How Germany Is Still Divided Today
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
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▶ In this video I talk about how, despite having been reunited since 1990, Germany is still - statistically - divided in two. Showing the lasting consequences of its East-West Cold War division.
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*Are there any other countries in which a similar 'division' or a big difference can be visible between two areas?*
Try NORTH and SOUTH India
east and west china
if in some far away future Korea unites, I wonder if it will be similar to Germany
The united states. The mason dixon line (which most people extend to the 36th parallel) has a ton of super interesting ways that it dives the US, with religion, education, political party, etc.
Northern and Republic of Ireland would be cool
The East German farms are bigger because they were collectivized under Soviet rule and then privatized as a whole after reunification.
Btw, the unemployment situation has improved a lot, but differences are still there although they shrank a lot over the last decade.
Economically has definitly become better over the years particually in Thüringen
so they are way better
Auf der A9 ist das ist immer sehr beeindruckend, wenn man auf bayerischer Seite die ganzen kleinen Felder sieht, dann an einer Linie vorbeifährt und plötzlich riesige Felder bis zum Horizont sieht.
It’s good that things are improving in the east. There are always differences in regions within countries but it takes a lot to heal from the effects of Soviet rule (Russia may take generations to get over the trauma and currently isn’t going in the right direction).
@@andreavoigtlander1087 yes, in the early years after reunification it was the only economic sector that was more competitive than its west German counterpart.
It would be maybe also interesting to see the difference between North and South Italy, since there the difference is even bigger then in Germany even tho the south is already a part of Italy for many many years
Why is southern Italy poor they have access to sea unlike north
Good idea!
🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹
@@shraypuri4824 because South Italy didnt inustrialize and they were not influenced as much by the liberal ideas of the french revolution unlike the North
@@shraypuri4824 Climate. North tend to be cold, a temperate region which forces people to innovate. The south is mildly Mediterranean which is super hot during summer and mild winters; perfect for agriculture.
North is closer to industrious kingdoms and empires such as France and Germany while the south maintains traditions. Don't forget that North was the beginning of the Renaissance which made science more funded, sponsored and made possible than the south.
Italy was divided into city-states and northern city-states are more progressive compared to the southern city-states.
Finally, it was from the north was the idea to unite all city-states to form Italy.
As an Eastern German who moved on trash:
It still feels that in the east the idea of maybe not throwing something away, because one day you might need it, seems stronger in the eastern parts.
Probably a leftover from the times where even if you had the money, you couldn't buy what you might wanted.
I think this mindset is the same throughout all ex eastern bloc
This video is BS. It says west Germany was independent. Utter toosh. It was under the US's direct control. Just like the whole country is now. 43,000 US troops while the govt tries to start wars with its neighbors.
In know a lot of people from Romania who work in Germany and Germans always find it strange when they find a big bag with smaller bags in it..Romanian people for sure know what I am talking about, the idea is: we do not always throw away the bags from stores, but instead keep them and when we know that we need them, we will bring our own bags from home instead of buying new ones in the store. Also food waste is lower, especially amongst more conservative people because "we cannot throw food in the trash while the children in Africa are starving" a common phrase by a lot of Romanian moms.
Many russians still think this way. And a bag with bags is a thing here too, I suppose every family has it, it's a real thing.
@@illuminati3417 Same in Poland - the bag of bags and a trashcan (or rather few of them as recycling is mandatory) under the kitchen sink is a meme.
Actually the east of Germany is pretty nice if you have a good Job.
The Houses are not only Cheaper, they are also bigger, its not that dense, the Countryside is beautyfull.
The East of Germany is a very nice Region
that's like saying Montana is nice if you landed a good job, since it has beautiful scenery, cheaper, etc, but objectively, majority would not want to live there. And, as such, it's sparsely populated. People want a full extent of goods and services, I think most people would dread lacking basic stores or services in rural or poorer areas. I also think that educated and wealthy would not want to live surrounded only by uniformly working class families.
@@maaz322 Montana is a bad example, because US States are way bigger then german "Bundesländer" (federal states). I build a house in the vicinity of the ore mountains in Saxony between two major cities. (Zwickau and Chemnitz). We have no problems with goods and services so far, because major cities are quite near, since Germany is small. You can travel across Saxony from Thuringia to Poland in about 2 hours.
Across the same latitude you need 10 h in Montana. Saxony has 4 million inhabitants, Montana 1 million.
The housing here in this area is affordable, because the land is cheaper. The building costs are quite the same all over Germany. For 500.000 Euros we got a quite big plot in a quite, second row street and a house above standard level.
I lived in Potsdam, near Berlin before. I justed checked againt, but a similar plot near Berlin costs 480.000 Euro alone, without the costs of building a house.
This is insane. Even two academics can't afford that.
We financed our house with my salary as a teacher and my wifes as a caretaker of older people.
It worked out for us, because both jobs are in high demand in Saxony. And I think that is the reason not many people tend to move to the eastern states. There are not too much working places for higher educated people. Families with two "worker" jobs are paid to low in respective to bulding prices (not plot prices).
@@maaz322 Isn't Montana a nice place to live?
@@noamuth89 Grüße nach Lichtenstein oder so :D
@@avior2951 Nah dran :) Grüße zurück.
"they were reunited in 1940"
That is impressive they reunited before they were even divided.
A very good topic. What many people don't know is that only the Soviet-occupied part of Germany had to pay reparations to the USSR. Huge amounts of factories, railway tracks, agricultural machinery and other things were dismantled and taken to the USSR.
Good. The West should have done that as well. I doubt the amount of reparations given to the Soviets were enough for the damage the Nazis caused, but at least they repaid.
@@Zakrovik No, the West hasn't payed to the Sovjets. And also UK, France and the US do not demand reparations until a peace treaty is concluded. The peace treaty would never be signed and the Four Plus Two Treaty (1990) settled everything. And yes, Germany destroyed a lot and should rightly pay, but the allies did not want to make the same mistake as after the First World War. Europe needs a strong Germany.
@@Zakrovik that wouldve caused world war 3
@@Zakrovik yeah well the Soviets didn't deserve those reparations after what they did to eastern Europe after WWII. West Germany paid reparations to the west
@@77belts without the soviets the nazis wouldve won, quit shoveling far right propaganda into your mouth
Just one little correction: you can't say east Germans were not allowed to leave the country. That's not correct. It was just difficult to go to western countries. But 1. It was not impossible, just difficult depending on the situation and 2. Travelling to the east European states was very common. You could also visit other communist countries like Vietnam if you had the money.
The DDR Museum in Berlin talked about this, which I appreciated. A family vacation to Cuba was actually very reasonably priced.
But the fact is that for a long time more wanted to go from East to West Germany than vice versa. The "anti-fascist rampart" prevented few from moving west to east, but many to the west.
yeah, my dad went to a few eastern european countries past the iron curtain when he was touring with his rugby team
@@devenscience8894 cause it was a fellow comrade country
Who is His name?I mean out host Portuguese man
Aside from street lights Berlin also has very visible infrastructure differences - For example, while tram lines were still operating in East-Berlin, it's Western counterpart decommisioned and dismantled all tram lines in the West in order to have a more car-centric city. This is nowadays a problem for city planners, since for a more extensive public transport new lines have to be built in the Western part of the city from scratch again, while in the Eastern part the systems are still up and running.
That is also only partly true. The reason, why the trams in the east are running better is only because of LESS traffic because of less people. The systems in the east are in a horrible condition and people not as mobile as in the West. The problem in the West is, that much of the funds are coming from the government and are not refinanced. So you have kind of a bubble in the West, because the government (Socialdemocrats and Socialist) kind of repeated the shit from the East.
@@schadelharry4048 trains *
This definitely reminds me of different post soviet countries like when I visited ukraine last year, they had tramlines everywhere also my mom talks about it during Soviet rule many people used public transportation or just walking
sounds like we are back in communism then. Why would wealthy people prefer to drive a freakin public transport? It shouldn't even exist anymore, everybody should have enough money for a car these days
@@sten260 car-centric lifestyles are not sustainable in the long term in regards to urbanization. If everyone is granted a free car to use in large metropolises and city centres, the traffic jams would cause the cities to immobilize completely. There's no solution to this issue even building more roads, autonomous cars, hyperloop-bogus and other "ingenious" concepts. I love the convenience of the car but they just take too much space in cities.
