Brit Reacts to German Reunification Explained

Поделиться
HTML-код
  • Опубликовано: 2 янв 2025

Комментарии • 192

  • @markusschenkl7943
    @markusschenkl7943 2 месяца назад +115

    Tea has been a thing in Frisia for hundreds of years. So, no, has nothing to do with British occupation.

    • @Mischnikvideos
      @Mischnikvideos 2 месяца назад

      Tea first appeared in England and the Netherlands in the 17th century and in Germany in the 18th century, and it was expensive there.

    • @markusschenkl7943
      @markusschenkl7943 2 месяца назад +8

      ​@@Mischnikvideosyeah... Doesn't change the fact that tea ist a thing in Frisia for 200 years.

    • @Sc4v3r
      @Sc4v3r 2 месяца назад +2

      @@Mischnikvideos No, it was also in the 17th century in Germany (around 1650).

    • @Mischnikvideos
      @Mischnikvideos 2 месяца назад +3

      @@Sc4v3r In 1610 the Dutch started trading tea and there was a debate about whether it was healthy at all. In 1679 a Dutchman published a study that suggested that tea should be given to the sick. It turned out that he had been paid by the tea importer to do so. Around 1650 tea was found in Germany, but not a mass phenomenon. Nor in England. There it was introduced to the English nobility in 1662. In the 17th century tea was an exotic drink for a few. A tea culture did not emerge until the 18th century and Frederick II banned tea in Prussia. The same Frederick who promoted the potato. Tea was still controversial in the 18th century.

    • @KMR-ic8yh
      @KMR-ic8yh 2 месяца назад +3

      He just answered Dwayne's question. The tea-love was not a result of the occupation. If we got it a few hundred years before from them - great! 😊

  • @maja-kehn9130
    @maja-kehn9130 2 месяца назад +90

    The tea culture in Ostfriesland started around the 1650s. So way before the British ever occupied the north of Germany.

    • @tvchild76
      @tvchild76 2 месяца назад +14

      I guess the similarity with tea drinking has something to do with the coast region. Trading routes, the Hanseatic League. And also a short distance to GB which had colonies with massive tea production.

    • @eastfrisian_88
      @eastfrisian_88 2 месяца назад +3

      Thanks, you were faster, wanted to write the same LMAO

    • @saschar5609
      @saschar5609 2 месяца назад +4

      The Frisian were introduced to tea by the Dutch.

    • @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl
      @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 2 месяца назад +4

      @@saschar5609 I assume that the Dutch East Indian Trade Company was playing a significant role in that. Founded at the beginning of the 17th century it became one of the largest trading businesses particularly in East Asia for quite some time.

    • @simonl.6338
      @simonl.6338 2 месяца назад +3

      @@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl Yep, one could say the frisian, northern netherlands and britain all started drinking tea because all the big european trading hubs (atleast the northern ones) were in this area. This influence ofcourse spread to the eastern american colonies, which were first dutch, then british and then the war of independece is one of the main reasons americans (after the foundation of the US) started drinking more coffee than tea. Actually a really interesting topic how economy shaped culture and we see the outcomes of this history over the centuries. A typical texan cowboy drinks coffee not tea, strong black coffee is called an americano in southern europe because the GI's brought this style of coffee back to europe after the world wars. Coffee was banned in parts of europe for some time in the 1700s. Then there's the "tea-party". Sometimes things seemingly as simple as coffee and tea are a entrypoint to history and global politics even if we are unaware of it at first glance.

  • @DonKarne
    @DonKarne 2 месяца назад +53

    4 million Germans had to leave their homeland from the end of 1944. Streams of refugees from East Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia pushed their way to the West in seemingly endless treks. Poorly equipped and without sufficient food, they moved through the destroyed country. They ended up in former estern and western Germany where they were seen as a burden.

    • @Nithrade
      @Nithrade 2 месяца назад +9

      I heard from one woman, who was a child when they had to leave Ostpreußen, that while they walked the trees were filled with people, hanging there by their necks. She was 80 and still had nightmares. I don't remember if she said that it was suicide or the Russians...

    • @maja-kehn9130
      @maja-kehn9130 2 месяца назад +13

      My grandpa was one of the refugees from East Prussia. He fled with his 3 siblings and his mother when he was 7/8 years. His mother died in 1945 when they arrived in Berlin and he and his siblings were put in different orphanages. He never really talked about that time and we found out a lot of it after he died. But he made it clear he was not a fan of Russians because to him they took his home away. He was very fond of Polish people though, because they got a lot of help from the Poles when they were fleeing.

    • @eastfrisian_88
      @eastfrisian_88 2 месяца назад +9

      My ex neighbor, about eight years ago, was 87 years old at the time and she fled East Prussia when she was 13/14. When I was a student, she often invited me for coffee and cake in her garden in the summer afternoons. A really lovely woman. And one day, when there was a report on the radio about eastern Ukraine, she told me about her time, as if it were completely normal talk, how there were dead people lying everywhere along the route, frozen stiff at -20 degrees Celsius, and how her mum wanted to stay in Greifswald at first, but a young Russian soldier broke into her accommodation at night and wanted to rape her, her mother killed the soldier (with an iron pan when I remember correctly) and they had to flee again and settled in Stralsund, her father came home in 1953. She lived in Stralsund until after reunification. she retired and, as she said, she "fled" again because there were a lot of neo-Nazis in her neighborhood in Stralsund in the early 1990s and she had relatives here in northwest Germany. She still had nightmares after so many years. Cruel times. After I moved away I sent her a christmas card until 2021 and the last card came back "unknown sender". May she rest in peace.

    • @lynnm6413
      @lynnm6413 2 месяца назад +9

      15 million Germans, not 4

    • @maximilianklein2062
      @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад +8

      Rather 15 million

  • @astas7364
    @astas7364 2 месяца назад +23

    As a German it is somewhat endearing that you ask why anyone would oppose a German reunification. Shows how far our nations have come that the young generation does no longer fear that Germany will turn evil and against them again.

  • @Marion.k2
    @Marion.k2 2 месяца назад +23

    I was there and it was unreal, unbelievable and extremely emotional! A special time in our lives and in our history. Greetings from Germany🙋

  • @Horrrrrrrrst
    @Horrrrrrrrst 2 месяца назад +23

    18:22 There are no NATO bases in east Germany, so this has been kept up.

    • @rainerzufall42
      @rainerzufall42 Месяц назад +1

      Plus NATO in the "Easter client States" was a whole different story, except for German reunification paved the way for these extension.
      But as far as I know, there are really no NATO bases on Eastern German soil. Not even in the capital city of Berlin. AFAIK.

  • @japunaka
    @japunaka 2 месяца назад +30

    My mum was 19 years old when the wall was opened, she lived in west Germany all her life (on the “good” side) but she still has tears in her eyes every time she talks about that day. It was a very important and emotional day for everybody in west and east Germany and my mum always describes it as a miracle, because there was no hope for 40 years and then suddenly, out of nowhere, this guy says: “Yeah well, we’re opening the border now, I guess”.
    She describes how everybody in their city (she was not living in Berlin) came running out of their houses, yelling: “The wall fell! The wall fell!” and were hugging random people on the streets…

    • @lynnm6413
      @lynnm6413 2 месяца назад +6

      I was 9 years old and my whole family were glued to the tv, we children didn‘t have to go to bed and stayed up until the early hours of the night…it was a joyous evening, with my parents barely trusting their eyes.
      We lived in West Germany, Ruhrgebiet

    • @SheratanLP
      @SheratanLP 2 месяца назад +8

      Bei uns war es nicht viel anders, nur dass ich Thüringer bin. Am nächsten Morgen den 10.11. saß ich mit Frau und Kindern in meinem alten Saporoshez (Russische Automarke) und wir fuhren zur Grenze. In Hof sind wir dann, wegen dem ewig langen Stau auf der A9, Morgens um 2 Uhr am 11.11. angekommen. Nahezu alle Geschäfte hatten offen. Wir konnten sogar unser Besuchergeld noch mitten in der Nacht auf der Post holen. Fremde Leute haben uns zum Essen in ein Gasthaus eingeladen. Es war unbeschreiblich. ❤❤

    • @Kristina_S-O
      @Kristina_S-O 2 месяца назад +1

      Ich musste gerade lachen.😅 Vor ein paar Monaten saßen wir in einer spontanen Gen X Runde zusammen, also alle Ü50 und etwas angeschickert.🎉 Ungefähr jeweils zur Hälfte Ossis und Wessis. Wir haben uns gegenseitig erzählt, was wir am 9. November 1989 gemacht haben, und es war sooo unterschiedlich und interessant. 😊

    • @japunaka
      @japunaka 2 месяца назад +1

      Ich finde alle Kommentare hier drunter so interessant irgendwie. Ich kann mir das einfach überhaupt nicht vorstellen, wie sich das angefühlt haben muss!!!

