Beware, the Krauts are coming (once again)!

Skybird · 09-11-09, 04:45 PM

These days its not only ceremonies for 9/11, but celebrating German reunification as well. In these days of the year, but 20 years back, some things had started to slide into a moving that changed the face of Europe once again, and the face of all the world. what began with some individual'S and families desperate stories of dramatic escape and hide-and-seek in hungarian meadows, led to a revolution in which not a single shot was fired and that ended with the end of the cold war and the end of the most threatening military standoff history knows.

And some people were horrified.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...648364,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8251211.stm

Two more years, and I can say that I spend one half of my life in a split country, and one half of my life in a united country. and in three years and later, I will have lived in a united country for longer time than I ever had lived in a split country.

Onkel Neal · 09-11-09, 06:51 PM

Congrats, Germany.

Freiwillige · 09-11-09, 07:43 PM

Yes Congrats Germany! Now if we can only fix Korea! By the way Skybird what side of the wall were you on?

MothBalls · 09-11-09, 07:49 PM

I sincerely hope that the reunification of Germany has helped the people there. To me there is nothing more tragic than seeing entire populations suffer because of the decisions of a few that came to power.

I look forward to the day, and I probably won't see it in my lifetime, but I would hope that the day will come when we can tear down all the walls and not have a need for borders.

Carotio · 09-11-09, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

celebrating German reunification as well. In these days of the year, but 20 years back,

Two more years, and I can say that I spend one half of my life in a split country, and one half of my life in a united country. and in three years and later, I will have lived in a united country for longer time than I ever had lived in a split country.

Second part means 2011-1991 = 20 years * 2 = 40 years - 2 = so you're 38 years old today, right?

So how is it in Germany today - do people still use the words: Wessis & Ossis?
That was used quite a lot in the 90'ies IIRC, often in a negative sence...

Shearwater · 09-11-09, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carotio

So how is it in Germany today - do people still use the words: Wessis & Ossis?
That was used quite a lot in the 90'ies IIRC, often in a negative sence...

They still do, although the frequency has diminished somewhat I guess. And my sister doesn't use it for sure because her bf (being a West German herself) is from East Germany

The more curious thing is though that almost all politically relevant statistics (employment, economy, education and the like) are still divided between East and West Germany. There's still a slight sense of separation which I think is outdated in many ways.

And it's always nice to read the opinions of Mrs Thatcher. I owe a lot of respect to that lady - after all, she was one of the persons who made soft ice cream possible

Skybird · 09-12-09, 05:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Yes Congrats Germany! Now if we can only fix Korea! By the way Skybird what side of the wall were you on?

Inside of it.

West-Berlin.

Skybird · 09-12-09, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carotio

Second part means 2011-1991 = 20 years * 2 = 40 years - 2 = so you're 38 years old today, right?

So how is it in Germany today - do people still use the words: Wessis & Ossis?
That was used quite a lot in the 90'ies IIRC, often in a negative sence...

Count with 1989 instead of 1991.

42

Carotio · 09-12-09, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skybird

Count with 1989 instead of 1991.

42

Oh, yeah, my mistake, I remember wrong. I was in Berlin in 1991, one year after the official reunification of Oct. 3rd 1990, whereas the opening took place November 9th 1989.

Skybird · 09-12-09, 05:42 AM

"Wessies/Ossies" occasionally gets used, but not with so much polarising sentiments anymore, more often as a good-willed joke. I mean young people leaving school now have zero memory of the old days back then, while us witnesses of the old times become older and quiter.

The East is economically prospering only in some hotspots and bigger cities, but in general it is a desert, with extremely bad perspectives. On every comparing statistics chart and map of all germany you still see the former GDR marked in such different colours, that it is as if the state border still would be there.