A German friend told me that when Germany was split in two, West Germany changed its capital to a small town like Bonn because they always had in mind the reunification and restoration of Berlin as the nation's capital, which would have been much harder to do if they had changed the capital to a powerful city like Hamburg.
Bonn isn't a small town. 400,000 people live there.
@@nickbell4984, "relatively small". There... Now you can sleep at peace.
@@luisalmeida1391 ok but it's not small by any means.
Bonn was chosen because it was close to where chancellor Adenauer lived and he didn't want to move. That's the whole reason.
@@ijh867zter6, maybe. There's always some shady backstory in everything that happens everywhere, so I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I shared what a friend from Bonn told me.
Let me say something to some points, which are not as accurate as they should be:
1:00 "Seperate areas of occupation were established depending on where each side had invaded." That's only partly true. A large chunk of East Germany was invaded by American and British soldiers. The western allies had fought their way to the western shores of the river Elbe. That means whole Thuringia, half of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt was occupied by western allies. But they traded that chunk of land away for a tiny part of Berlin. This was agreed in 1945 during the Yalta conference.
4:36 Demographics. Here you get to a key point, why the East is different from the West. 2 Million mostly young people left East Germany for a better life in the West in the years between 1990 and 2010. That was a brain drain, which cripples the East in so many ways. And almost every other map you show is influenced and distorted by exactly that brain drain.
5:45 Trash and simple interpretation: more money means more consume means more trash. That's very likely the best explanation.
5:49 "But that could also be something cultural. Although it's odd, since the evironmental concern is higher in the West" I don't think so. Both can't be the case. The evironmental concerns are pretty much evenly distributed among Germans. I wonder where you get that from? Votes? (EDIT: Oh yes, you do. LOL) If it was from votes, let me tell you, that one of the main driving forces for the reunification was an enviromentalist movement in the GDR. And most of these people still live in the East. But the higher concern today is wealth distribution, that's why they do not vote for the green party. In the eyes of most (fortunately not all) West Germans every East German is some kind of right wing racist idiot, who doesn't care about anything. That bullshit is pushed by mass media. And I absolutely do not like this trend.
6:00 "Perhaps more people live of their land." Bad guess. Private land ownership is very low in East Germany. Land is mainly owned by big companies nowadays. And that's due to the fact, that the socialist state owned most of the land before and that land was sold out by the "Treuhand" after the reunification. Google "Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft" or short "LPG". Private land owners were force to join the LPG by the communists after WW2. And that's why the size of farms is bigger in East Germany (4:25). And that's why private land ownership is way higher on average in West Germany.
If all your information is from maps, you will miss important facts. And all your conclusions are very distorted, simply you do not get the main point, why the East and the West is different: That brain drain that crippled the East.
Those are important points that were missed. I'm glad that someone points towards them.
Also alot of the east german economy is run by the west, wich leads to most of the profits to the west. When the economy is hit by some event its always the factorys in the east that are getting closed first.
You made a small mistake, LPGs weren't stateowned. They were coops (=Genossenschaften) so the land was still in the hand of the farmers but many farmers worked together on ther farm land.
There are still a lot LPGs in eastern Germany, I 've been in a village once were (almost) everybody works for the LPG. They had their own cantine and their village butcher sold the meat of the very own animals. People from the towns nearby go to the village and buy the local meat, vegetables, potatoes or lunch in the cantine.
@@leaval1178 Regarding trash, maybe there are still remains of a culture of re-use driven by shortages of products in a range of areas under communism.
@@derorje2035 Although that was quite murky. Yes, _technically_ the land was still owned by the farmers in the cooperative - but they usually couldn't sell or buy any of it, all the buildings, machines, and so on were owned by the LPG, and the individual farmers didn't have much influence over how the land was used. They couldn't just leave the LPG, and the most influential leader of an LPG was often appointed by the SED from outside, not by the collective.
So while they still technically owned the land, and it was technically a collective endeavour, that didn't mean much in practice.
The last point of East Germans not being able to travel during Soviet times is a lie. I'm a Bulgarian, have met many elderly Germans that used to be part of the East. Have heard stories from them, they've always loved travelling to Bulgaria for Vacations even during Soviet times. Tbh many of the old photos of my city ( Varna ) is made by East German Photographers who used to travel here frequently for vacation during the summer. Many have also complained how the city was a lot better during the communist era, lmao D:
Love Bulgaria from Germany
Yay communism! The worst system ever to be invented.
of course the city was better because of no immigration bullshit
I was born in former east Germany in the early 2000s and my grandparents were very involved when it came to raising me. Born after the unification, my homecountry was always considered a western country, when actually the former sowiet influence still played a role in my upbringing. It was kind of like being too western for the east, yet still too eastern to fully belong to the western nations.
Many people my age take big pride in being from the former GDR. They hold on to artefacts of their parents youth and feel some kind of nostalgia for a seemingly more simple time, which they never got to live in. (The German word for East is Osten or Ost for short, so we even got the word Ostalgie, to describe this feeling)
The older generation sometimes longs for this as well, saying things like "of course we were locked in, of course the system was kind of set up for failure, of course there were things like espionage, but the huge majority of us still had easy, good and affordable life's with everything they needed"
I was also born and raised here in the East and I'm probably as old as you. The GDR definitely had also good influences on the people: frugality, equality for women, better work ethic, helping each other without asking for reward, ... But in the end we're living in a capitalized world and the communism can't exist in that. And the second thing is that it was still a dictatorship (no communistic system can be lead democratic and there would always be people who would exploit this system). So as long as you did what they told you to do there was almost no problem. But if you wanted to travel, had another opinion, ... you had no happy life.
I am really grateful to live in the BRD and I don't honor the GDR but we should be proud of our grandparents who gave this country also good characteristics and made the best of it, just as they always do!
@@misterm3596 I totally agree with you!
Can I ask a question? I hope it doesn't sound disrespectful... I was told that in East Germany you weren't allowed to grow flowers in your front garden- is this true?
@@raincloudsradio8900 I've never heard of this, so ig it's a hoax. The only thing my grandma told me is that after WW2, it was more common to grow fruits and vegetables in ones garden, than to grow flowers.
I'm from former soviet republic and I must say that I can absolutely feel you :)
4:25 Actually, that was because many small farms were put together under 1 control in the early years, for which LPGs, Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften (Agricultural Production Cooperative) were created to manage them. But yes, there is a tendency of people growing some stuff themselves here, which isn't nearly as present in the west
Ah yes German Words
@@Empire. I mean, I used 3 to show what LPG means, which was what I was talking about, combined with the fact that I'm German but sure, the comment is invalid because I used "German Words"
@@Hendricus56 I think he just meant that that is a very long word and that is quite german
@@badvideosto yea
@Safwaan idk how but it is not that hard for me to pronounce
Sure its not accurate
This is my first comment on youtube, but I really felt like I have to say this.If you make videos like this, you should really team up with people from both sides you are talking about. As an eastern German I can say that the facts you were talking about were right, but your conclusions about the reasons were terribly wrong. Most of these things could have been explained easily to you by someone who knows about the culture and history of the country.
For example are not many people working in eastern germany in agriculture and most of the farm land is not owned by private farmers. During GDR times farmers were expropriated by the state and the farmers were forced to go into agricultural production communities. These communities often still exist as private companies. So only a low amount of people is owning all the farm land.
Another Example is the relation of tents to campers. It was way more common in the gdr to go camping and it was allowed to camp in other countries of the eastern block. So saysing the eastern germans were not allowed to leave the country is wrong. But it was very difficult to get a camper, since they were expansive and you had to wait more than a decade for them so there are not many old campers in the eastern part and nowadays most people can't afford.
Thanks for the explanations, quite interesting.
Thank you for your comment
Agree with content about the LPGs but not the travel. Our family only went camping because as teachers, my parents had no access to holiday complexes or hotels that was afforded to workers in factories, not out of choice. Camping was the only option.