  • @Kaschu74
    @Kaschu74 2 месяца назад +16

    Born in 1974 in northern germany, I was 15 years old these days. We didn't live close to the border, so my parents and me saw all this in the television. And there was no other content in the tv that evening, no matter which channel.
    My mother was born in eastern germany. Their parents, my grandparents, took the children and fled to the west just before the border was closed in 1952 I think. And a picture I still have in mind is my mother watching the reunification news in the television moved to tears.
    That's my memory concerning the reunification evening.

  • @nettcologne9186
    @nettcologne9186 2 месяца назад +28

    Germany never belonged to Great Britain. Conversely, England belonged to Hanover (Germany) for around 250 years, from 1714 to 1901.

    • @mariojakel5544
      @mariojakel5544 2 месяца назад +7

      and still today Queen Elisabeth belongs to House Saxon Coburg and Gotha, King Charles today belongs to House Oldenburg

    • @CookieJar87
      @CookieJar87 2 месяца назад

      ​@@mariojakel5544only technically, not in reality

  • @meerkatberlin3323
    @meerkatberlin3323 2 месяца назад +8

    I lived in West-Berlin at that time. I was 9 years old. It was unreal. Till to that day, I get tears in my eyes seeing these pictures

  • @Andi_mit_E
    @Andi_mit_E 2 месяца назад +9

    Even now ...35 years later ...I get goosebumps when I see these pictures. To me it was an overwhelming moment that day in 1989 (I was almost 14 years old). Especially if you get in mind that a wrong reaction of only one single GDR border guard or polititian may have ended in a bloodbath. It felt like brothers coming back home. As far as I know German reunification still is the one and only bloodless successful revolution in history.

  • @hellemarc4767
    @hellemarc4767 2 месяца назад +13

    The harbor cities in northern Germany have shared and exchanged things with the British long before WWII. There was the Hanseatic League, which was a network of merchand guilds and market towns in northern Europe; London was in it, too, and I think York as well. Possible that there were more "partner towns" in Britain. This goes way back to the XIIth century. Even ships that came from as far as Liverpool. In Hamburg, they have a dish called "Labskaus", like the liverpudlian "lobscouse".

    • @rainerzufall42
      @rainerzufall42 Месяц назад +1

      Just searched for the HL and found a map/list, that depicted these 6 UK towns as member (from North to South):
      - Beverly
      - Hull
      - Boston
      - King's Lynn
      - Great Yarmouth
      - Ipswich
      London and some more seem to fall under "other UK Hansa Towns".
      Same in Germany, there were 3 well known "Hansa Towns" in the West, Reunification added some more
      (Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen / Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Greifswald), who have the "H" on their car licence plates.
      But it's much more complicated than this: There are smaller (e.g. Lüneburg) and bigger (e.g. Cologne) lesser known Hansa Towns,
      early pioneer trade towns like Haihabu or Schleswig, also towns that no longer belong to Germany (like Köngsberg/Kaliningrad). IIRC, there are around 200 Hansa Towns all over Europe, it's sometimes even difficult to identify all of them... There's also no clear sequence of founding or membership, it was kind of generic and volatile. More of an idea than and institution, with changing influences by the cities, not the countries. Pretty confusing...

    • @rainerzufall42
      @rainerzufall42 Месяц назад +1

      Found some more UK towns in another list:
      - London (Stalhof)
      - Bristol
      - Norwich
      - York

  • @TyonKree
    @TyonKree 2 месяца назад +13

    The video overlooks one crucial aspect.
    Most of the Germans in the areas that became part of Poland or the USSR did not become citizens. They were expelled. Up to 12 Million Germans fled westwards between 1944 and 1950.
    Only very very few were allowed to stay.
    ---------------
    Reunification day is 03.10. (for historical reasons) and nothing major happens
    Each year a different state hosts an official party and it's a public holiday
    No one really celebrates it
    ---------------
    The UK being the last to say no and to explain it with "history" is a bit ridiculous when you think about it.
    All that really happened to the UK were bombing raids and a few channel islands being occupied.
    Nothing even close to that happened with France and the USSR.
    It has to do with Thatcher and her vehement anti-German sentiment.
    ----------------
    And no what happens today is not because of NATO.
    There are no NATO bases in former East Germany.
    Former Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and of course the three Baltic States that were annexed by the USSR before and after WW2 joined NATO out of their own free will after democratic elections and to the will of their electorate.
    If these countries whish troops of NATO countries in their countries to protect them from Russia then that is their right.

    • @manub.3847
      @manub.3847 2 месяца назад +2

      Well, it's explained in a very simplified way in the video.
      The wall wasn't built because people were fleeing poverty, but because many people realized early on that they were exchanging one dictatorial regime for another. The East always called this wall "the anti-fascist protective wall."
      One of my grandmother's cousins ​​"predicted as early as 1954" that the GDR would further isolate itself. He had really good analytical skills.

  • @Avi-rn6ei
    @Avi-rn6ei 2 месяца назад +9

    My great-grandma was born at the end of the 2.WW and her parents had to flee from Pomerania (now Poland) to the "New German borders". Some of children died on the way but baby great grandma made it. Both her and her late husband were from the same background and connected with it. She is an incredibly strong woman and I only share fond memories with her. The kindest and most caring soul on earth. I love my great-grandma and grandma and when one of them dies I will be devastated. Good people are everywhere so please share as many moments together so that you will never regret anything.

  • @Fruchtflyige
    @Fruchtflyige 2 месяца назад +5

    I was born in august 12th 1977. Every year I am happy that our country has achieved reunification. This year I explained to a friend from Poland what it was like for me back then:
    I was sitting at the table with my family. We were at my grandparents' house. Suddenly Mr Genscher said on television that all people who had fled to the German embassy in Prague were allowed to leave. We sat there completely surprised and cried with joy.
    I live near a former border crossing. Many people came to our city from the GDR. There were many families who let people stay in their homes. The atmosphere was magical.
    Today I sometimes hear people say that the wall should be rebuilt because so many people in East Germany vote for the AfD. Both things make me very sad.

  • @maximilianklein2062
    @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад +15

    The video youre watching is inaccurate. The East Germans from the parts given to the Soviet states and poland (roughly 15 Million) were forcefully expelled by the Red Army of the Soviet Union all of them. By brutal force actually - as were the Polish people from the east half of Poland which was conquered by Russia after the Hitler Stalin Pact in 1939.

    • @mirkostrauchmann5580
      @mirkostrauchmann5580 2 месяца назад +1

      That is not 100% accurate, too. Millions were expelled from the "ehemaligen Ostgebieten", but also a lot of people fled from the advancing Red Army. One of those was, for example, my Grandma with my uncle.

    • @maximilianklein2062
      @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад

      @@mirkostrauchmann5580 That is by definition expelling... you make people flee..

    • @65Tedybear
      @65Tedybear 2 месяца назад

      @maxilmilianklein2062 - Part of the people decided 1945 that to stay and live under the russians was a bad idea and decided on their own to move. The rest were later bodily forced to move even if they had opted to stay. So you had 2 very differnt reasons for movement altough you could call both fleeing in a qay.

