berlin (both the capital and the city-state) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Chancellor Merz finds himself deep in the danger zone. Ever since his CDU’s bitter defeat in Saxony-Anhalt, ‘party colleagues’ have been pulling the rug out from under him. Contrary to all East German and Prussian customs, a polling-station revolution is taking shape. It is, of all people, the East Germans – who, according to West Germans, were given everything but are now turning out to be ‘complaining Ossis’. The Wailing Wall runs parallel to the former Wall between East and West.

The Ossis’ revolt

Just over 10 years ago, in July 2015, the German world still seemed to be in order. In East Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU stood at 35 per cent; Die Linke – the successors to the autocratic GDR ruling party, the SED – at 22 per cent; the Social Democratic SPD at 21 per cent; and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), then still a Euro-sceptic party, at 6 per cent.

The tables have now turned. The AfD is polling at 45 per cent in eastern Germany, the CDU at 12 per cent, Die Linke at 15 per cent and the SPD at 9 per cent. There is a threat of an uprising by the ‘Ossis’ against the political powers that be in Berlin.

The cause lies in Chancellor Merkel’s ‘Wir schaffen das’ in the summer of 2015, when Germany threw its borders wide open to asylum-seekers from the Middle East, mostly Syrians. Germans could finally do ‘the right thing’. Even Bild Zeitung opened its heart with the ‘Wir Helfen’ campaign, #refugeeswelcome. Prime Minister Orban’s Hungary defended the Schengen border, to no avail. Austria sent ‘refugees’ on their way, and Germany suddenly became the ‘Mother Teresa’ of Europe.

The price of that political naivety is now being paid. Ironically, by East German voters who, according to many West Germans, were put back on their feet with their tax money. They take in few asylum seekers themselves because, according to a fiscal allocation formula, it is primarily the wealthier federal states that are required to do so.

East German subculture

It proved difficult for East Germans to express a ‘distinct identity’ because 40 years of the GDR (1949–1990) consisted of political grandstanding and armed border guards. Chants from a football stadium are not representative, but they are certainly relevant. Supporters of Dynamo Dresden recently chanted ‘Ost, Ost, Ost-Deutschland’. Was this an expression of an East German identity, or a unifying sense of victimhood? Anyone watching the German Bundesliga sees little of East Germany. FC Union Berlin is the only one of the 18 teams in the Bundesliga with a GDR past. RB Leipzig was founded in 2009, with funding from Red Bull.

The Bundesliga reflects national dynamics. In the German national team, there is currently just one player, Maximilian Beier, who comes from the former GDR. Many East Germans feel they do not belong, that they have been ‘left behind’, and this is giving rise to an East German subculture – a rich source of voters for the AfD. And, to some extent, for Die Linke as well; a refuge for Germans who governed the GDR, advocate radical socialism and have, in the meantime, also added anti-Semitism to their repertoire. The hard core of Die Linke is in East Berlin, where GDR cadres used to live.

Aufbau-Ost

It is not only the wave of immigration that is tearing Germany apart; the manner of reunification also caused bad blood amongst East Germans. Packaged as ‘reunification’, it was in fact a ‘hostile takeover’ presented in a friendly light. West Germans consider East Germans ungrateful for the approximately 2 trillion euros in net transfers that flowed from West to East for the ‘Aufbau-Ost’. As a result, motorways in East Germany are in better condition than those in West Germany.

After the fall of the Wall, the Treuhand was established to privatise the GDR economy along Western lines. The Treuhand was run almost entirely by West Germans; there was only one East German on the executive board.

West Germans viewed East Germans primarily as ‘troublemakers’ who were best kept at a lower level. As a result of privatisation, 84 per cent of East German companies came into the hands of West Germans, 10 per cent went to foreign owners and only 6 per cent remained in East German hands. In the eyes of East Germans, the Treuhand was a ‘colonial authority’. After the Second World War, the Western powers gave West Germany more scope for economic recovery than West Germany did for East Germany. The East Germans have never come to terms with this ‘economic plunder’. Anyone studying the distribution of income in Germany will see that East Germany is one large low-income zone.

Poland is catching up with East Germany

Moreover, neighbouring Poland, with annual growth of 3 per cent, is on the verge of surpassing East Germany’s standard of living. Labour migration used to flow from Poland to Germany; now the reverse is beginning to happen. GDP per capita in East Germany is around 30,000 euros, partly thanks to subsidies from West Germany. With a GDP per capita of 29,000 euros, Poland is catching up with its neighbours – without subsidies. The Polish economy is growing so rapidly that experts expect it to overtake the United Kingdom by 2031. That would be a remarkable achievement.

Under the political and intellectual leadership of Leszek Balcerowicz, former head of the Polish central bank, Poland was set on the path to a liberal economy. East Germany, however, remained a planned economy after reunification. Germans used to joke about a ‘Polnische Wirtschaft’ (a shambles). Now the Poles are laughing; for East Germans, all that remains is a dry crust of bread. That stings.

Still no voice of their own

East Germans were also sidelined in the media. The Treuhand sold the East German media to West German media companies headquartered in Essen, Hanover, Cologne and Hamburg. West Germans dictated the self-image of the East Germans who, after the Nazi era and GDR rule, were once again unable to make their own voices heard. Reporting on East Germany was usually condescending and patronising. Due to the financial dominance of West German media companies, all media from East Germany were effectively shut down. East Germans were forced to listen passively to West German narratives about ‘poor Ossis’.

This was culturally explosive enough to be a political time bomb, but the mental explosion only followed Angela Merkel’s #refugeeswelcome in 2015 – the very same Angela Merkel, the first Chancellor of East German origin who apparently no longer recognised her own ‘Ossis’.

In 2015, the AfD changed tack; shifting from criticism of the euro to criticism of the wave of immigration. Although East Germany takes in proportionally far fewer asylum seekers than West Germany, the phenomenon had a much greater cultural impact. It displayed the same reflex as Eastern Europe, which does not accept Muslim asylum seekers; from Poland to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (not even under the new prime minister who succeeded Orbán). There used to be a wall around East Germany; immigration was limited to a few political refugees. Illegal ‘emigration’ was life-threatening.

East Germans thus grew up in a small, walled-off world: a little house, a little garden, a little Trabant. The only foreigners present in large numbers were Soviet soldiers, who were, however, kept well away from the population.

Disastrous energy policy

In general, East Germans are not so much pro-Russian, but they view ‘American militarism’ as a major threat, a view instilled by years of anti-American propaganda in the GDR. This is reflected in current East German parties such as Die Linke, Sahra Wagenknecht’s party, BSW, and also in the AfD.

The latter, however, maintains good relations with the White House and follows the line taken by Donald Trump, who also advocates an end to the war in Ukraine. Merz’s government, by contrast, is a staunch supporter of Ukraine. The longer the war lasts, the less support there is amongst the German population, which is itself suffering financially from a disastrous energy policy and deindustrialisation – policies also initiated by Angela Merkel.

Party ban

Meanwhile, the cocktail of (Islamic) immigration, exorbitantly high energy prices and industrial exodus is also undermining West Germany. As a result, the AfD is beginning to gain ground there as a protest party; as was evident in recent local elections in Lower Saxony, albeit to a lesser extent than in East Germany. Some leading figures in the CDU and on the German left are calling for the AfD to be banned. How democratic is it to ban the largest party?

A faltering Germany at the heart of Europe inevitably becomes a European problem. As Heinrich Heine put it back in 1843: ‘When I think of Germany at night, I am robbed of my sleep’.

 

Originally published in Dutch on Wynia’s Week 

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