Totally agree,
same with the "trash" map. In the east, we still have the mindset of not throwing things away so fast, because we could need them later. I think the "guesses" in this video fit the typical western view on east germany, but most are not true. They leave a bad impression on our beautiful east.
@@UnknownUser-fm4tq and quite a lot of the products that were produced in the GDR were built to last. As an example I bought a oven door that was produced in east Germany and I just had to clean it, sanded it a bit down and repainted it. Works great and I couldn't have bought a new Ofen door that was made out off thick cast iron nowadays. Also I'm gonna make a bet and say that the old oven door is gonna last longer than the new bigger one I bought for the top part of my smoker. Which btw was way more expensive and thinner....
Living in east Germany myself, i belief the main reason for the lower trash production is the low availability of goods in the GDR. Since people were not able to just buy any new product anytime they wanted to they stored old things instead of throwing them away because maybe they could use them in the future. This still happens today in almost any family.
Private household waste does not differ at all between East and West. I have no idea where this map came from, but if there is more industry in the west and south then more garbage is produced here too and it shows household and industrial garbage combined.
@@switch12345678 Yes Garbage like nazi ideology, that were used after the World War II by the german intllingence in countries like Croatia, with all the support or the USA.......
5:06 it's true that the population density is higher in the West, but this has also been the case prior to the Cold War. Especially the region around the Rhine river, which is part of the "blue banana", has always had the highest population density in Germany, and the Ruhr region with its coal mining and steel production was basically the economic center of Germany during the Industrialization era. Of course the Iron Curtain and its fall deepened the situation, since, as you mentioned, company HQs move to more economic stable regions (which leads to higher economic growth, which leads to higher population influx), but the roots of the different population densities lie in the decades before WWII.
This is definitely not true, my friend. Yes, the Ruhr region was always the industrial heart of Germany because of its sheer size. But the birthplace of german industrialisation lies in Saxony, especially between Chemnitz, Zwickau, Freiberg and the Ore Mountains. The German mechanical industry were born in and around the city of Chemnitz. Chemnitz itseld was called "The German Manchester" because of its huge pioneering factories. Especially Southern Saxony was also the region with highest population density in whole of Germany until the industrialisation had began in the Ruhr region. And Saxony was until WW2 one of the wealthiest regions in all of Europe, for most centuries the wealthiest region in Germany.
Your argument applies to Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but regions like Saxony and also Thuringia or Middle Germany with the Leipzig-Halle-Magdeburg triangle were heavily industrialised regions and in many ways equally or even more developed than many parts of Western or southern Germany.
That's a fact many West germans don't know or like to forget. East Germany wasn't always poor and underdeveloped. It was a crucial part of Germany until WW2. The same applies to Berlin, which concentratred massive industrial, economical, financial and political power until the city got divided.
Especially Bavaria benefited massively from the decline of Berlin and East Germany. Siemens, AEG, Audi, Allianz, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Knorr-Bremse, Telefunken, Osram, Edeka and many others were born and grown up in Berlin and East Germany. They left because of the division.
Short: Berlin and East Germany are the unlucky losers of german history. Bavaria is the biggest lucker in german history.
@@arctix4518 Interesting to meet you here. You already said what i was just gonna say. I remember you from comments from years ago.
@@avior2951 Really. Well i feel honored :D
@@arctix4518 it is true what he said. Read about the historical development of the "blue banana" in central europe.
@@kanister21 The concept of the Blue Banana is not the answer to all questions. Read my comment and read especially about the history of Berlin, Saxony, SIlesia, Middle Germany and you will learn
I dunno, but there's a lot left out or misrepresented in this vid. e.g. the economic collapse of East was to large part caused by 1:1 exchange rate and privatisation almost always meant not that HQ moved to West but that company from the West bought and immediately closed the East German company etc etc.
One can clearly see that in East German case there was less of actual reforms or privatisation and more of market share and labour force takeover- you just have to look at Czechia: both regions had similar GDP/ capita and still have similar GDP PPP/ capita and were and still are similarly highly developed but Czechia didn't have Western cousin to be bought out by so they had to repair their own roads and homes and reform their economy by themselves and it took them more time but the same time they managed to preserve most of their industrial base and even many established communist brands are still around and thriving.
Thaks for that retrispective. I'm glad that I live in Pardubice in these good times.
I mean it was probably one of the toughest tasks to successfully execute. There are interviews with former politicians who were responsible during that time and they said that they were always aware of the social and political tension a more realistic ( lowering wages and exchanges rates according to the true status of the economy) unification could rise amongst the community. Basically, they were giving out theses presents in order to not make them feel like 2nd class German citizens. It is a very short-sighted view but one could also say that something like these never has really happened before. I also want to add that the big migration waves to West Germany probably were the main reason why the East has a hard time till this day. People just wanted to leave the socialistic past behind and start a new life in West Germany where they knew people always had it better than themselves in the East.
Not to mention he breezed over the fact that the USSR was officially State Atheist. Plus for some reason he equated the (United Socialist Soviet Republic) to Conservatives? Imagine saying that Nazism its equated to Zionism(Israeli Religious Nationalism). Polar opposites in many regards.
@@JamecBond To me the real reason seems to be the major reactionary wave that took place in the former socialist states after the Cold War
@@reintaler6355 Im not sure if your aware of this, but the term "reactionary" doesn't mean anything, and if anything describes Liberals, as they over react to everything. Its essentially just a slur, and not even an accurate slur at that. So by "Reactionary" I assume you mean....umm...people who arent communist? Like some kind of anti-communist sentiment? Which is for some reason conservative? Im 100% down to let conservatives take credit for being against mass genocide, well liberals seem to be in quiet support.
The reason for the camping difference is also that there weren't a lot of cars in the gdr. Why would you buy a trailer, if you are still waiting for your car.
And the thought of trying to tow anything with a Trabby is a scary thought 😀
@@scooter2099 But it worked!
And that car probably couldn't even tow a baby carriage
@@hardbassmonkey check this out haha watch?v=BQVvGC9W2bM
@@zenmonk5403 Nah, they weren't terrible cars in most ways, EXCEPT emissions, where they were truly awful. You can even see old footage of GDR cars being run in rallies.
Many of the economic differences have decreased in severity since 2011-14, they are still there, but less pronounced. Fun fact though, the UK government through the London/South of England focussed economic planning of the last 50 years (and neglect of the North in terms of not providing structural support when manufacturing/heavy industries were failing there and not building modern infrastructure there) has managed to create an even greater economic divide without the country being split than the divide was in Germany in 2011-14 let alone now.
A single hub primary hub that gets all the resources is never going to create more prosperity than something like the systematic but lawfully ankered distribution of resources to those who need it.
Strong side gives 5% on top of earnings and capital earnings tax to weak side. That's the type of policy that shows solidarity.
I think Solidarity should be part of the constitution, just as a goal in spirit
The unemployment map here is from 2013. There is now a stronger north-south divide. In particular, North Rhine-Westphalia in the west with the Ruhr area as a former coal mining area has the same unemployment rate as some eastern German states. The current energy crisis could also exacerbate the problems in the industrial regions in southern Germany.
I am from Croatia and once I met the person from the former East Germany and we had a lot in common and we could easily understand each other regarding some views to the world. On the other side people from the former West Germany were like child robots to me:).
Selber Kinderroboter ey was soll das denn heißen
@@qwert314oderwat he probably means that the Easterners are mean and cynic, while the Westerners (in Eastern view) are too naive and obedient (to the rules of society).
@@rcl5555 Das klingt bisschen komisch wenn man bedenkt, dass sich in Westdeutschland zur Zeit der Trennung die Punkerbewegung entwickelte und viele junge Leute demonstrierten. In Ostdeutschland war die Loyalität zur SED wichtig für Schulabschlüsse und Jobs. Das heisst eigentlich war es zumindest zu Zeit der Trennung genau umgekehrt.
I think he means eastern were more family oriented while western more career oriented
I prefer democracy over communism even if that makes me a ''child robot'' 🤷♂️
8:46 No, in the old GDR, citizens could leave the country for holiday for example, but only in other European Soviet-influenced states ofc. Hungary, I believe was a popular destination
Bulgaria too
But only if were older and a good citizen.