    • @maximilianklein2062
      @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад

      @@65Tedybear with all respect to your family history: staying waa notvan option anybody was given. Maybe the people who fled did not know this

  • @maximilianklein2062
    @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад +11

    Tea culture in Northern Germany goes back way longer

  • @Brauiz90
    @Brauiz90 2 месяца назад +10

    I'm born May 12th 1990 - my birth certificate is still a DDR /GDR one. The reunification was on October 3rd 1990. That's why this day is a public holliday called "Tag der deutschen Einheit" or "day of the German reunification"

    • @joseppedaia3673
      @joseppedaia3673 2 месяца назад +2

      add.
      Since the treaty for unification was signed on october 3rd 1990 its THAT day specifically

    • @lynnm6413
      @lynnm6413 2 месяца назад

      It‘s only not on the day the wall fell because unfortunately it was the same night as Crystall Night during the Nazi Regime

  • @KMR-ic8yh
    @KMR-ic8yh 2 месяца назад +3

    I was born (1979) and raised in former West Berlin. And there in the most western part of it, which was the British sector. I lived very close to the wall, but it was in the woods, so not scary or something. And as a child you don't really think about it. But in 1989 I was old enough to realize, that what was happening was a big big thing.

  • @klarasee806
    @klarasee806 2 месяца назад +6

    I remember the opening of the wall in 1989 very well. It was indiscribable and somehow felt surreal. I am from the West. For people from the East it must have been even more surreal.
    Little did we know how hard it would be to reunite not only geographically but also in the heads of the people. We still have quite a bit of work to do in this regard…!
    As a nation we celebrate the unity on October 3rd instead of October 9th, but normal citizens don’t celebrate it by doing something special. It’s just a national holiday.

  • @Sc4v3r
    @Sc4v3r 2 месяца назад +2

    The Wall fell in 1989. Reunification took place one year later in 1990.
    I was still very young. I think I was asleep at the time. But I knew what the GDR was because we had family there who we used to visit from time to time. But I didn't understand what happened 1989/1990 until much later.
    For me, this day is the most important in my life. My grandfather came from East Germany. He fled as a very young man before the borders were closed. He was convinced that he would never see reunification. And yet he experienced it in 1990. Only 10 years later, on the German Reunification Day, my grandfather died. Now it is a day of joy and sadness for our family. And yet something very special, because nothing represents my grandfather more than the day of the reunification of Germany. Every year I celebrate it in my own way for him, because he can no longer do it. This is how I remember and honor my grandfather and my great-grandparents, who also lived in the GDR.

  • @newnyu7763
    @newnyu7763 2 месяца назад +1

    7:11
    To point that out: the fall of the berlin wall was the (most important) trigger of germans reunification but it is not the same thing at all!
    It is a huge amount of bureaucratic paperwork and diplmoatic negotiations necessary to merge to seperate states into one, especially if these states are as different as east and west germany.
    GDR and FRG have had compmetly different political systems, laws, economy, currency, allies, and much more. People were grown under completly different circumstances, children raised in different types of schools, young adults had different education and expeceptations for their future, retirees and pensioners have payed their retirement provision to two different states that were no longer existing, the cultral feeling of freedom (of travel and speech) and security was completly different in the east and in the west. FDR was already member of the European Union at that time and GDR was not. The states were even enemys in the cold war.
    And let's not forget that our neighbours (sadly) had good reason to fear a strong germany just about 45 years after WW2.
    So in fact the fall of the berlin wall was at the 9th of november 1989.
    But germans reunification day refers to the decision of politicians to reunite germany at all and despite all adversities. It is the date were the contract between the occupying forces (usa, great britain, france and russia) and the two german states (GDR and FDR) came into effect (so called 'two plus four agreement')

  • @nilsjurgensen1894
    @nilsjurgensen1894 2 месяца назад +6

    At the time of the reunification there where nearly no germans left in the eastern parts like eastern prussia, pomerainia etc. Nearly all of them where forced to leave ther homes after the war and they had to move to East or West germany. Like my mother, she was born in 1940 in pomerania (60 km from Danzig, today Poland). In 1945 they where foced to leave and they endet up in the british sector, nearby Hamburg. My grand-grandmother stayed till 1948 in Poland, she did not want leave her farm. In 1948 she was also forced to leave.

    • @lynnm6413
      @lynnm6413 2 месяца назад +1

      More than 15 million Germans civilians were forced from their lands, forced out of the newly recreated Poland and my grandma was one of them, fleeing from Silesia with 4 children and her sister.
      The red army was grasping any women refugees they could lay their hands on. My grandma only mentioned her sister sacrificed herself for her, she was still nursing my brother at 4 months old.
      Grandma‘s sister survived the ordeal, and later died from a brain tumor, as did my father. He never met his own father, who died in Russian captivity.
      Just look at that and the Palestinians, who started and lost 3 wars against Israel, and are still given money from the West!
      Pathetic

  • @MichaEl-rh1kv
    @MichaEl-rh1kv 2 месяца назад +5

    Helmut Kohl was never interested much in reunification efforts before 1989, but he could see his poll results plunging down before autumn 1989. So he decided to make a political campaign out of it and to force a very quick reunification even if nearly all economic experts warned against it and opted for a slower, more controlled process. Many of the people in East Germany also wanted a quick reunification, expecting becoming as wealthy as their western counterparts as soon as they were paid in western D-Mark instead of their old (east) Mark, and rejected the warnings. The newly elected GDR parliament had begun to work out a new, democratic constitution, but that was for the wastebasket. The GDR had not been a one-party-system formally, but allowed also some "block parties" mostly supporting the regime (only the Socialdemocrats had been forced to join the Socialist Unity Party (SED) against their will), namely the CDU, the liberal-democratic LDPD, the farmer's party DBD and the nationalist NDPD. Those parties now prepared to merge with their western counterparts and campaigned for a fast reunification, as well as some newly founded ones (including at least one being secretly initiated by the Stasi). In the end Kohl succeeded in prolonging his chancellorship by two additional terms or 8 years, while the East German economy plunged in high unemployment rates and many insolvencies, while western subsidies went into sometimes never used infrastructure projects and often in the pockets of western companies while they stamped out possible competitors in the East at the same time. At the end of Kohl's chancellorship Germany was called by many economists "the sick man of Europe".

    • @65Tedybear
      @65Tedybear 2 месяца назад

      An important reason why many demanded a quick unification was the fear the soviets would change their mind and claim the East back.
      In the 1950th there was a revolution in Czechia (see Prague Spring). The Czech people wanted more independence from the Soviets, but after a short period of seccess the movement was destroyed by Soviet troops marching in to Czechia. This szenario still had a lot of people in their minds. The logical consequence to them was make the reunification an internationally recognised fact to make irreversible.
      Falling back under the Soviet custody was seen much more expensive than anything that could happen the combined economy .
      And yes, the terms and rules of the reunification were poorly drafted. The companies of the GDR, that became now possession of (whole) Germany, were sold too fast and too cheap. The GDR had "solved" the problem of unemployment by sending people who had no work into the state owned companies (basicly EVERY company except small ventures like craftmen) where they often made no economic advantage for their company. In the new economy they were suddenly surplus workers: Around 2000 I visited a brewery that was bought by a group of its former employees. They had to reduce the work force to 1/3! Part was that, because since they suddenly sold in Deutsche Mark, their beer wasn't affordable anymore to their east European customers, but to a large quantity, as they told me, the lay-off was to get rid of the unproductive extra hands.

  • @flauschiger_keks
    @flauschiger_keks 2 месяца назад +1

    The runification day is the 3rd of October. It is the most important national holiday but we don‘t really party or wave flags. Politicians give speeches but that‘s about it. We don’t have to go to work on that day, that‘s nice :)

  • @mariapeters4469
    @mariapeters4469 2 месяца назад +4

    3. Of Oktober 1990 is the offichial cellebrate day for the Reunion. I remeber the 9. November 1989 i was 5 years old, from west Berlin.. my mom and dad took me out to cellebrate too. My dad Was going with us to the Border and we were going also before to a Gas Station, to get plenty of sparkling wine .. i was on his shoulders talking to the others "welcome to the West" and handling the sparkling wine in Plastik cups for radom pepole.. was cool and nice .. everyone cellebrate and was happy .. my mom kissed some of the Border Controller as well😂.

  • @MrMoritz74
    @MrMoritz74 2 месяца назад +6

    The north part of East-Prussia (with the capital Königsberg) given to the USSR. Now it is Russia, the "Kaliningrad" exclave is soroundig nowadays from Lithuania and Poland.The south of East-Prussia, West-Prussia, East Brandenburg, Slesia and East Pommerania was given to Poland. But Poland lost areas too (this part belongs nowadays to the Ukraine and White Russia) and it was greater, than the new teretories that they got). 1945 over 14 million german people where fled from theese areas and of the Sudetenland (the north part of Czechia). 12,5 million people arrived their escape, the other people died. On a ship "Wilhelm Gustlov" over 10.000 people died, when this ship was torpedoed by an sowjet submarine.

