2024-10-02 17:29:00
Our author comes from Baden-Württemberg, her friend from Thuringia. Does this still matter 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall?
I look for my friend’s gaze. But he focuses on the breakfast sandwich. He grew up in Thuringia, I grew up in Baden-Württemberg. We met in Dresden, where we both studied. We fell in love on the balcony of a shared apartment and met four months later, on a sunny day in June 2020. Since then I have wondered whether, 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it still matters that he comes from ‘East and I from the East West.
When I ask him the question at breakfast, he thinks about it for a moment and then shakes his head. According to him, clichés are used when talking about the differences that still exist between East and West. For Richie there is no such thing as “typically East German” or “typically West German”. He meets people impartially and doesn’t like to pigeonhole. Chivalrous. I agree. But I don’t entirely agree.
Drawers help when it comes to making injustice visible. And at least on an economic level there is an injustice. I read what Lilly Blaudszun writes on Instagram. She is a political influencer and always shares the facts, which should be reason enough to use the bland “East” and “West” categories. For example, in 2023, full-time employees in the East earned on average 824 euros less gross per month than in the West. I also read from Lilly Blaudszun that there is no region in Western Germany where people own as little land or real estate as in Eastern Germany.
I also came across a study that addresses the question of who actually holds power in East Germany: Only 21% of managers in East Germany are East Germans. Things look even bleaker when you look at Germany as a whole. According to the 2023 Elite Monitor, East Germans occupy only 12.2% of management positions, out of a population share of 20%. Unfortunately, when it comes to power, whether you are East German or West German plays a big role.
East Germany meets West Germany: Is an exciting, hot mix emerging?
But what about our relationship? Something East German meets something West German here and it becomes an exciting, simmering mixture that I can now trace back to Richie’s growth as a farm boy from Jena and my growth as a Maultaschen queen? Certainly not. However, there are always times when I have to think about our East-West origins, where in reality we are typical Ossi and typical Wessi.
I like to consume. Particularly expensive barista coffee with foam elephants made from oat milk. Richie affectionately calls me his Swabian princess when I don’t like his filter coffee.
Richie grew up in a large family. Three generations in a single property. He spent a lot of time with his grandparents because both of his parents worked. My mother, on the other hand, was a perfect Swabian housewife. Richie attended the handball club and spent a lot more time in the community as a child, while my brother and I “optimized” ourselves more as individuals. We went abroad, took dance lessons, visited museums.
But there are just as many examples that do not fit the cliché, just as many Richie and Anna who are similarly different, but both come from Weimar or both from Bochum. We have a bias or two, I think, but they’re not significant. So is Richie right? Do our origins no longer play a role in our relationship? Sorry honey, I think you’re wrong.
When the Wall fell, his parents were in their early twenties, as we are today
I remember one evening we were having dinner at his parents’ house. We talked about their youth and how they met. Both were in their early twenties when the wall collapsed. As old as Richie and I are today.
I asked how they both perceived the big change. At first there was silence. Then they both began to talk. Richie later told me that he never told his parents about their feelings in their twenties. Since I perceive Richie and his family as East Germans, I ask different questions. For Richie they are his parents, for me they are also contemporary witnesses. Perhaps Richie is somewhat blind to the political experience that is deeply rooted in his family.
I notice the same thing when Richie meets my grandparents. My grandfather fled to the West shortly before the Wall was built. With Richie he finally has a person who brings his broken past into the here and now. While my grandfather looks at me questioningly when I start talking about my psychology studies, he becomes very talkative when he talks to Richie about the East and the GDR. He talks about the expropriation of the family farm, the internship in Jena and asks how many hectares Richie’s family owns.
The turning point plays a role in our relationship. Not because the clichés about Ossis and Wessis are true, but because it creates conversations. Conversations with our parents and grandparents, but also conversations between me and Richie. The turning point plays a role because it always reminds me that we have a different view of the world.
#love #wall #heads