Cuba too, and it's not even in Europe
Edit: You and your family could freely travel to Poland and Czechoslovakia
But you needed a traveling permit to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the USSR and Cuba. Traveling to Cuba was also very expensive, so it was not common
@@waltervondervogelweide4638 ah I didn't know that
Definitely hungary. So much more people in hungary understand german than english, noticed when i visited hungary each time mainly around Balaton
7:20 I mean poland was also under russian influence, but poles became even more catholic and one of them even got elected as the pope, so there must be other big reasons
The politicians of the GDR played a big role in the religion. They weren't religious and therefore never considered the church to be helpful or relevant.
@@Penqvino this! there were own made politics of socialism in GDR separated from the sowjets, walter ulbricht a leader of GDR come from leipzig heart of german socialism, so u have maybe an anwser
Didn't the Poles have more of a resistance to the Soviets? The East Germans literally embraced communism and were even stricter than their Russian counterparts
@@raincloudsradio8900 yeah if u know the history of lenin and germany, then u know why ;)
The Poles have ambitions to be a power.
There are many more differences between West and East Germany. I looked up this topic because of a seminar project at the University Leipzig (where I was as an Erasmus student).
If you have a rent appartement in an East German city, the owner comes most likely from the West. East Germans are underrepresented in the management of big corporations in the East, in the courts, in journalism etc.
In 2018, 4 out of 154 German Ambassadors (2.5 %) came from the East. Only 2 out of 200 (1 %) of the Generals of the Bundeswehr came from the East.
East Germans make steadily about 17 % of the academic staff at universities, just like in the total population. This is a rare exception.
Yes, true elite positions are almost 100% populated by west Germans - East Germans are discriminated against. "Academic staff" not being an elite position ...
1:20 Whenever a country uses the word "democratic" in its name you can be sure it's the opposite 😂
When the GDR was established, it was 100 times more democratic than most "democratic" colonial empires of the West, which had plenty of slaves that werent allowed to vote, but were forced to make wealth for them. lol
Dr congo
Looking at the comment section, same goes for 'party x is not extremist'. 😅 If so many people feel the need to say that, there might be something in the bush after all...
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
Not only a country. Also if a political party uses "democratic" in its name you can be sure it is totalitarian.
As someone from east germany that lived quiet some time in west germany I can say something about the trash numbers. In east germany the people were insentivised to have their own compost, for small gardens, or behind the house. This still reduces „biological waste“ a lot because it does not go into the trash can, but to a compost. Also… people produce vegetables in the gardens and dont have to bus them, but I think the numbers of kilogramms of food that dont go in the regular trash but in compost are way more important.
Nice
so poverty.. west side do not have to grow their vegetables in their backyard
@@sten260 they dont do as much in my experience
@@sten260 is this a joke? east germany was certainly less developed, but unless you literally live in a feudal society (which the gdr absolutely was not) nobody relies on subsistence farming, much less vegetable gardens. that's only the shit anyone does only if they have enough free time to pick it up as a hobby
@@ok8012 during USSR a lot of people had to grow their own food, there was no way USSR was able to produce enough food for every person in the country with their horrible economic system
I was really just thinking about this, and I'm happy you have made a video on it! I believe that this divide will stay the same for a long time, due to how different it still is to this day. But that's just me.
I've lived in a small town in east Germany since 2017 and it has changed a lot in that short period of time, there are a lot more foreigners and their children around so that map needs an update, and now there have come many Ukrainians. On one hand its more interesting because town is not as empty on other its a huge change especially for the older people that are afraid of foreigners.
"East Companies went bankrupt"
that's not quite right.
After the Borders were opened the GDR continued to break appart. While 95% of all Companies still belonged to the State they tried to sell those as fast as possible to gain some money out of this situation. While no one from east germany (who would have been interested in) would have been able to buy those Companies there suddenly were some rich western germany Guys who not only have had money, but West german Mark. A currency that was worth A LOT in eastern germany back then.
Some of those rich Men bought those Companies and continued (and sometimes upgraded them) their work. Some very few bought the Companies and gave those former "Managers" a chance to buy the Company later for same price plus Bonus (many very old Companies have been saved this way)
but most of those rich guys (not only western germans but also foreigners) bought cheap companies, shut them down, took everything with worth and left right after this. some of those "corpses" are still there and belongs to those rich guys...
well. at least meanwhile the Politics started to do something about this. slowly.
They wont admit it - same thing happened in the rest of eastern Europe. Here in Bulgaria industry and agriculture was PURPOUSLY destroyed and sabotaged - the new neo-liberal goverment purpously let factories and companies fall into the hands of absolute nobodies and bandits, now called "entrepreneurs." lol They let these people just take the bank shares of the bulgarian industry, and let it die, for a very simple reason - the new goverments were pro-western, and they wanted to ensure our countries will be now forever dependent on western economies. Hell, if anything forced privatization is actually anti-free market lol - they used economic plans for privatization. And guess what happened to the agriculture? - the backbone of most east-european countries? They sent LIQUIDATION - not privatization, but liquidation commitees to destroy all state regulated institutions of agriculure, which used to help farmers all over sell their produce, make sure they arent cheated, and guarantee compensation if a natural disaster occurs. So yeah, all that "were now richer" is a myth - its only a half-truth, cuz only an insignificant percent actually got rich, while the rest got even poorer than before.
yeah, had seen some documentations about this. very sad :(
You feel it until today. I know many people that have had a good job until the borders were opened. Some of the companies they are working for has a very good international quality and some products of it you never get in the East (too expensive), because of export to the West. The worker were qulified a lot. And suddenly many people lost their job and being unenployment for more than 10 years show you, that society does not need you. There are no jobs, even when you apply for a job 100 times. And when you are old, you live in poverty and you think about the good old times.
What are they doing about this?
@@nomoneynodeal7690
Many old buildings got new purposes of use like living Environment or Clubs. In my Hometown is an old factory that became a green house for example.
1. East Germany was a shop window to the West and as such, it was much richer than all other communist states.
2. Generally, this divide has more to do with former Prussia being an rural state with predominant agriculture sector and rest of German kingdoms getting much more industralised in XIX century.
3. AfD has little to do with conservatism, it is a populist party like Spanish Vox fuelled by economical discontent.
West Germany would have been just as poor as East Germany, if the french took the Rheinland for a few decades like they did after WW1, and if the US didnt help Germany with the Marschall plan. Especially if they had to pay all the victors reparations, without outside loans, there wouldnt have been an "economic miracle" - it would have been a second Weimar republic disaster.
it still has quite a bit too do with conservatism too though
The AfD is less fueled by economical discontent. The AfD rose to power during the migrant crisis as a reactionary anti-immigration party. They literally went from being a brand new fringe party to getting around 15% of the vote.
@@danielschnitzer7044 that's not true. It was the euro crisis. They did get more popular after Merkel made a speech welcoming everyone which accelerated migration in Greece and Italy to Germany
@@meganoobbg3387 No! Agreed that the Marshall plan may have speeded up the reconstruction a little, that's all. The German government simply spent the money more wisely than Britain or France did. The latter two received much more in aid than Germany.
In your short history introduction you forgot that eastern Germany was given to Poland and was polanised and millions of german people were expelled
The extreme east was ceded to Poland, and became Pollinated. If those lands were returned to Germany they would have to be germinated. Lol!
I love how you used germinated and pollinated lmao
@@andrewhammel5714 🤣
That's why it was a comparison between west Germany and central Germany.
East Germans may not care about the environment as much as West Germans (I think it's because having enough money is their first concern), BUT we are definitely a big fan of recycling! Not only did we have to repair everything (buying new wasn't an option, either the product was sold out or expensive), we also valued trash separation a lot. My grandfather separated every butter wrap for example, to recycle the aluminium in one can and the paper layer in another. We also produced products to last and still value quality over having the newst stuff. My old East German vacuum is still running, while my grandma recently bought her third vacuum in ten years.
Curiously, a lot of this are result of the way the reunification was handled and not the division itself
The core problem is the lack of entrepreneurs. And the lack of support for entrepreneurs. The already successful ones left after the nationalization of their companies in the Sovjet Zone/GDR. And started anew in West Germany. And many more potential entrepreneurs followed.