  • @moodindigos1
    @moodindigos1 2 месяца назад +3

    My mother and my grandparents fled from Pillau, a small coastal town close to what is now Kaliningrad (Russia) in the very beginning of 1945.
    She is now 90 years old and all my life I remember her longing to see her hometown at least one more time in her life. That part of Russia has long been off limits for vistors because it was declared a military zone.
    Now she isn't healthy enough to visit.
    When my grandmother's was still alive the two of them would even speak in their dialect to each other but sadly she didn't pass it on to her children. My grandmother passed in 1987, I remember her always hoping for Eastern Prussia to rejoin Germany.

  • @HoldMySoda
    @HoldMySoda 2 месяца назад +2

    Born 1973 I lived close to the border on the western side. The area where I lived was packed with US Military. It was always a strange feeling when we made field trips to the border. We knew that behind this iron curtain was enemy country no matter the fact that the people there are also Germans.
    In 1991 I had a girlfriend from Eastern Germany. 1997 she became my wife and she is until today. We have an adult daughter and I am very grateful for everything. My wife and I are very similar and in some ways we are the complete opposite. Growing up in a totalitarian system my wife shows much more respect to rules and authorities.

  • @lemasander4932
    @lemasander4932 Месяц назад

    I have been 7 years old and parts of our family lived in west Berlin, so I remember it quite well. It really gave goosebumps. Even as a kid you could grasp that this was something big. We went to the remains of the wall some time after to see it ourselves. Still gives me goosebumps today.

  • @wbrenne
    @wbrenne 2 месяца назад +1

    In the formerly German territories of Poland and Russia, there were almost no Germans left. They had either fled at the end of World War II or were evicted later. Russia in turn deported Polish from the formerly East Poland, which now belongs to Ukraine, and resettled them in the formerly German territories - Poland was effectively moved westwards by half its size. Also, the oblast Kaliningrad was populated with Russians after the remaining German population was evicted.

  • @ug636
    @ug636 2 месяца назад +1

    KOhl payed money to Ss-Veteran Unity ... ;) Sold copper cables instead of glassfiber ..

  • @biloaffe
    @biloaffe 2 месяца назад

    Ich war 25 Jahre alt, ich bin in „West“ Berlin geboren und aufgewachsen. Ich habe damals 4 junge Menschen aus der Ex DDR eingeladen und wir sind die ganze Nacht durch „West“ Berlin gefahren, ich hatte sie zum Essen bei McDonald's eingeladen. Wir sind später noch von zusammen durch „Ost und West“ Berlin gefahren, haben uns gegenseitig interessante Plätze gezeigt und zusammen das erste Sylvester 1989/90 am Brandenburger Tor gefeiert. War eine schöne Zeit! Leider habe ich nach Sylvester nie wieder von ihnen gehört 😢

  • @joseppedaia3673
    @joseppedaia3673 2 месяца назад +2

    14:40 its about the UK being the least important out of UDSSR, USA, France and UK. THAT very well may have been the case

  • @Nefertari442
    @Nefertari442 Месяц назад

    I was born an raised in a town with not only one but three military bases nearby, close to the border to the netherlands. One was a RAF depot where the british forces kept some of their nuclear warheads (one of the nuclear warheads fell off a transport in 1984, luckily nothing happened), one was a base for the RAF Tornado Fighters and the other was a huge JHQ with NATO. Some of them were still used by the british forces till 2014 and given back to german authorities in 2015.
    The town I was raised in had a whole settlement with english RAF personell, an english pub and the Naafi. I still remember the busses that would take the english kids to the NATO headquarters for school every morning. And of course the fighters landing on the runway just 1.5 km away from our house or flying low above our primary school.

  • @TheKilaby
    @TheKilaby 2 месяца назад

    13:56 the UK actually stopped or tried to stop a LOT of things mainland europe wanted to do, thats also part of the reason why many in europe were happy when the UK left cause they just made every decision way harder then it needed to be.

  • @berlindude75
    @berlindude75 2 месяца назад +2

    Video thumbnail: No, you (Britain) didn't own (a part of) Germany, you merely occupied and controlled it for a time.

  • @ThePatrik2011
    @ThePatrik2011 2 месяца назад +1

    You should watch the clip Walled In to understand what the border was really like. It was not just a wall!

  • @blondkatze3547
    @blondkatze3547 2 месяца назад +1

    Up here in northern Germany was the British occupation zone, but soldiers from from Canada and Poland were also stationed here.

  • @winib3740
    @winib3740 21 день назад

    Hello, the part that was under GB is the origin of the Saxons (from Algosaxon) and in Eastfrisia they are drinking that much tea. They can speak their low german too (me too but I´m just a neighbour of Eastfrisia, so other parts of Germany can speak low german too). We are historiccal a bit connecetd, you can even see that on the flag of lower saxony and nordrhein westfalia, the red with the white horse on it. In south England or Kent (i dont know exactly where) you can find that horse too

  • @annikas6534
    @annikas6534 2 месяца назад

    In fact, it is sometimes difficult for many of the refugees from the territories expelled by Poland and Russia and their descendants. The escape (usually only on foot) was difficult, in my family (my two grandpas come here) 3 children died on the run and had to be left "simply" on the side of the road. In addition, they were not warmly received but remained until the next generation "the newcomers." They could not fall back on any inheritance or assets and lived partly in garden huts or the like. My grandfather came from Gdansk and later had good contact with the new inhabitants of his old home. The other came from Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and found his homeland rather hostile and disgraced. I sometimes still long for the "foreign home" that I have heard so much about, even though I am the 3rd generation.

  • @mirkostrauchmann5580
    @mirkostrauchmann5580 2 месяца назад

    20:00 incorrect. In the treaties of Moscow and Warsaw (both in 1970), West Germany agreed to accept the Oder-Neiße-Border, which was the eastern border of the GDR and today's border, as inviolable and thus giving up the formerly german eastern territories. (In 1990 this agreement was confirmed once more in the german-polish border treaty.)

  • @NoldorianElf
    @NoldorianElf 2 месяца назад

    When „the Wall“ came down, Putin was stationed with the KGB in East-Berlin and shocked. All he knew about the order of things and superpower with central in Moskau was lost. What would become of his career? He must have felt betrayed.
    It’s crazy that I recall this time so vividly. I was born in 1965 in the western part of Germany.

  • @flauschiger_keks
    @flauschiger_keks 2 месяца назад

    The wall is a big misunderstanding I often get from my American family. Yes, it was a physical wall in Berlin but a guarded fence also surrounded the rest of the borders between West and East Germany. No, its purpose was not to keep people out of East Germany but to keep people IN the country. And it was built and guarded by East Germany itself.

  • @vsmash2
    @vsmash2 2 месяца назад +4

    11.10. is barely relevant in reunification remembrance. 3rd of October is the public holiday for it, We can't use the actual day 9th of November, Might wanna look up "german day of fate".

  • @onkelhirnisfreund
    @onkelhirnisfreund 2 месяца назад

    No, no German is spoken in western Poland. The Germans who still lived on Polish territory after 1945 were expelled by the millions from the Eastern European territories in revenge for the genocide of the German government and were settled in the now remaining Germany. Which was a pretty difficult feat, which has only been achieved over the course of generations. Because not only that in 1945 every 2nd house in Germany was destroyed and there were hardly any accommodation options for 17 million Germans from the East, no, these displaced Germans were of course homesick and hoped to be able to return to their old homeland for decades to come. But in the end, of course, this was not possible, as the recognition of the 1990 borders was a basic condition for the approval of the 4 victors for reunification. By the way, I get along very well with it, because I was only born in 1992 and I also understand the interests of the Poles and the victors very well.
    Only for the 1st generation of the displaced persons must this have been a bitter disappointment. But the deal with the winners in the 1990 treaty was that Germany would accept the 1990 borders. No damage and reparation payments are demanded from Germany for this. I think it's a very nice deal. Through the EU, the descendants of the displaced Germans have the opportunity to visit their old places of residence with ease. BUT the relationship between Poland and Germany is still not easy (to put it mildly!)

