The Student Room Group

A2 German: Germany reunification; consequences

Hi,

I have just begun my German A2 course, having finished AS, and have been given a project to do on East Germany.
I'm the only one in the class doing these titles, so I've been trying to find information out, but without any guidance on where to look.

One of the sections for the project is:
"Die Folgen der Wiedervereinigung fuer Deutschland"
(The consequences of reunification for Germany)
I don't know what to put, and have looked on www.tivi.de, and wiki.de..but i can't find anything of much relevance..
All I have so far is that Wessis had to pay tax in order to help improve the structure of East Germany, for example the education system.

Also, I need to find information about how life is now in Germany...
the pointers I have to go by are:

what has changed in the 18 years since the reunification


how has life improved/is it recovering


what is the employment status


how have crime rates changed


is there racism


why is the neo-nazi party popular in the east



Finally, does anyone know anything about the school system in East Germany..
So far, I have that students in E. Germany study particular subjects, such as military (but i don't knwo why)
and that they are protective of their grades - so if someone does badly, they don't recrd it, to ensure that they keep up a good reputation..

If anyone could help..I would be grateful!
Danke,
x
Reply 1
bex75
Finally, does anyone know anything about the school system in East Germany..
So far, I have that students in E. Germany study particular subjects, such as military (but i don't knwo why)
and that they are protective of their grades - so if someone does badly, they don't recrd it, to ensure that they keep up a good reputation..

Hmm, that sounds a bit dodgy to me... Where did you get this information from?:confused:
even after the reunification, unemployment was still rife in the East, because there weren't any major redevelopments; even today, in some Bundeslaender, things are as they were when the wall was up.

Of course, you can talk about the day to day things that changed, too - even to the point of what happens in the film "Good Bye Lenin", where the cultures mixed. Western clothes appeared in East Germany, but not vice versa. Lots of products were no longer sold in shops, like Spreewald pickles, to name one. As such, there sprung up new areas of collecting - paraphernalia from East Germany, known as "Ostalgie".

Potentially, the neo-Nazis are popular in the East because while the wall was up, there were negligeable, perhaps non-existent levels of immigration into East Germany, as opposed to West Germany, which boomed and benefited from it. As such, a lot of the middle aged and older Generation remember what it was like living without foreigners, and have passed these beliefs down to their children, who are happy to dislike foreigners and minority groups, especially vis a vis the levels of unemployment.
Reply 3
bex75
Hi,

I have just begun my German A2 course, having finished AS, and have been given a project to do on East Germany.
I'm the only one studying it, so I've been trying to find information out, but without any guidance on where to look.

One of the sections for the project is:
"Die Folgen der Wiedervereinigung fuer Deutschland"
(The consequences of reunification for Germany)
I don't know what to put, and have looked on www.tivi.de, and wiki.de..but i can't find anything of much relevance..
All I have so far is that Wessis had to pay tax in order to help improve the structure of East Germany, for example the education system.

Also, I need to find information about how life is now in Germany...
the pointers I have to go by are:

what has changed in the 18 years since the reunification


how has life improved/is it recovering


what is the employment status


how have crime rates changed


is there racism


why is the neo-nazi party popular in the east



Finally, does anyone know anything about the school system in East Germany..
So far, I have that students in E. Germany study particular subjects, such as military (but i don't knwo why)
and that they are protective of their grades - so if someone does badly, they don't recrd it, to ensure that they keep up a good reputation..

If anyone could help..I would be grateful!
Danke,
x

You could talk about the change in abortion laws and the status of abortion in east and west germany and then in unified germany. I did a piece of A2 coursework on how abortion laws changed in germany from the nazi era to present day...fairly interesting really.
Reply 4
hobnob
Hmm, that sounds a bit dodgy to me... Where did you get this information from?:confused:


Our teacher went through it with us...giving us slight pointers..and said that was one. :s-smilie:
Reply 5
Greatleysteg
even after the reunification, unemployment was still rife in the East, because there weren't any major redevelopments; even today, in some Bundeslaender, things are as they were when the wall was up.

Of course, you can talk about the day to day things that changed, too - even to the point of what happens in the film "Good Bye Lenin", where the cultures mixed. Western clothes appeared in East Germany, but not vice versa. Lots of products were no longer sold in shops, like Spreewald pickles, to name one. As such, there sprung up new areas of collecting - paraphernalia from East Germany, known as "Ostalgie".

Potentially, the neo-Nazis are popular in the East because while the wall was up, there were negligeable, perhaps non-existent levels of immigration into East Germany, as opposed to West Germany, which boomed and benefited from it. As such, a lot of the middle aged and older Generation remember what it was like living without foreigners, and have passed these beliefs down to their children, who are happy to dislike foreigners and minority groups, especially vis a vis the levels of unemployment.


Thankyou!!
x
Reply 6
pecanpie
You could talk about the change in abortion laws and the status of abortion in east and west germany and then in unified germany. I did a piece of A2 coursework on how abortion laws changed in germany from the nazi era to present day...fairly interesting really.


ooh, it does sound interesting, i'll research that! thankyou!x
Reply 7
bex75
Our teacher went through it with us...giving us slight pointers..and said that was one. :s-smilie:

Well, the reason why I'm asking is because obviously East Germany doesn't have a school system which is significantly different from that of the rest of the country. Not to my knowledge, anyway.:s-smilie:
Reply 8
hobnob
Well, the reason why I'm asking is because obviously East Germany doesn't have a school system which is significantly different from that of the rest of the country. Not to my knowledge, anyway.:s-smilie:


humm, having researched it this afternoon, i've found that they don't do the whole G8 thing like in the rest of the country (except Reinlandpfalz)...they have creche, kindergarten, poly schools (compulsory), vocational training and uni. but there isn't a big difference.

it's more the consequences of reunification I'm having trouble finding on the internet..
x
Reply 9
hobnob
Well, the reason why I'm asking is because obviously East Germany doesn't have a school system which is significantly different from that of the rest of the country. Not to my knowledge, anyway.:s-smilie:


also, ima doing it about the older school systems..not the present ones..im not sure if they were different then?!

x
Reply 10
bex75
humm, having researched it this afternoon, i've found that they don't do the whole G8 thing like in the rest of the country (except Reinlandpfalz)...they have creche, kindergarten, poly schools (compulsory), vocational training and uni. but there isn't a big difference.

it's more the consequences of reunification I'm having trouble finding on the internet..
x

But of course they do.:s-smilie: Thüringen and Sachsen were the first Bundesländer to introduce it, actually.

I think you may accidentally be trying to compare pre-reunification East Germany to post-reunification West Germany...
Reply 11
School system is no different from the rest of Germany afaik, and definitely none of this not recording bad grades, that sounds pretty pre-reunification to me.

The biggest change has been the huge rise in unemployment. In the DDR all production etc was kept in the country and so there were loads more jobs and huge industrial towns. However they were unable to compete with the power of the West German industries that had had significantly more funding etc and so many East German factories and firms had to close or were taken over and production then moved elsewhere.

I encountered no racism in eastern Germany but I was in a very rural area and one person's experience obviously isn't the whole picture. Tbh I really don't know the situation there but Greatleysteg's comments on neo-Nazis seem very likely.

You really need to check you are looking at information post-reunification. I'll also add that it can be tricky to do precise comparisons as it is very hard to find official statistics from the DDR times - "In der DDR gab's keine Arbeitslosigkeit" :biggrin:

One of my topics for my oral exam (1st year uni) was "Sachsen-Anhalt vor und nach der Wende" so if you want I can probably dig out my information from that.

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