The bulk of the industry in my (West German) hometown was started by local residents. Living in the town or nearby (not necessarily born there).
If you rely on "foreign" (out-of-town) investors you have two main problems
- you're in competition with all others hoping for the (big) "foreign" investor
- you have mostly just one subsidiary of many. Always with the risk of being less profitable than other subsidiaries.
This is not something which can be fixed short term at all. And it needs the understanding of the local people in charge (politics, administration).
Another interesting divide is Japan where the east and west are divided by the battle of Sekigahara and the Itoigawa-Shizuoka fault lines, which results in cultural differences
i think people from kyoto and tokyo dislike each other or just have a huge rivarly
East Germany is best Germany.
The situation in the east has improved quite a bit since the GFC. Because of ever higher rents in western cities, more and more students choose to study in the west. That combined with the good education and investment, cities like Dresden or Leipzig are becoming tech hubs in their own right with e.g. Global Foundries setting up in Dresden, Intel in Magdeburg and Tesla in Grünheide
I think "more students choose to study in the east" is what you meant right?
Large Companies like Intel choose east over west because of financial support.
West is and was financially stronger and to minimize the gap between west and east there was a law made by the German Government. That's the only reason why huge production companies choose east over the west atm.
@@MoraKingdom yeah there are still more financial incentives for companies to settle in the east, but thats not all
lets take Intel @ Magdeburg, another location that was scouted was in bavaria and there the first thing that happened after it became public was the founding of a group with the goal to prevent Intel from choosing that location
and another point especially relevant for massive projects like the Intel fab is space, at the loaction in bavaria they just had that space and pretty much no chance to get an adjacent plot in the future while in Magdeburg they can double or triple the size without much hassle
@@lexel90 Also to be blunt...aren't east German workers cheaper but still well educated?
There's an interesting book called “The Making of the German Post-War Economy”, by Christian L. Glossner which discusses the philosophical overview and geopolitical forces that shaped West Germany's economy after WWII.
🤓
wusste garnicht, dass Lindner Bücher schreibt xd
Christian kann alles
“If you invest all your energy in economics, world commerce, parliamentarianism, military engagements, power and power politics, -if you take the quantum of intelligence, seriousness, will, and self-overcoming that you embody and expend it all in this one direction, there there won't be any left for the other direction. Culture and the state - let us be honest with ourselves - these are adversaries.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche,
To describe East Germany as more conservative is insane to me. East German women lost their jobs in droves at reunification as well as having more restrictive reproductive healthcare than before. Trans people also had their rights slashed at reunification
Also Bavaria and Baden Württemberg exist
It's because East Germany is not actually more conservative. East Germans are significantly more likely to vote for leftist parties than any other parties. West Germans are primarily liberals, whereas East Germans are primarily social democrats and socialists.
Hey what? Trans people in east germany? I was under the impression that any form of LGBTQ was heavily suppressed throughout the eastern bloc. Do you have a source for this? If true, it sounds quite interesting.
good post!
east germany definitely isn´´t more conservative as the west. only see all the religios pieople in the west...says it all
@@Zireael83 Religion doesn't make you a conservative. You can be progressive and religious.
But the east is way more conservative than the west
No it isnt
They were actually reunited in 1990 not 1940, and since German Reunification Day is 3 October, it hasn't been quite 32 years. However, thank you for this video. In 1989 after the Wall fell, I had a discussion with a friend. I said Germany would be reunited within the year. He said it would take a decade at least. I was technically right, with over a month to spare, but in some ways, he was overly optimistic, as this video shows.
Separation didn't start with the wall, it startet in 1945. With different currencies, different laws, etc. The wall just made it more strict and stands as a symbol.
@@naturbursche5540 ok, not every difference started the same day, that's nitpicking. Currency was 48.
Fantastic video! Keep up the good work man, you not only show the facts but explain them with sufficient knowledge. That's what makes this channel special.
Thanks!
im from germany and i can say that east germans gets also disciminated from the western after the the unification and even the discrimination is now weaker it is still fell able
Stimmt, aber das nächste Mal schreibst Du bitte deine englischen Sätze so, dass man sie auch versteht
@@Kameliius His English is completely understandable with only very minor errors….
my english is bad i get it
@@perfekterfail2049 stop using english at first place, if you have some self respect.Germany is an Yankee boot licker.
@@Kameliius Digga dann schreibt doch dein Kommentar auch auf English damit wir es auch verstehen.
The percentage of non-religious people in Eastern Germany may also be high because Eastern Germans were not protesting against the prosecution of the churches that much, they might have been accepting the whole situation. In the traditionally Catholic Poland, the societal effect of the Communist rule is now backfiring, resulting in a deeply conservative Catholic country.
Hungary, although divided by religion, has a centuries-old tradition of religious freedom, so there, too, could the end of the Communist era trigger the opposite effect.
I think being a former communist country doesn’t always mean a country still remains atheist. Like you said, Poland is 90% catholic today but Eastern Germany is like Czech Republic where 90% is atheist.
@@johnpark7972 I think the reason why the Czechs are not that upset about losing the church is because they haven’t been that devout since the Catholic Church took back control after the 30 years war
Religion disappears with education. If you have a scientific explanation for your observations, you don't need anything like "it was gods will". If people are too stupid to understand things, they are going to believe things.
Unlike expected, education is an important factor in the east.
@@holger_p Bullshit! (I don't often say this, but in this case I have to)
Religion and science are not opposite. If they were, we should close all universities of the world as soon as possible. It's always these "nature-science" human beings who think that they've eaten wisdom a thousand times but are not able to answer easiest questions! "Einbildung ist auch eine Bildung." as the Germans say
@@SELBLINK_in_your_area Why closing universities ? Close churches, that's enough. (well remain them open, if people enjoy them, it's just no source of knowledge, maybe it's a source of joy)
No, it's not human beings eaten wisdom, it's human beeings accepting their dumbness, their not knowing, their need to learn and do research.
It's the Religion who claims to know everything and to answer everything, it's for people who cannot accept to not know something.
It's exactly what you say: "not able to answer easiest questions ..." and accepting it.
A question is never easy, the answer can be easy. And of course the inventend answer is always easier to geht, than the researched answer.
So religion is for people who want easy answer. It's for believers, not for thinkers.
You try to put emotions in the game, shame of not knowing something. With emotions you destroy logic. It's as easy as this. Emotions make you lie.
There are factors you're not taking to account here. For example, West Germany suffered far less than the East during WW2 with all the bombings, it was a lot more industrialized than the east prior to the war, especially in the area around the Rhine river known as Rhineland. The West had a population about 3 times larger, a lot more territory and natural resources, and also got $1.4 billion from the Marshall Plan, which ajusting for inflation would be $18 billion today, while East Germany had to pay heavy reparations to the USSR for all the damages and millions of deaths, knowing the USSR was by far the country that lost the most during the war (27 million deaths) and contributed the most to Allied victory (80% of nazi soldiers were killed by the red army). The West wasn't blocked from trading with the majority of the world, like East Germany was. In my opinion the fascist german party AfD gets more votes in the east because of the indoctrination they suffered after the Berlin Wall fell and all the poverty and unemployment that came with the end of socialism and the privatizations of all large industries, many of which were simply abandoned after being privatized (they just wanted to end competition with the western companies), where before unemployment didn't exist and there was practically no homelesness nor hunger.
One thing to note for the trash difference ist also that a recycling mentality in east germany developed because of the shortage of supply
Yes. I was born in East Germany in the early 1980s and I recall from elementary school some sort of collection campaigns of paper or glass for recycling.
@ same for me, can confirm. as a child, you could even earn some money for collecting paper etc :)
@@Zireael83 It was outright capitalism! You supplied capital (handcart) and your labor on a freelance basis - I could earn good pocket money by collecting old paper and glass from people. ;)
Germany is one of my favourite countries in the EU! 🇩🇪
Fun Fact: The EU is a corrupt organization. They've always been a corrupt organization.
@ZegramoLeSchyzo you are right
I'm sorry.
Just kidding. Southern Germany is a great place.