  • @BlauerBooo
    @BlauerBooo 2 месяца назад

    About Kohl's claims for the former eastern parts of Germany in Poland and Russia - I think it was already former chancellor Brandt who finally agreed for west Germany on the Oder-Neiße-Line as Germany's eastern border and therefore abandoned those former prussian parts in the 1970s due to reconciliation and his Ostpolitik. So for Kohl that might have been a wish, but no real negotiation bullet point.

  • @MichaEl-rh1kv
    @MichaEl-rh1kv 2 месяца назад +1

    The Frisians started drinking tea long before any world war and defended their tea culture against the Prussians and Napoleon. Frisia is however situated in the northwest part of the British zone, at the coast next to the Netherlands. The British zone however also included Bremen and Hamburg, the main ports for coffee import, Westphalia and the northern Rhine region (with Cologne and Düsseldorf).

    • @berlindude75
      @berlindude75 2 месяца назад +1

      However, Bremen and Bremerhaven belonged to the U.S. occupation zone since they had insisted on controlling at least one seaport.

  • @biloaffe
    @biloaffe 2 месяца назад

    As for NATO, we're sticking to that! To this day, there are no NATO bases, no NATO soldiers and no NATO weapons in "East" Germany, just as the 2 + 4 Treaty stipulates! Many claim that the treaty refers to the entire eastward expansion of NATO, but that's not true. When the treaty was signed, no one, including the heads of state, could have known or suspected that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact would collapse a year later! Even Gorbachev later confirmed this repeatedly in interviews. In the 2 + 4 Treaty, NATO expansion was solely about East Germany. For all doubters, the treaties can be found online!

  • @willybauer5496
    @willybauer5496 2 месяца назад

    There still are'nt any Nato troops or bases in the former GDR, because that is what was agreed upon in the so called "2+4 Treaty":
    “Foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers will not be stationed in or moved to this part of Germany".
    In the very contrast to the one *partner* involved in this treaty who demanded this, the West is still sticking to it, while the real bully now goes brutally against its' peaceful neighbour.
    Just because they wanted to go their own way.
    Sorry for mentioning this, but I've been some weeks in Ukraine this summer, delivering aid, civilian mostly, but also medpacks for a few units on the front.
    And what I've seen still hurts and haunts me...

  • @Sc4v3r
    @Sc4v3r 2 месяца назад

    13:42 It was the UK that always prevented an EU army. Since they left the EU, there are only a few voices against a joint army. And since the Ukraine war, the number of opponents has become even fewer.
    The joint EU army would probably be the second or third strongest army, depending on the assessment criteria.
    14:20 She was right. But this time it is not a bad thing.
    14:40 I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. The UK was only significant in the view of the UK itself. They always blocked everything the rest of Europe wanted (and a lot of things had to be unanimous, especially in the beginning). The topic is still to hot to discuss it here.
    19:00 Fun fact: The picture on the left even has a specific meaning. The treaty on peace and the reunification of Germany is called the "Zwei-plus-vier-Vertrag" (Two Plus Four Treaty). The 2 are West and East Germany and the 4 are the four occupying powers: France, USA, UK and the Soviet Union.
    It should not simply be called a peace treaty, as that would have been too reminiscent of the Treaty of Versailles (but IT IS a peace and reunification treaty).
    The same applies to our constitution, which is called the "Grundgesetz" (Basic Law; but IT IS a constituition). The word constitution is too reminiscent of the Weimar Republic's constitution (which brought Hitler to power). Germans are simply geniuses when it comes to the use of words :)
    To underline the importance of reunification: Until 1990 there was no peace treaty and Germany was still an occupied country. Only with the treaty in 1990 did Germany become its own sovereign state again.

  • @MichaEl-rh1kv
    @MichaEl-rh1kv 2 месяца назад +1

    Kaliningrad was originally the capital of the Duchy of Prussia and called Königsberg (lit. king's mountain, but meaning rather king's castle, honoring Ottokar II. Přemysl the Iron of Bohemia (also Duke of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, multiple times applicant for the German crown) who had supported the crusade of the Teutonic Order against the heathen (old) Prussians. After the order converted under Grandmaster Albrecht of Hohenzollern-Ansbach to Protestantism, Prussia became a duchy within the kingdom of Poland. After Albrecht's depressive son died without children, King Sigismund III of Poland gave the duchy as fiefdom to Albrecht's heir Johann Sigismund, Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg; since then Brandenburg and Prussia were ruled by the same person. After the Second Nordic War between Sweden and Poland Prussia gained its independence in 1657 (except for Royal Prussia, the parts ruled directly by the Polish Crown, which included Pomerania with Gdansk, the Malbork district (the first capital of the Teutonic Order), the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia and the Chełmno Voivodeship); in 1701 the Duchy of Prussia became officially its own kingdom (outside of the Holy Roman Empire. so Friedrich III of Brandenburg called himself "King _in_ Prussia" according to some agreement with the King of Poland and the German-Roman Emperor). In the 18th century Prussia participated in the three Partitions of Poland, when Prussia, Austria and Russia divided Poland between them; by the first Partition Prussia gained Royal Prussia except Gdansk and a land bridge to the Brandenburg territory, in the second western Poland along the Silesian border with Poznań, in the third Warsaw and the regions south of Old Prussia. Napoleon reinstalled a Duchy of Warsaw revising the Third Partition (partly), which became after 1815 the Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire (the Tsar taking also the title of King of Poland). Only after WW I an independent Poland was reinstalled, which got back Pomerania (Gdansk becoming its own city state) and the Poznań region. At the start of WW II Hitler and Stalin agreed on dividing Poland again; after WW II the USSR kept most of eastern Poland and moved the Polish population there to the West, providing Poland with the German parts of Pomerania, Silesia and most of Old Prussia as compensation, while making Northern Prussia with Kaliningrad a Russian military base. Most of the Germans in those regions were deported to East Germany (if they had not already fled before).

  • @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl
    @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 2 месяца назад +1

    I really don't think that the UK was the least significant of the former four allied countries. However, relations between France and Germany had developed to a very strong cooperation among their businesses, and possibly a military unit composed of soldiers from both countries had been established at that time already. Additionally Helmuth Kohl and Francois Mitterand were on quite good terms personally.
    The UK under Margret Thatcher was on a different page than many other EEC members on many issues, and Thatcher had to manage a difficult situation within her own party because there was a strong faction opposing further integration into the EEC, favouring stronger ties to the USA (a quite familiar pattern of British politics starting in the 1980ies).
    Possibly the most supportive politicians were George Bush and Michail Gorbatschow. Gorbatschow had to cope with several very messy issues in the USSR: the nuclear accident of Chernobyl had happened just three years before and turned out to be much more serious than initially assumed; the war against Afghanistan was taking an increasing toll of soldiers' lives and military equipement, and the economy of the USSR was lagging more and more behind those of Western countries which in turn started to affect other East European members of COMECON. Gorbatschow and other politicians in the USSR didn't want to be involved in other countries more than absolutely necessary any more. The USA and Germany agreed to support and help the USSR in turn for Gorbatschow's approval of Germany's reunification.
    As a result Thatcher managed to put herself in a slightly isolated position so that, finally, she decided to agree too.
    However, I remember that Thatcher and some more Britsh politicians were not the only ones feeling a bit uneasy about Germany's reunification. Similar doubts were expressed by some people in France and Italy (Andreotti?) too.
    The actual process of reunifying Germany politically and economically turned out to be a huge and costly challenge and there's still some work left to do. However I hope we've managed to reunify in a way reaffirming the trust set in us to sign the agreements and treaties back then.

  • @morganfreeman8618
    @morganfreeman8618 2 месяца назад +1

    Thanks for another cool video.
    Some touchy questions remain concerning sovereignty, long-term status of Kaliningrad/Königsberg and ongoing reparation demands by Poland. Not to mention the internal disunion in mentality, economics and politics that rather increase than decrease.
    There are by the way really no NATO troops allowed permanently in East Germany today - though they somehow are allowed in Poland, Lithuania and so on.

  • @joeriedler4952
    @joeriedler4952 2 месяца назад +2

    They did not oqn it, the occupied the northern/northwestern part of the Germany . US, France and Russia occupied the rest of Germany. Neither of them owned any of the German land but The Russians never left the eastern Part except Berlin, which was diveded and later became East Germany before the reunification in the nineties.