The demographic change spells desaster because it is far more dramatic and desastrous here than in the rest of Germany and Europe, leaving only the old behind. the young women leave and go West to have families and jobs, the young men do that, too - if they can: if they don't match the hard market demands in their qualification, they cannot do that, stay unemployed, and must stay in the east, as singles. In no other region in Europe there is such a giant lack of young women of the age to marry.

Socially weak young men (often with somewhat inferiority awareness because they know they did not make it on the Western market), and old people, and no women - means a very unhealthy social climate, means low tax incomes for the states. Means more and more infrastructure cannot be run. Doctors are becoming rare. Stalling public transportation systems (while old people do not have doctors in their towns anymore). Underfunded, dying schools. no kids. No economic new-founding (unemploymeent in some places 40% and more). Shrinking population. Growing Nazism (in some hotspot areas up to 45%, and an unknopwn plus of silent supporters). Even steeper economic decline. People who can fford it leaving faster, more "losers" left behind... even lesser tax incomes... a vicious circle.

Or in short: no future. I think much of it will become somewhat a desert. In some places it already is.

Of course no politician can afford to say that loud, but I admit I think most of the East we can write off. The trends says a very clear and unmistakable language, and almost every major statistic analysis of future perpsectives published in the past 10 years paints a complete doomsday scenario for let's say two thirds of the East. If I would be there I would move heaven and hell to get out of there. the East in general will never be on comparable economic grounds like the West of Germany, and Western European nations. That can only be seen in some hotspots.

Germany has terribly underestimated the costs - financially and else - of the reunification. And the GDR was in comparably good shape - if and when Korea should reunite, the South will see even greater problems then Westgermany did, for comparing with North Korea, the GDR was a giant paradise of unmatched economic health.

The task could possibly sink Korea in the longer run of reunification. It will be volumes bigger, than ours.

Sledgehammer427 · 09-12-09, 05:54 AM

Sometimes Germany sounds like it is still a scary place to be

Skybird · 09-12-09, 06:14 AM

Travelling as a tourist there, you hardly notice these things. You move just through, and you move too fast. So don'T be afraid to visit it!

I have seen quite some countries, but no country ever that was only scarying all together, or only a paradise alltogether. east Germany has some nice landscape to see, especially the closer to Poland you come (and then areas in Poland itself). It's just a place that is much more difficult to form an existence and a future in, compared to west Germany. anything I dsaid about the situation in Eastgermany only makes sense and should be seen with standards on mind that compare it to the rest of northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe.

If I compare it with Algeria, or Syria or Anatolia, all places that I learned to know a bit, or places in aFrica or north Korea, Eastgermany suddenly appears to be as paradise on Earth.

So, our standards to which we compare our lives, play into it. And one certainly must amdit that wetsern living standards are excessively exaggerated and make us all living on tick that we cannot pay back, never.

If all mankind would live by the same standards like we in the West, despair and revolts would cause thermonuclear global war within a couple of years, I'm sure. Imagine 7 billion people consuming and wasting like we do in the West - our planet would not support that kind of a desaster, and many societies in history have collapsed in surprinsingly short time due to the civilisation in a place consumed all it's life-supporting natural resources, destroyed the environment, and then - after having messed up everything that was available for messing it up - was left with the only choice to turn to cannibalism, and then died.

09-12-09, 06:52 AM

There was already one thread about this subject, "homesick for a dictator", about how some of the former East-Germans are missing the old times of the DDR. A lot of DDR memorabilia in Finland also, for some reason. We've also had Stasi-trials that I think are still pretty common in Germany as well.

I don't know, is it really so that there is not much to celebrate now with the 20th anniversary etc.? Or less then people thought there would be back in 1989? It was a rough start to the whole unified Germany with the tough recession in the early 90's and it hasn't really eased much since. A lot of glass and steel constructing in Berlin but the rest of old East-Germany has stagnated.

I wonder if East-Germany today is what the Americans had in mind when they wanted so much to "tear down the walls" etc.

Oberon · 09-12-09, 11:22 AM

I remember watching the celebrations on the news, hard to think that it was twenty years ago now.