Hm did mean West or East Germany? Or Bavaria?🤔😉😅😂
@@tommay6590 East
As someone coming from the East, you can also see the big difference in architecture, especially in neighbourhoods and suburbs. The East have bigger houses, but small flats, which are both colourful and traditional. The West has more of a variety of houses, different looks and styles and sizes
Germany is ethnically very divided. It has 7,000,000 Turks living within its borders, which means there’s a continuous threat to the nation’s internal stability.
No, Turks are not threat to Germany because Turkey and Germany are the best ally since 1750 Prussian times. Turks loves, respect and support Germans in every way. So you are a little bit ignorant.
@@owindustry What a bad joke... having 7,000,000 people with a different national loyalty within your country's borders is a threat to your country's stability. Fact: Erdogan had to be prevented from doing a political campaign on German soil, infuriating many Turks. If that isn't a sign of how things are going in Germany I don't know what is. Not to mention the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in Germany.
@@LectionesInterbellum where do you get this number from? I would guess, not even half the number is true.
I grew up in what used to be Eastern Germany and work in the used to be Western part for a few years now.
I agree that environmental awareness and outspokenness is more common in the western part. Although it might be added that there are a lot of environmental activists in the East too.
However, I perceive the reality of daily life in the western part as generally more wasteful. It is much more common to have a car-centric lifestyle, to have larger apartments or single-family-homes, buy new gadgets, new clothes and travel more and farther.
That is contrasted by how I grew up. Even if we were able to afford new stuff, that didn't mean we also did so. A TV set would only be replaced if it's broken beyond repair. Also, there often is only one TV set per family household. Clothes are used for decades, although they might be demoted from good clothes to stay-at-home clothes over time. Single use plastics were only reluctantly adopted. For most of my childhood up until the early 2000s, food could be bought mostly unpackaged. Traveling by train or bike is more the norm than the exception for a lot of people.
Funnily, most of that is not driven by consciousness or environmental concern, but by historical and often still present economic circumstances.
Things are changing though. Younger generations, including millennials (yes, we are not the youngest anymore but still young enough in this context) tend to adopt similar lifestyles all over the country. Then again, that is often driven by economic circumstances too.
While you are talking about the east-west division, I am also seeing in your maps a clear north south division, with the south much richer, and prosperous than the west north. It would be interesting to also analyze that.
One factor for the richer south is the automobile industry which is mostly located around Stuttgart. Germany has two big industrial centers, the Ruhrgebiet and the Metropole region Stuttgart. While the Ruhrgebiet lost a lot of industry, the automobile industry is one of the factors, why Germany is rich. The automobile industry is still developing and growing and provides for Germany but mostly for the south.
In many ways it does make a lot of sense to divide Germany into North, South, and East. The differences between East Germany and the rest are at a scale that those between North and South are not as much visible, but if you were to look only at West Germany, the North-South divide is also quite significant.
I think this goes back centuries when North Germany was influenced by the protestant Prussians and South Germany by the catholic Austrians. Also, South Germany is more mountainous and has more natural resources, while North Germany has little in that regard but very good farmland. North Germany also has direct access to the North Sea and Baltic Sea, while the South has access to the Rhine and Danube.
The state North-Rhine-Westphalia sits in the middle of the two. Both in its geographical location, but it also had a lot of coal and has the Rhine go right through it, which makes it perfect for heavy industry.
Generally speaking, the protestant North Germany has always been the heartland of the social democrats, while South Germany has more dominant conservatives. But I think that is a result of the cultural and economic factors mentioned above.
@@mareikes5923 regarding car manufacturers, it's not just Mercedes and Porsche in the Stuttgart area, it's also Audi in Ingolstadt and BMW in Munich in the South.
Baden-Württemberg has always been a great area for smaller businesses and small-time entrepreneurs, they are the real reason the area is wealthy. The tech industry is also very strong in the Stuttgart area, IBM's first quantum computer is located there. The south is WAY more than just cars.
I recently moved from north west Germany to the old DDR part and I must say something: all those stereotypes about east Germany are only that: lies. People are here more friendly with newcomers like me (I'm spaniard), towns and villages are more beautiful, I'm getting more money for the same job, landscapes are incredible... even weather is better! The only thing I don't like is that they drive their cars like italians. In fact, east Germany reminds me north of Italy which I love.
@Tim Onk Ich bin nach Jena gezogen. .. well, nicht in Jena , weil richtig teuer ist (ich wohne alein) aber 25 min entfern mit dem Auto. So weit so gut
Stell dir mal vor du hättest keine spanischen Wurzeln sondern, sondern im nahen Osten und wärst 2014/15 nach Dresden gekommen. Ich glaube, du hättest dann eine andere Meinung.
@@olpqay Das stimmt. Es wäre eine ganz andere Geschichte my friend.
@@olpqay Blödsinn. Ich war ein paar mal bei Pegida, da sind regelmäßig auch Ausländer als Redner aufgetraten, auch Muslime und Schwarze, sogar auf Englisch wenn sie kein Deutsch konnten. Es ging nie um stumpfen Ausländerhass, sondern um die Forderung nach einer qualitativen Einwanderung anstatt unserer (bis heute anhaltenden) quantitativen Einwanderung.
Warst du mal da? Ich habe bei Pegida auch unter den "Spaziergängern" viele Ausländer getroffen, viele Tschechen, Polen, Russen, Ukrainer, ... sind mitgelaufen. Und die meisten standen dem politischen Islam und der Masseneinwanderung ebenfalls skeptisch gegenüber.
@@olpqay Ist Dresden also wirklich die erste sichere Stadt, wenn man aus dem nahen Osten flieht?
In East Germany, pensions for women are often higher. In East Germany, many women went to work themselves. But in the west, many women stayed at home and now need their husbands' pensions. In the east, however, the pensions are even lower. But with every pension increase, the East gets a bonus for the increase. This should happen until the areas have become equal. But there are more pensioners in the east than in the west.
well, it is 32 years after the unification... we should watch out, if there are really pensionists left who worked in the GDR. This system is over-due.
Infos from an East German person:
3:40 lots of companies got sold to foreign investors, some of them Westgerman. Some used the opportunity to buy up oponents on the market and simply close the factories. native Eastgerman people most of the time didnt have the money to buy their own factories.
6:10 Socialist societies produced less trash since everything you could throw away could be used for something else. Reperation and upcycling were always a thing, since ressources were shorter and most of the high quality goods that were produced were shipped to capitalist countries to get some rare "westmoney" for the state.
8:20 the high amount of extremist voters mostly roots in worse living conditions and a feeling of inferiority. Additional the difference between west and east haven't changed a lot since '89. sure, both are richer now, but the east is still as far away as he was ~30 years ago. Eastern Germany is seen like p.e. the Southern States of the US - as kind of rednecks. This leads to an anti-position in the population and high anti posture against "those on the top"
8:45 Eastgermans were alowed to travel. but travelling to capitalist states was quite hard and without family there and some kind of safety net for the state (so you come back) pretty impossible.
as a german that was born in the east and moved to the west for work, i can say that i think that most of the stuff in this video seems true^^
was a real culture shock moving here. i didn´t know that this part of germany is so religious. i thought that most modern western countries don´t have many religious people anymore because religion should have stayed in the middle ages ^^
I see this as a great win, as religious people are very adequate and very pleasant to talk to, given that I myself am not religious
100% agree, you don't need to be religious to be a decent human being
You should have more respect for religion, it was religion that brought us out of the middle ages! Interestingly, the most non-religious part of Germany is also the part that seems to be stuck in the middle ages. Perhaps that Christian work ethic has something to do with why East Germans are so lazy.
You shouldn't use datasheets from 2011. There is a lot going on in Germany in many terms. Last year, there was a net outflow from regions like Baden-W. and Hamburg to regions like Saxony and Brandenburg. East German cities started to become more and more expensive and are now hubs of gentrification. Some dark spots are persistent, like Sachsen-Anhalt and Mecklenburg, but they are also rural Bundesländer anyways. As a Non-German, I think that the "Aufbau Ost", the rebuilding of the GDR (DDR), showed awesome results. The German East is very beautifully rebuilt and looks more refurbished as the West. Also, thanks to the underdevelopment, rural areas in the poorer regions look still natural and untouched.