  • @lastcrusader1986
    @lastcrusader1986 2 месяца назад +1

    Samy Deluxe - Weck mich auf
    Fettes Brot - Wo sind meine Leute
    Brothers Keepers - Adriano
    Ferric MC - zur Erinnerung
    Jan Delay - Feuer
    Jan Delay - Oh Jonny

  • @angelikafranz4545
    @angelikafranz4545 2 месяца назад

    Only few Germans were allowed to stay in the former German areas now being party of Poland, and almost none in the northern part of East Prussia now being Russia. 14 million Germans were expelled forcefully, and many were killed.

  • @DJone4one
    @DJone4one 2 месяца назад +1

    They forgot that Bremen and Bremerhaven were under American occupation because they needed the port of Bremerhaven for their military equipment. Many Americans lived here. 1:18 Not exactly. You mean East Friesland. East Friesland is on the border with the Netherlands, almost on the coast. 1:40 (british occupation) That's Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen and Schleswig-Holstein. As I said. Bremen was under American occupation.

    • @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl
      @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 2 месяца назад

      Both, the USA and the UK, started cooperating more and more intensely leading to the formation of the so called bi-zone.

  • @SheratanLP
    @SheratanLP 2 месяца назад

    In the north of Germany, people have always traditionally drunk a lot of tea. This has nothing to do with the occupation zones. In the former GDR, a lot of tea was also drunk because before reunification there was not even coffee at times, only a kind of coffee substitute. For example, I also drink a lot of tea because I am used to it in the GDR. I am 65 and old habits are hard to break.
    14:06 Margaret Thatcher. It's not just Brits who pull a face at that. But don't worry. The witch is dead. Nothing has changed for anyone in the EU as a result of England's exit. Only England has been far worse off since then than before Brexit.
    You shouldn't even think about the areas that Germany has lost. A large part of the areas that now belong to Poland were stolen from the Poles at some point in wars long past. Germans no longer lived there either because the German population had already fled to the West in 1945 out of fear of acts of revenge. It was similar in the areas that were awarded to Russia. They did not become part of Germany through wars, but through land purchases, but there were hardly any Germans left after 1945 because they had also fled to the West. So it would have made no sense to insist on these areas and thereby endanger reunification.

  • @lynnm6413
    @lynnm6413 2 месяца назад +1

    I just LOVE when first eyewitness records about refugee ordeals by women and their infants get deleted by yt….yes, my grandma was German, fleeing in 44 from Silesia with 4 children, my father being 4 months old and her sister.
    I‘ll let you imagine what for my first comment got deleted, since they were fleeing the red army.
    One family of 15 million Germans who were forced from their lands in the East

  • @Schaju
    @Schaju Месяц назад

    I remember very well what I did at that time. I've been in Hospital, because I gave birth to my son. 😊

  • @digdigktn
    @digdigktn 2 месяца назад

    18:00 The video is wrong at one point about the requirements for Gorbatschov. It was on the table that the NATO doesnt expand eastwards, but it wasnt agreed on. Its a myth that the russians spread even till today.

  • @angelikafranz4545
    @angelikafranz4545 2 месяца назад

    Endeed, there are no NATO troops in former East Germany, with the exception of the German army (Bundeswehr) of course. And the Bundeswehr had to reduce the total army size to the maximum of 360,000 soldiers (now under 200,000 soldiers).

  • @evilmessiah81
    @evilmessiah81 2 месяца назад +1

    reunification day is the 3. oktober, not the 11.. because the factual reunification happened on the 3. oktober 1990. The people in poland/Schlesien and kaliningrad wherend germans anymore, the germans that lived there after ww2 where deported to germany and replaced by native polish and russian people, so they didnt had any connection to germany

  • @astas7364
    @astas7364 2 месяца назад +2

    Btw. you guys are always welcome back in the EU. I will probably get trolled by bots now fot his. But I think it was not only an identity crisis of Britain that led to this but also foreign propaganda that fulled it. Because the EU is indeed super powerful when united and you guys were one of the strongest partners. So with you out of the picture the others are at risk of getting splitted as well. There is tons of problems that need to be fixed with the EU but the idea and the concept - a united Europe to prevent another war of European countries against each other and to pursue our interests united is still relevant and good.

  • @badclaas
    @badclaas Месяц назад

    pat on the back - schulterklopfer

  • @huntardhc2286
    @huntardhc2286 2 месяца назад

    Actually 3 of my grandparents were from parts of germany that were eventually given to poland (west prussia and silesia).
    In these regions the russian army expelled and expropriated the vast majority of german citizens during the war. Many properties were handed over to russian officers and poles who lacked housing, long before the war even ended. Most germans from these regions flew to Berlin and Dresden since those were the nearest major cities. And quite a few died in the process. P.e. my grandpa who was a kid then saw his own grandpa freeze to death in the Elbe river during the flight from the russians.
    After the war most stayed with relatives in either eastern or western germany because they knew they werent wanted in the eastern territories. Only few remained/returned to their home areas and afaik were viewed rather hostile by the russian occupants and polish (for obvious reasons).
    As to how the expelled felt about it i guess its the usual views of war refugees: Sadness and nostalgia about what was lost. Especially since many couldnt return there until the iron curtain fell. But also resentment and regret.
    Afaik in the older generations there isnt much love for russians and sometimes even poles. Most grandparents were kids when they got expelled (p.e. my grandparents on mothers side) - lacking the political understanding and background so they just experienced it as "somebody came and took our house, gave it to some thieves and i lost my toys, my home and got forced into poverty" - not few didnt change that perception throughout life. I think the german stereotype "stealing poles" that was so prevalent in older folks when poland joined the EU stems from this.
    Those who were old enough to understand that this was payback for german crimes in the war are probably the most anti-nazi germans you could ever meet. P.e. my grandma on fathers side. She lost her parents and 4 brothers in the war. From a family of 8 only she and her sister remained. She always called it "Hitlers stupid, stupid war". But still she held resentments against those who took her family home when she got expelled.
    She returned just once to her hometown - ca. 55 years after she lost it. She actually found her family home and was shocked it was still standing. Before that she was certain that it would have been destroyed in the war. When she asked the new owners if she could come in and see what they made of the place they were scared cause in those days it wasnt clear if germans would/could press legal claims on old/lost property, but they let her in nontheless.
    My dad said that she cried when she saw children playing in the courtyard once again. After that she changed her view on poles and "forgave" them.
    Sadly she developed dementia in her final years. In those dementia driven moments you could feel the grief and anger about her loss. Actually this was quite shocking to me, since i was little when she changed her views and other than those dementia episodes never heard her speak ill of anybody.
    She turned 100 and died in 2023. Rest in peace Oma :)

  • @nfreye8828
    @nfreye8828 2 месяца назад

    As a matter of fact, to this day, there are no NATO-related civil or military structures in the former GDR / East Germany. There are NATO structures in places further East like Lithuania etc. but not in the territory of the former GDR. ;-)

  • @stevyyjay85
    @stevyyjay85 2 месяца назад

    U cannot ask German people in Former Prussian territories anymore... because the allied forces forced the German poeple who had lived there to move to the western parts of Germany. This type of policiy broke international law - even at the time.
    12 MILLION German people were expelled from their homes. By 1989/90 only marginal numbers of German speaking people were still living there. But if there ever was a time to break international law, it was during and after WW2.
    I find it funny that the UK declared war on Germany in 1914 for example... when Germany invaded Belgium in order to get t France, but then the British would invade Greece during the same war and broke Greece's neutrality.
    These world wars truly brought out the worst in all politicians. Thank God, we're all best friends now. Let's keep it that way forever.

  • @Takketa7
    @Takketa7 2 месяца назад

    What the UK feared was that times could become a bit like when the HRE was the dominant power in Europe, the HRE lasted almost 1000 years, despite of this, it led GB to search for more power outside of Europe, this move actually had made GB a huge Colonial Empire.