Time just goes so bloody fast.

Freiwillige · 09-13-09, 06:31 PM

I fail to understand this East\West German situation. I mean Germany united is the size of Texas so you would think that the prosperous west would simply expand production into the east and vice verse. Is there some sort of economic blockade of east German industry by the west?

I just cannot understand how Germany has failed unify its two parts.
Its not as if Germany was split for centuries, People on both sides of the wall remember when there was no wall.

09-11-09, 04:45 PM	#1
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,602 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Beware, the Krauts are coming (once again)! These days its not only ceremonies for 9/11, but celebrating German reunification as well. In these days of the year, but 20 years back, some things had started to slide into a moving that changed the face of Europe once again, and the face of all the world. what began with some individual'S and families desperate stories of dramatic escape and hide-and-seek in hungarian meadows, led to a revolution in which not a single shot was fired and that ended with the end of the cold war and the end of the most threatening military standoff history knows. And some people were horrified. http://www.spiegel.de/international/...648364,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8251211.stm Two more years, and I can say that I spend one half of my life in a split country, and one half of my life in a united country. and in three years and later, I will have lived in a united country for longer time than I ever had lived in a split country. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert. Last edited by Skybird; 09-11-09 at 04:58 PM.

09-11-09, 06:51 PM	#2
Onkel Neal Born to Run Silent Join Date: Jan 1997 Location: Cougar Trap, Texas Posts: 21,383 Downloads: 541 Uploads: 224	Congrats, Germany. __________________ SUBSIM - 26 Years on the Web

09-12-09, 05:42 AM	#10
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,602 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	"Wessies/Ossies" occasionally gets used, but not with so much polarising sentiments anymore, more often as a good-willed joke. I mean young people leaving school now have zero memory of the old days back then, while us witnesses of the old times become older and quiter. The East is economically prospering only in some hotspots and bigger cities, but in general it is a desert, with extremely bad perspectives. On every comparing statistics chart and map of all germany you still see the former GDR marked in such different colours, that it is as if the state border still would be there. The demographic change spells desaster because it is far more dramatic and desastrous here than in the rest of Germany and Europe, leaving only the old behind. the young women leave and go West to have families and jobs, the young men do that, too - if they can: if they don't match the hard market demands in their qualification, they cannot do that, stay unemployed, and must stay in the east, as singles. In no other region in Europe there is such a giant lack of young women of the age to marry. Socially weak young men (often with somewhat inferiority awareness because they know they did not make it on the Western market), and old people, and no women - means a very unhealthy social climate, means low tax incomes for the states. Means more and more infrastructure cannot be run. Doctors are becoming rare. Stalling public transportation systems (while old people do not have doctors in their towns anymore). Underfunded, dying schools. no kids. No economic new-founding (unemploymeent in some places 40% and more). Shrinking population. Growing Nazism (in some hotspot areas up to 45%, and an unknopwn plus of silent supporters). Even steeper economic decline. People who can fford it leaving faster, more "losers" left behind... even lesser tax incomes... a vicious circle. Or in short: no future. I think much of it will become somewhat a desert. In some places it already is. Of course no politician can afford to say that loud, but I admit I think most of the East we can write off. The trends says a very clear and unmistakable language, and almost every major statistic analysis of future perpsectives published in the past 10 years paints a complete doomsday scenario for let's say two thirds of the East. If I would be there I would move heaven and hell to get out of there. the East in general will never be on comparable economic grounds like the West of Germany, and Western European nations. That can only be seen in some hotspots. Germany has terribly underestimated the costs - financially and else - of the reunification. And the GDR was in comparably good shape - if and when Korea should reunite, the South will see even greater problems then Westgermany did, for comparing with North Korea, the GDR was a giant paradise of unmatched economic health. The task could possibly sink Korea in the longer run of reunification. It will be volumes bigger, than ours. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-12-09, 05:54 AM	#11
Sledgehammer427 PacWagon Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Drinking coffee and staring at trees in Massachusetts Posts: 2,908 Downloads: 287 Uploads: 0	Sometimes Germany sounds like it is still a scary place to be __________________ Cold Waters Voice Crew - Fire Control Officer Cmdr O. Myers - C/O USS Nautilus (SS-168) 114,000 tons sunk - 4 Spec Ops completed V-boat Nutcase - Need supplies? Japanese garrison on a small island in the way? Just give us a call! D4C!