The East has higher birth rates which I would consider positive when thinking about demographic shift. Probably it has to do with more traditional values.
Still, a lot of people from the East would go to the West due to a lack of opportunities.
Birth rates inversely correlate with wealth pretty much everywhere in the world (richer = fewer babies, this holds true when you compare societies or individuals within the same society). So I'd expect the poorer East to have higher birth rates even if all else was equal.
ya africa has a high birth rate too, i don't think that's a positive
@@sten260 Africa has birth rate that leads to population explosion. The East of Germany with 1,6 children/woman even below sustaining the population but still more than other regions in Germany.
"Traditional values" lol, did you miss the part where the majority of eastern Germans aren't religious and the farming regions are all corporatized? The Communists delivered one punch against traditions and capitalism delivered the other.
Edit: The real reason is likely lower wealth and better access to child care, both mentioned in the video.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs By that logic, East Germany would have been quite wealthy in the 1970s - because that is the time the birth rate in the GDR fell below replacement. :)
camping and hiking and 'healthy outdoor pursuits' were heavily promoted within the USSR with millions of miles of organised hikes, hostels etc, and were very, very popular. "Tramping" is an entire lifestyle culture in Czech Republic (or was in 2010 era)
You said there are many more farms in the east but it’s the complete opposite. You even showed the map that showed that the farm SIZE is bigger in the east and the logical consequence of that is that there are less farms there
What you can also see on the map is the north south divide in Germany which is older but still pronounced.
regarding the trash, I have a theory. I think in East Germany due to the scarcity of many goods under Socialism people became very frugal and also quite creative. So instead of throwing something away, people may be more likely to reuse it or turn into something else (for example making jam from strawberries after their best before date). Generally I think that DIY stuff is a bit more common in the Eastern Block states. I also was surprised to see how many people in my town go foraging for berries, elderflower or mushrooms. Given that that is sort of also an old people thing to do and the East is older than the West it sort of makes sense.
although i live in east germany i can say from my own experience that it is also very easy to live in east germany whenever i am in west germany and drive through cities there they are usually dirtier than the ones in east germany (an exception is berlin)
It's outrageous the amount of land the Germans lost to Poland. I don't know how no one ever speaks about it
If you speak about it, the germans of today themselves will come mad at you before the americans, they are brainwashed, decades of de nazifaction propaganda really fucked them up
There was this minor matter of loosing 2 world wars...
That might have contributed a bit to it.
I live in West Germany Bremen: native German Population contains around 40-50% and mostly older people, most of the younger people are of middle-east origin, very high criminality and unemployment rates, people in general live very poor here, they are struggling to survive, drugs everywhere, Police helpless and hopeless, two main religions are Protestants-Lutherons (just on the paper, in reality most of them not religious) and Islam (around 30-40% of the population, very religious),
"The western Germany developed independently, while East was strongly under control..." then why is Germany, united around Western Germany, has no independent political standing now and still is a colony to U.S.?
I visited both side of German few years ago, oh the difference are very outside of Berlin. Great video.
Very good video! Just pointing out the facts without making one part looking better than the other one. I want to add some points to this:
*1. Electoral results:* The German party DIE LINKE ("The left one") still gets better results in the East because it developed from the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) and after the so-called "unification" it first continued as PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism). Later it united with the West German WASG (Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerechtigkeit = Vote Alternative Work and Social Justice), but people still have in mind rather the past of SED and PDS. A main point of the Left Party is to reach social justice for people in East Germany, so East Germans tend stronger to choose this party than West Germans. Saarland was an exception because of the popularity of Oskar Lafontaine. (but he has left politics yet)
Although its name changed, DIE LINKE Party still targets a new social order of democratic socialism. (instead of capitalism)
*2. Another difference:* Germany is very different between North and South. The dialects sound different and there is different culture. It's hard to explain, but I try to give an example by the point of religion: Although my region in West Germany where I live has an officially high number of Christs who are church members, the belief is much stronger in the South at least concerning my generation. I've came to know some people (but it will be many more) who are still church members but either don't believe in the church or don't believe in God at all. They just stay members because you have to pay a small amount of money (Bearbeitungsgebühr) if you want to leave the church. There is also the church tax but its amount depends on your income, so people who have no or just a low income don't have to pay the church tax and so many of them stay church members because leaving would be more expensive or because they just don't think about it that much.
You're wrong about the farms being bigger.
It isn't because less development countries have more agriculture.
It's because all farms were state owned and were divided in sectors. and when the wall fell most of these sectors were bought by corporations who now own big plots of land!!
You can still see the old borders from satellite view on google maps. Farm sizes in the East were state owned and therefore much bigger than in the west where farmlands were private owned. Via satellite you see the small patches in the west and big patches in the east.
To summarize a 10min about differences in east and west:
-light bulbs
and
-money
As an old retired Scotsman living in Germany. Found your presentation first class and interesting
Germany is also devided in north and south aldi
"We needed 40 years to overcome East Germany. Sometimes in history, one has to be prepared for the long haul and not ask after four months if it still makes sense to keep up our demands." ~Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel - horrible person.
East Germany being Atheist should be listed as a third better-than-the-West statistic.
So there aren't any types of religious extremism in East Germany?
Finland has a interesting divide between Sweden controlled west and Novgorod(Russia) controlled east considering that the border was established in 1323.
I'd love to see a video about it! Terveisiä Puolasta :)
siinä on kyseessä muinaisempi syy,kuin pähkinäsaaren rauha.
Nice video! I just disagree with one aspect: you use the voting map to show that AfD has a higher voting in the East, which is obviously true, but with this you send an image of it being more right wing. The fact is that the voting for "Die Linke", a leftist party, follows basically the same pattern, with higher voting percentage on East Germany when comparing to the West. So, I'd say the East is more polarized and the vote in the West is more concentrated in parties in the center of the political spectrum.
The Socialists in east germany
got forty years to prove how socialism works.
And it was cruel, ugly and miserable
Found it quite striking that although the east of Germany obviously has the higher unemployment rates, the Ruhr area appears to be doing not that great in this sense either (I'm guessing due to the closure of a lot of the coal/mining and steel industry?).
just read about "treuhand" and u know why ;)
Yep, the Ruhr area is suffering from the end of its traditional industries (as you said, coal and steel). It has struggled with that transition for a few decades now, with ... mixed results. In the end, the effect is similar - relatively rapid de-industrialisation led to a decline in wealth and employment.
"the industry in east germany wasn't that bad, the problem is that it was state-owned" - [from what I remember from school in Germany, correct me if I'm wrong] the way east German industry worked was that every (state-owned) industry was on it's 'own'. When these industries had what looked like unacceptable looses to the government, they bundled them up into complexes with other very profitable industries. Then, after the wall came down, these complexes where either shut down or sold. (For the technology they used or just for the build space) Because, even tho east Germany wasn't ahead from west Germany it had some valuable technologies that west Germany didn't. (e.g. use of lignite to generate power)
That the industry was state-owned also ment those factories owned their production to the state. That meant in reality when they enter unification the factories had debts with the state, which was not a fortunate situation to start with. Secondly, the privatisation policy of the time was focused on selling and gaining the highest proceed - and less on maintaining production and workplaces.
I'v also heard that in Soviet Russia, the state gave positive benefits to companies that were actually faltering- much different to capitalism, whereby if your company fails, it fails. Of course the Soviet way cost the state alot of money for not much reward...
@@raincloudsradio8900 there are actually articles and books by Stalin in which he argues for building unprofitable, but strategic factories to achieve independence from the West in machinery building - at the expense of producing fewer consumer goods. This partially explains why common people always lived with shortages - but at least their country could single-handedly produce tanks from its own steel and with completely domestic parts - a success, I guess?..
Khrushchev BTW tried to introduce a market element in otherwise fully planned Soviet economy, and people even liked that (read up Kosygin reforms). Unfortunately, he was ousted shortly before it took place and it was then slowly rolled back by his successor.
You can find these differences in every country. And about foreigners not living in the east of Germany, well it’s less job opportunities so go figure.