  • @RolfSchneider-q9n
    @RolfSchneider-q9n Месяц назад

    If you ask us, if we do celebrate November 9th: No. We don't. Because november 9th seems to be something like "destiny day" of Germany, where good and bad things happened at the same day. So it's hard to celebrate. It's somehow typical german:
    -- On november 9th 1918 germany surrendered in WW1.
    --At the same day Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and Germany became a republic.
    --And especially: On November 9th 1938 a Nazi-Embassy-Attache in Paris was killed by a jew. Under this pretext the Nazis started the pogrom against the jews; the "Kristallnacht"

  • @Lamm139
    @Lamm139 2 месяца назад

    A unified country is a strong country. If you want a weak country divide it - rich vs. poor, men vs. women, old vs. young, black vs. white, .... This is just my own opinion.

  • @saschar5609
    @saschar5609 2 месяца назад +1

    All world leaders is an exaggeration, as they had no say whatsoever. However, the leading politicians of the „siegermächte“ (USA, UK, France and SU) had to be convinced, and Thatcher was very reluctanct to the idea.

  • @ug636
    @ug636 2 месяца назад

    East Germany was the outsourced low-wage sector of the western country. Many companys hadet produced there products for the west low wage market there ... ;)

  • @IntyMichael
    @IntyMichael 2 месяца назад

    There are no more Germans in the Russian and Polish parts that were once German. The Germans flee this areas at the end of the war and the remaining ones were forced out. The Sowjet Union took parts of eastern Poland after the war and relocated the people to the former German parts that were now Polish.

  • @fforw
    @fforw 2 месяца назад

    The unification is still more political and economical than it really united to people. It's a bit as if Scotland would have been under Soviet rule for a bit. Started out as a distinct region that does not necessarily get along with the other parts and then it only alienated further.

  • @maximilianklein2062
    @maximilianklein2062 2 месяца назад

    Watched all of it by now. There are many historical and political inaccuracies. It not only leaves out forced migration, it makes wring statements about the British and French positions and there is no European Army coming anytime soon

  • @ftc_music
    @ftc_music 2 месяца назад +1

    I was 6 years old when the wall fell. All I can remember is people celebrating on TV.
    Such a lucky mistake by Schabowski, and I appreciate the (non)reaction of the border guards!
    October 3rd is the official national holiday (should be November 9th if you ask me). However I think it’s not appreciated enough by the majority. Many parties, but more like political events or tv bling bling, not so much in people’s minds.

    • @berlindude75
      @berlindude75 2 месяца назад +2

      *Schabowski

    • @ftc_music
      @ftc_music 2 месяца назад +1

      @@berlindude75 thx, corrected.

  • @stefanberndt3076
    @stefanberndt3076 2 месяца назад

    As someone from the East have a mixed feeling to the unification. It was not a re-unification, but a takeover. Let me tell you something:
    1. As a school kid at that time, i was kind of brainwashed by socialistic propaganda. Seeing the opening of the wall in TV, i really thought something like "why unify with this cruel, heartless capitalistic state?". Horrible! Why all those people seem so happy?
    2. After the reunification the eastern economy was gone downhill very fast. Most of the eastern industry could not compete with the western. Many eastern companies where sold by ridiculous prices to there western competitors. Many of this companies then where butchered out and closed. Many people around me lost there jobs, without a realistic chance to get a new one. Lucky my parents keep there jobs, but they where in constant fear of losing it.
    3. After the unification, there was many changes to my school. The climate became much more harsh, much more bullying, much more pressure. Not a great time to remember.
    4. 4 years after the unification, i was done with school. Getting an apprenticeship was very hard. I had written over 40 applications, got only rejections (or no answer at all). Finally one accept, but far away. Lucky they had an boarding school for us. I had a lot of fun there, loved the apprenticeship, still loving my profession.
    5. After apprenticeship I could not find any job in my hometown. Not that i was picky - there where just none. So I turned my back and got a job in the west. The economy in the west was sprawling, they got a huge new hungry market: the east. First I was commuting between east and west every week, working on different construction places. Finally I moved permanently.

  • @Feieraufsicht
    @Feieraufsicht 2 месяца назад

    I think it is more likely that the British learned to drink tea from the Frisians during the occupation

  • @NoldorianElf
    @NoldorianElf 2 месяца назад

    Frankfurt? No, no, NO!
    That was USA, so was my hometown Gießen (pronounced Geezen) which is 60 km north! of Frankfurt. What is more: The U.S. Army Garrison of Gießen had a population of up to 10,000 American soldiers and their families. Fun fact. There was a garrison between Gießen and Frankfurt at Bad Nauheim (Bud Nowhime) where a certain Elvis A.Presley served as a soldier and in 1959 met Priscilla Beaulieu, then 14 years of age.

  • @melchiorvonsternberg844
    @melchiorvonsternberg844 2 месяца назад

    A lot of nonsense was being said! The opening of the border was announced for the next day and not months later. Only... The thing was supposed to have gone like this: You go to the East German police registration office and get a stamp in your passport and then cross the border. Everything is monitored and controlled by the East German border troops (12,000 of them were stationed in Berlin alone). But because the press spokesman had expressed himself somewhat unclearly, people streamed to the border in Berlin that night and forced the opening without all the administrative hassle. And from then on, there was no turning back. No more stamps from the police were needed. From then on, a simple passport was enough... I personally experienced this during my time doing community service. One of the colleagues rushed into the kitchen from the TV room and shouted: "The wall has fallen..." We all went into the TV room and watched the reports in disbelief. My first thought was: That's it for the Stalinists and the Eastern Zone...

  • @grumpyfatso3071
    @grumpyfatso3071 Месяц назад +1

    There were almost no Germans left in the territories given to Russia and Poland after 1950, because they were forced to leave between 1944 and 1950 from Königsberg, Poland, Czechoslovakia and others. There is basically no German minority in modern day Kaliningrad (former Königsberg) and the German minority in Poland was 140.000 people in 2021, around 0,5% of the whole population.
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

  • @beldin2987
    @beldin2987 2 месяца назад

    Even in China they never drank tea before the brits learned that to them. After all the brits invented tea and they have sooo many tea plantation, the whole world just imports their tea from the UK 😂🤣
    I mean .. seriously, do you really believe that in northern germany they only know tea since 80 years ?

  • @iljaspellmann8309
    @iljaspellmann8309 2 месяца назад

    British occupation after the war was not comparable to colonization. I stem from Gütersloh where they had a big military base. It has no cultural influence only military

  • @randalette4286
    @randalette4286 2 месяца назад

    The wall was not build so that the "poor eastern populus" could not migrate to western Germany. I never heard of that before and it sounds rather offensive. In a lot of ways. The government of eastern Germany suddenly decided to build a wall in 1961 and weirdly enough the whole rest of Germany did just watch when they started. I think because of how things wirh Russia were at the time. There is a famous interview where one of the eastern german governers at that time declared "Nobody wants to build a wall." although they already started doing it. It was clearly a strategy of the eastern german government to seperate themselves completely from the rest and to establish their own territory which they named GDR (or DDR in german terms). It was all about power and who rules what and in what way.

    • @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl
      @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 2 месяца назад

      Emigration from East Germany to West Germany was a becoming an increasingly serious problem for the GDR because they were loosing mainly highly qualified people that way. Around 2.6 Mio. people left the GDR between 1949 and 1961, when the Berlin Wall was built. When rumors about a reinforcement of the borders of the GDR started to spread the loss of skill, talent and knowledge had already started to affect the economy of the GDR adversely threatening to kick off a vicious circle. When the government of the GDR decided to build the Berlin Wall and to reinforce border fortifications the expected losses due to restricted trade with the west seemed to be a smaller economic risk that the effects by the loss of population.

  • @timoboettcher2860
    @timoboettcher2860 2 месяца назад

    hi, I'm from Germany, could you hear from Deichkind leider geil? When you read the song you will be surprised with something funny

    • @timoboettcher2860
      @timoboettcher2860 2 месяца назад

      or could you listen to a song by marsimoto and swar blaue lagune? Marsimoto is a second ego of Marteria. or something from marteria?

  • @Attirbful
    @Attirbful 2 месяца назад

    no, tea was a thing in Northern Germany for centuries…

  • @geschichten_ursula278
    @geschichten_ursula278 2 месяца назад

    I always thought that the idea for cooperation between the European states came from England. Wasn't it Winston Churchill who wanted to make it impossible for Germany to decide anything on its own?
    Germany has a defensive arm and I hope it stays that way.