09-12-09, 06:14 AM	#12
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,602 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Travelling as a tourist there, you hardly notice these things. You move just through, and you move too fast. So don'T be afraid to visit it! I have seen quite some countries, but no country ever that was only scarying all together, or only a paradise alltogether. east Germany has some nice landscape to see, especially the closer to Poland you come (and then areas in Poland itself). It's just a place that is much more difficult to form an existence and a future in, compared to west Germany. anything I dsaid about the situation in Eastgermany only makes sense and should be seen with standards on mind that compare it to the rest of northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe. If I compare it with Algeria, or Syria or Anatolia, all places that I learned to know a bit, or places in aFrica or north Korea, Eastgermany suddenly appears to be as paradise on Earth. So, our standards to which we compare our lives, play into it. And one certainly must amdit that wetsern living standards are excessively exaggerated and make us all living on tick that we cannot pay back, never. If all mankind would live by the same standards like we in the West, despair and revolts would cause thermonuclear global war within a couple of years, I'm sure. Imagine 7 billion people consuming and wasting like we do in the West - our planet would not support that kind of a desaster, and many societies in history have collapsed in surprinsingly short time due to the civilisation in a place consumed all it's life-supporting natural resources, destroyed the environment, and then - after having messed up everything that was available for messing it up - was left with the only choice to turn to cannibalism, and then died. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

09-11-09, 07:43 PM	#3
Freiwillige The Old Man Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Phx. Az Posts: 1,458 Downloads: 24 Uploads: 0	Yes Congrats Germany! Now if we can only fix Korea! By the way Skybird what side of the wall were you on?

09-11-09, 07:49 PM	#4
MothBalls Ace of the Deep Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,012 Downloads: 20 Uploads: 0	I sincerely hope that the reunification of Germany has helped the people there. To me there is nothing more tragic than seeing entire populations suffer because of the decisions of a few that came to power. I look forward to the day, and I probably won't see it in my lifetime, but I would hope that the day will come when we can tear down all the walls and not have a need for borders.

09-12-09, 06:52 AM	#13
OneToughHerring Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	There was already one thread about this subject, "homesick for a dictator", about how some of the former East-Germans are missing the old times of the DDR. A lot of DDR memorabilia in Finland also, for some reason. We've also had Stasi-trials that I think are still pretty common in Germany as well. I don't know, is it really so that there is not much to celebrate now with the 20th anniversary etc.? Or less then people thought there would be back in 1989? It was a rough start to the whole unified Germany with the tough recession in the early 90's and it hasn't really eased much since. A lot of glass and steel constructing in Berlin but the rest of old East-Germany has stagnated. I wonder if East-Germany today is what the Americans had in mind when they wanted so much to "tear down the walls" etc.

09-12-09, 11:22 AM	#14
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	I remember watching the celebrations on the news, hard to think that it was twenty years ago now. Time just goes so bloody fast.

09-13-09, 06:31 PM	#15
Freiwillige The Old Man Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Phx. Az Posts: 1,458 Downloads: 24 Uploads: 0	I fail to understand this East\West German situation. I mean Germany united is the size of Texas so you would think that the prosperous west would simply expand production into the east and vice verse. Is there some sort of economic blockade of east German industry by the west? I just cannot understand how Germany has failed unify its two parts. Its not as if Germany was split for centuries, People on both sides of the wall remember when there was no wall.