The DDR was run by Germans, not by Soviets… just saying…
You said that east Germany only had better results in 2 of the categories but I as a west German would actually say 4, the fact that they produce less trash per person is better and also the fact that east Germany has less foreigners is better.
unfortunatly less and less people think about that, their own culture and to preserve it
thank you for your comment, you are right.
i have nothing against foreigeners and have many as friends.
but i really like walking through streets and not only hering foreign languages spoken but also german, same with traditions etc. having imigrants is a good thing but probably not if they made up over 90% of the people that are living in some regions. integration doesn´t work like that. i know many that don´t even bother learning german anymore.
that was different in the past. the imigrants back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s... in west & east, at least tried joining an and make some of the german culture their own (and learn the language).
i like the german language so this development is definitely something a can not feel very good about.
@@Zireael83 u describe the main problem,
immigration yes but it needs adaption of local tradition at least in parts or no peace at all
The West has always been more densely populated (going back centuries, if not millennia), so that isn't too surprising, although yes, that difference is certainly exacerbated by the other difference in prosperity and opportunity among the two regions.
Naah Saxony and Thuringia both were almost as industrialised as NRW. And had a really high population density as well.
@@blabladuweier8654 Not just almost. They were on par. Saxony and Thuringia were one of the industrial main hubs in germany.
It's always funny when people who don't come from Germany want to explain Germany 😂
it's ok for me. At least they think about Germany. We shouldn't be arrogant and laughing about them. We should take any help we can. During all the history germany was fooled. The most people on this planet are just slaves as we are. Any human can see, whats going on in his homeland. Haben wir denn eine Wahl Getting Nervous? Ich weiss genau, was Du meinst!
Typical egotistical German 🤣. America made your country
@@livethefuture2492 I see so much nonsense being spread about Germany and yes, I have lived here for 60 years and know better.
4:30 That is a very very generous way of saying „recently privatized East German companies were bought up for pennies by West German investors, which then wanted to move the HQ to them to assert larger control“.
The shock from introducing capitalism in this style is truly insane in its scale.
“You see the mistakes of one system-the surveillance-and the mistakes of the other-the inequality-but there’s nothing you could have done in the one and nothing you can do now about the other. She laughs wryly. “And the clearer you see that, the worse you feel.”
--Anna Funder
Not sure if the inequality is a mistake
@@HouseJawn well, if 1% has billions of $$$ and the rest pay 3 months of their salary to see a doctor, yeah, inequality is a mistake.
@@HouseJawn It is. Unless you think that that's how capitalism works, and approve it. But still, it is.
@@HouseJawn wtf dude
You think today's surveillance is better?
In some aspects the very east of Bavaria has simillar results to East Germany.
Oh! Why is that?
Which aspects?
It's also interesting what is recently changing. Berlin is the fastest growing city nominally in Germany (even though thousands are moving from Berlin to other cities right outside of it) and many new start ups are found there. So the importance of Berlin will rise once again.
But it's not just Berlin. In general more people move to cities in East Germany because of space and cheaper apartments.
Growing from 3.3 million to 3.6 million from 2000-2021 is just 10%. It's really not that much. Maybe it's a high rate in germany, but on low level. It's mainly urbanisation, cause the overall population in Germany doesn't really grow.
The importance of Berlin will not increase, because half of the city is still unemployed
Eastgermany is cooler because we can drive 60 with our Simson Mokicks 😂
Also i think the east makes less trash because we are used to shortage from soviet days and so we reused a lot of things which would had landed in the trash in west germany
And as for the trailer issue, i think the answer is the powerlessness of the eastern cars because as an example the 26hp Trabant already had power problems without a trailer
Though it is a good car XD
Lmao I'm german and black and wouldn't want to live in the east either
yeah as a POC it would be really hard to live in the east
@@FemboyLevi true we already have more than enough Neonazis in Westgermany
@@FemboyLevi we had many in east before 1990, so wrong!
@@dr.v.rumpler5230 Not "many". And if you read accounts by e.g. workers from Mocambique or Angola about how they were treated in East Germany (before and after reunification), that was often abysmal and as racist as you would imagine.
@@varana one of them of namibia told me people there love only germany not uk or france, germans were builders uk/france were colonists
and later it was the same
they were socialist brothers and no slaves in eastern germany like u say
8:35 I live in Bavaria, and we don't own a camper, but if we go camping, we rent one. Additionally, 2 people living less than 50m away from my home have campers
i am from thüringen and i dont know anyone there that owns a camper or knows someone that does.
at them oment i am living in stuttgart. and there are streets where one camper stands after another.
in east germany, back in the old days, only rich people or people with connections (party-members) could afford one or even had a car to begin with. my parents were on a list for a car for over 10 years already and then 1989 came ^^ would have had to wait for several more years
There is no "East Germany" here, but rather Central Germany, since East Germany has been under Slavic occupation since 1945.
West Germany was also in the sphere of influence of the Western powers. Same deal as GDR and USSR. No difference. None. Today FRG still is while Soviet and Russia has pulled out all their occupying troops from German soil. The Western allies still remain on German soil, camouflaged as Nato partners.
We even pay for their imperial wars of expansion now ... :)
North and south Germany to a lesser extent. There are also divides between specific cities or regions and the rest of the country, such as South Schleswig (North Schleswig is part of Denmark), Bavaria, Berlin, Hamberg, etc.
Cold War divide of nearly half a century surely causes issues and odd differences between the east and west populations of Germany. I’d even wager that Eastern Germans have less criticism and disdain for Russia today then the West.
You are right
The reason for that is not the Germans themselves , it’s the big ruski community which is left over after soviet acupatioj army left east Germany. Same problems Baltic states face , where 20% of Latvian population are ethic ruskies, but since all those have respectable passports they don’t count as a foreigners , hence you don’t see it on maps.
@@jolyroger9224 Not entirely right, the Germans in the east dont like West Germany and dont like the EU so they are more friendly to Russia
Not really, we distrust the russians, but just the same way as we distrust the americans XD
@@GeorgKallenbach you may do it , but when I’ve been to Saxony in general and in Dresden specifically , this is what I saw and Iv been told .
Childcare was a priority in east Germany because woman were expected to go working.
As this solved the labour problem, compared to inviting foreigners in west Germany
The old ad telling a housewife that if you want to keep your husband you better know how to make a Schnitzel is a west German one.
The GDR did have foreign workers though - in the final years even on a commercial basis from Vietnam. Many of them became sellers of untaxed cigarettes in the 1990s and early 2000.
0:55 The zones of occupation were not according to where each side had invaded, but they were agreed upon months before the end of the war in 1944 in a conference in London.
Yeah it's a very common misconception, people always assume that the borders were drawn based on how far the Soviets advanced. But actually the US advanced well into east Germany all the way up to the Elbe river.
They didn't really 'exchange' it for West Berlin. It was always decided that Berlin would be divided similarly.
Though I wonder, Looking at the original London conference map, why the Western allies gave the Soviets the largest occupation zone by far including the eastern territories and east Prussia. I would imagin3 they would want to divide Germany into even thirds or something, but they gave like half of it to the soviets in the first draft of the proposal itself.
Also interesting to note is that West Germany was benefiting from the immigration of highly educated East German people to supplement their shortage for highly educated workers, after the fall of the wall. This drained said workforce from east germany itself and uplifted the economic development in f. e. bavaria.
It’s pretty incredible how even decades later divides from a old Cold War can still be seen in many European countries today
Why is that incredible? We aren't talking about ancient history. Most people alive in Europe were born during the Cold War.
@@evancombs5159 it’s still interesting
That isn't even that weird. It's within living memory. As was shown in the other video, divisions from over 150 years ago also affect countries like Poland and Romania.
@@2712animefreak I know
Currently it appears the east is slowly catching up.Saxony achieves the best educational results now and has a very well developed industry. One has to say that this was achieved by low wages but this is the only chance and now it starts to pay off. Many of the well educated young people return to the east.
yeah, i am from the eastern part & studiet there and now was warking for many years in the west because i didn´t get a job in the east. but now there are more andd more jobs again and i am planning to return to the east (Thüringen) next year or so. home sweet home :)
@@Zireael83 Thüringen is very beautiful, neat, tidy and clean. I ❤Thüringen
This was a very interesting and light-hearted video. Thank you!