  • @schorschbaumgartner6174
    @schorschbaumgartner6174 2 месяца назад +2

    plottwist ... USA is still here today 🤣🤣

  • @leisen9679
    @leisen9679 2 месяца назад

    I'm appaled by the many factual errors and slight misunderstandings. This is a prime example, why you shouldn't learn from YT. One: it was the US under President Bush sr who were wholeheartedly FOR German unification. Without them it would not have happened. France was led by Mitterand back then and he thought exactly like Margaret Thatcher. In the end it was the Soviet Union, that made the difference. France and Britain could not go against the wishes of the two superpowers and were nominally friends with Germany. Oh,and it is also wrong to say that Germans living in these territories were now "Polish/Russian". They were expelled or fled and 12-14 million Germans arrived as refugees in the West. They were integrated in the 50s and 60s and nobody hears about this anymore, they lost land and property, but has been absorbed for the greater good of European peace and unity. There are some people in the world, who could very well learn from this example.

  • @fforw
    @fforw 2 месяца назад

    The video kinda misrepresents the role of Helmut Kohl quite a bit. Yes, he presented a plan ( de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zehn-Punkte-Programm) for reunification and it was a bit of a departure of the do-as-little-as-possible political style he invented and that he and Merkel shared, but!
    The plan was never implemented because events developed so quickly that they overtook the modest assumptions of that plan. And while Kohl was lionized for being the "Chancelor of Unity" and other crap, his positive role in it basically ended there.
    For the first reunited election Kohl presented a plan of "blooming landscapes" which was somewhere between plain delusional and outright lies. But it sold the idea of instant economic upswing into the minds of the East-Germans who found all those lies just too tempting to resist. In the end the policies caused the opposite because they meant the death blow for the East-German industry already in deep crisis. One-to-one exchange of DM to East-Mark just meant that overnight the industrial production became about ten times as expensive on the markets and just wasn't viable anymore.
    And East-German continue to blame anyone but themselves for it. It's all "The West"'s fault. Hence all the support for far-right and/or Russian friendly extremist parties in East-Germany.

    • @SD-ed8is
      @SD-ed8is 2 месяца назад +1

      So are you saying that it is the east germans "fault" what happened after the reunification?

    • @fforw
      @fforw 2 месяца назад

      @@SD-ed8is Basically yes. What happened was the necessary result of their collective decisions. Kohl was basically done when the reunification happened. It was the reunification and the huge support in the East that made another 8 years of Kohl standstill possible.
      I know that the East Germans like to blame "the West" ironically. Not "Kohl", not "CDU", "the West". So basically the West-German populace should have forced the East-Germans to make better choices. It makes no sense.

    • @melchiorvonsternberg844
      @melchiorvonsternberg844 2 месяца назад

      @@SD-ed8is That's easy to explain. We were constantly warning the easterners, don't put the Kohl party, in charge of the east. What did they? They made the eastern CDU, to the biggest party in parliament in Berlin. And than the money thing... The same BS again. As fast as possible, no matter what condition came with it. And in the end, made him the ferederal chancellor in the first combined elections in December 1990. How does this sayin' goes... Ah ja... "Wer nicht hören will, muss fühlen..." Sound familiar, right...? And we have not talked about the new constitution yet...

  • @mariojakel5544
    @mariojakel5544 2 месяца назад

    Oldenburg is a Town in the british zone and Prince or better King Charles belong to House Oldenburg, this House also hold today the Kingseat in Belgien and the Kingseat of Danmark and in the past the Kingseat of Norway, Sweden, Greece and the emporer seat of Russia with Catherina the Great.

  • @eastfrisian_88
    @eastfrisian_88 2 месяца назад +1

    Dwayne, you're being totally unfair 🤬😡🤬 How can you be a year younger than me but look six years younger than me? 🥴🤣

  • @Danny-dc4qe
    @Danny-dc4qe 2 месяца назад

    Unfortunately we dont celebrate the wall fall like a big party as it should be, because the 9th november 1989 is alos an evil date in german history, as the Reichskristallnacht happend. So the national day is the 3rd October 1990, on which date the unification was political offical, but itself just was a formal date.

  • @ug636
    @ug636 2 месяца назад

    EasT Germany was out of money .... East Germany got a lot of money lend in the 80s

  • @Mischnikvideos
    @Mischnikvideos 2 месяца назад

    Tea only appeared in England and the Netherlands in the 17th century and in Germany in the 18th century. And it was expensive there.
    Bremen belonged to the American zone (so that they had a seaport) and Frankfurt was in the American zone and was their largest airport. And it constantly disrupted flights at the civilian airport. During the Berlin Blockade, supplies to the civilian population in Berlin started from there.
    There is a defense alliance in addition to NATO within the EU. But so far no army has emerged from it. Different chains of command and different national interests have prevented this so far. As long as the EU is not a real federal state, this army will not exist. What there are are agreements like the one between the Netherlands and Germany. Because the Netherlands are too small for a full-fledged army, they have specialized in certain weapons and are bringing these into the German army. In return, the Germans provide the Dutch with what the Dutch lack. Both armies are officially separate, but in fact both armies have united.
    The problem for the British in the EU was that there were/are close agreements between Paris and Bonn/Berlin and the British were only asked afterwards. The British felt that they were not given enough attention.
    To this day there are no NATO troops in East Germany. This leads to Putin's claim that NATO's eastward expansion is a breach of the treaty. In fact, at the time nobody was thinking of expanding NATO to the east because the Warsaw Pact still existed. That is why there was no agreement because nobody saw the need.
    Most Germans fled westwards towards the end of the war. There are only a few Germans left in Poland, and in Kaliningrad there are actually none because the Soviets drove them all out. The majority of the population in the regions is no longer German.
    My family did not celebrate reunification, even though an aunt of mine lived there. Then at some point she suddenly came to visit with her family and we met the unknown relatives. I already knew my aunt from previous visits.

    • @melchiorvonsternberg844
      @melchiorvonsternberg844 2 месяца назад

      Frankfurt, was always the biggest airport. It's the home base of the Lufthansa...

    • @Mischnikvideos
      @Mischnikvideos 2 месяца назад

      @@melchiorvonsternberg844 Lufthansa was founded in Berlin in 1926 as a merger of two airlines. Tempelhof was the largest German airport of its time. Large is relative here, the planes had space for about 10 passengers. Flying was a luxury. Frankfurt was known for its airships.
      It was dissolved in 1945 and banned in 1951 because of its close ties to the Nazis. In 1953 it was re-established, this time in Frankfurt. Today Munich is a second hub for Lufthansa.
      And I wrote about the US base.

    • @melchiorvonsternberg844
      @melchiorvonsternberg844 2 месяца назад

      @@Mischnikvideos The US airbase was called Zeppelinheim...

    • @Mischnikvideos
      @Mischnikvideos 2 месяца назад

      @@melchiorvonsternberg844 The official name was Rhein-Main Air Base, like the civilian airport. Zeppelinheim was originally built for the personnel of the airships at the airport.

    • @melchiorvonsternberg844
      @melchiorvonsternberg844 2 месяца назад

      @@Mischnikvideos Pal... I literally look down on the airport when I look out my living room window. Are you trying to bore me to death?

  • @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl
    @MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl 2 месяца назад +1

    Schabowski initially said it right. However, quickly afterwards he was asked by a journalist if that meant that citizens of the GDR would be allowed to travel and cross the border to West Germany immediately. Schabowski got so confused that he confirmed the implied statement within the journalist's question. That moment was caught by microphones and cameras of broadcasting stations and spread like a wildfire.
    Absolutely noone was prepared for that. When the numbers of people at the border crossings were suddenly mounting and the border guards were hinted at the news in radio and TV they finally gave up at some border posts initiating a massive domino effect because very quickly camera teams of TV stations began to flock to all border crossings recording and sending pictures of GDR citizens crossing into West Germany.
    Wahnsinn was probably the word used most in that night. It was truely an iconic moment of the history of our country. As a West German I gladly admit that I was overwhelmed by that event. Particularly because that was a peaceful and happy closing event - mind that earlier in the same year we had seen a public revolt in China ending tragically on the Tienanmen place.

  • @Lillidoo
    @Lillidoo Месяц назад

    To clear one thing: the EU hasn't gotten an army now.

  • @angelikafranz4545
    @angelikafranz4545 2 месяца назад

    No, there is no EU Army underway. Maybe in a far future.