REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Fig. 5: For the East German border troops this was a day of defeat
Remembrance in Time
In the following weeks hundreds of thousands of people came over to visit West-Berlin.
Not only East Germans, but people from everywhere in the world came to Berlin in order
to witness the historical events. To every "east citizen" a welcoming payment of 100 DM
was afforded. The shops in the west, notably for fruits, electronic entertainment and
pornography were overcrowded. Most of the “Ossies” could be identified by their
multicolored clothes, coiffures, and by their accents and vocabulary, the latter still to this
day.
At this time, the West Germans had a feeling of superiority. The enthusiasm and
patriotic sentiments culminated when Germany won the World Cup in 1990. But the
disillusionment followed very soon on both sides of the wall.
5. The wall in our heads
After the fall of the Berlin wall many of the symbols of the German Democratic
Republic were removed. However, some East Germans began to feel nostalgia for certain
aspects of their lives in East Germany. Ostalgie particularly refers to the nostalgia for
aspects of the way of life and culture in the former GDR, which disappeared after the
reunification. Next to nostalgia for everyday aspects of life, Ostalgie was also inspired by
the absence of unemployment and poverty in the GDR. Indeed, Ostalgie could be inspired
by the longing of the Ossies for the social system and the sense of community of the
GDR. Before 1990, there was no unemployment or poverty in the eastern part of
Germany.
During his campaign for Chancellor in 1991 Helmut Kohl had promised „blossoming
landscapes" [10]. The dissatisfaction of the former GDR citizens began when they
noticed that the economic level of West Germany could not be reached within short-time.
The reunification was not a merger between equals; it was rather a takeover where the
little partner was incorporated at any costs. Hence, Ossies considered themselves as 2 nd
class-citizens and they were given the impression that they were unproductively and that
they believed in the wrong God for 40 years.