salm wrote:
sadly there appear to be loads of these greedy bastards who´d build the wall back up. they´re porbably right, when they say that we´d be off better financially if we still had it but personally i don´t think that a small financial advantage could compensate the fact that an entire country is now free instead of blocked off from half of the world. that´s a thing i´m willing to pay for.
Too bad that that would have happened anyway. What freed the GDR was NOT the reunification with West Germany but the demise of the USSR. They would have been a free country regardless.
The merely would have been a separate free country as opposed to part of the FRG.
A seperate dying country. The GDR was already in the endphase of it's life, when the events of 1989 happened. The economy was a wreck, politics even worse, ecology in shrambles and people leving it in the tens of thousands.
Trust me, east Germany hadn't had a chance.
And that's different from today...how?
THose who can, and want, leave. What remains is a wrecked economy, deserted cities and no blühende Landschaften...
Great Dolphin Conspiracy - Chatter box
"Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknown, everything is obvious." ZORAC GALE Force Euro Wimp Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
For 40 years, the reunification had been one of the main goals of German politics. There are so many problems now because the reunification has been unnecessarily hurried, because the former chancellor wanted to go into history as the grand unifier. The EU took its time incorporating poor countries and there have been few problems.
"If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon,
you will be a minister of death, praying for war." - GySgt. Hartman
"God has a hard on for Marines, because we kill everything we see." - GySgt. Hartman
Batman wrote:
Too bad that that would have happened anyway. What freed the GDR was NOT the reunification with West Germany but the demise of the USSR. They would have been a free country regardless.
The merely would have been a separate free country as opposed to part of the FRG.
A seperate dying country. The GDR was already in the endphase of it's life, when the events of 1989 happened. The economy was a wreck, politics even worse, ecology in shrambles and people leving it in the tens of thousands.
Trust me, east Germany hadn't had a chance.
And that's different from today...how?
THose who can, and want, leave. What remains is a wrecked economy, deserted cities and no blühende Landschaften...
I just wanted to make clear that it already was a shithole. And it still is a shithole. 40 years of "real existierendem Sozialismus" made it into it, and most likely it will be ruined forever.
But we can be glad, that the number of "Ossies" isn't that a big percentage of the whole population. (15 million of 82 millon Germans)
"Bauuuut die Mauuuuuer auf! Baut die Mauer auf!
Maaaacht nen' Deeeckel drauf! Macht nen' Deckel drauf!"
Just to give a example:
The city I live in (~225.000 population) was directly at the border to east Germany. Todays there is EXTREME anger at small towns 1-2 km east, which use the money they get to ruin our city's economy by seeling land at only 1/10 of the west price. That way they pull companies out of city, bleeding out our economy.
Jesus mate..welcome to the real world, where undercutting the competition is used as a means to increase market share and your own weath.
Trust me, none of the politicians from the towns in the east dare to enter our city, because the anger is big. Also, people who not wanted to live in the city and pay taxes there, and therefore moves to the east just over the city limits are unwelcome. Because they not pay taxes to our city, but still want to have all the citys services. They are seen as parasites.
Once again..welcome to the real world
Via money Europe could become political in five years" "... the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would ... the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal"
GySgt. Hartman wrote:There are so many problems now because the reunification has been unnecessarily hurried{SNIP}. The EU took its time incorporating poor countries and there have been few problems.
Acting swiftly may have been prudent. We needed only to pay a small bribe to the SU under Gorbachev. One of the main arguements during the hardline coup against him was selling the GDR too cheaply. And consider the resistance by all of our ´Allies´ but Spain and the US ...
Citizens of prospective EU countries cannot claim citizenship of an EU country. But any East German could claim West German citizenship. East Germans could have ´voted with their feet´, unless we had been willing to build a new wall.
East Germany was kept alive by West German funds since ca. 1982, to avoid another bloody Soviet intervention during its collapse.
