Barbara Gügold (Berlin) p.5-24
2004 Issue 3
Abstract
This paper attempts to answer several questions. How do east Germans live and feel today? Can we still find an east German identity, or has society changed and become more differentiated? What role do east Germans play in reunified Germany? Is this role appropriate or not? Will east Germans become like west Germans in the long run or not? What could be their input into Germany’s future under the changed conditions of the twenty-first century?
To answer these questions the paper brings together expectations of fifteen years ago, lost dreams, frustrations, anger, feelings of betrayal, dreams come true, success stories and the unspectacular but nevertheless positive arrival in everyday life of the majority of east Germans in a new Germany they always wanted to be part of, their different relations with their “brothers and sisters” in the west, and their struggle to become equal partners with them. It uses concrete examples from different social spheres in order to show the development of life and the people in the “neue Länder” and how they have become what they are today.