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The AfD rushes from East to West Germany from success to success - fueling the debate as to why, even three decades after reunification, there is a deep break between the "old" and "new" federal states, politically, economically and culturally.
The historian Marcus Böick, 35, has examined in detail the process that was perhaps the most controversial between East and West: the work of the Trust, the institution in which Western managers pushed the transformation of the GDR planned economy from 1990 onwards for four years.
The theme is still fermenting in the population today.
How much, as the demands of the AFD in the Bundestag show, according to a trustee investigation committee or a current exhibition in Leipzig, which presents portraits and interview protocols of contemporary witnesses from companies as if they were survivors of a war.
Patrick Slesiona
Historian Marcus Böick
SPIEGEL: Mr. Böick, the trust has only existed for four years. Why did she still burn into the collective memory in the East?
Böick: That's an almost mythical reference. At that time, the trust was one of the most powerful institutions that East Germans got to know immediately after the end of the GDR. And it was also one of the first institutions of the new, all-German state. And that just at the moment when the state had to sort itself in the East completely new: the administration, the universities - after the fall of the SED state, all the old institutions were virtually discredited.
SPIEGEL: You said: What happens in East Germany today can no longer be explained with the GDR. What do you mean?
Böick: There are still large support programs for GDR research set up, so that doctoral students work out about the illegitimate character of the SED regime. But one can no longer explain the phenomena in the East today exclusively with the GDR past.
SPIEGEL: With the trust already?
Böick: I was asked a few years ago : Is the Treuhand responsible for the rise of the AfD? I denied that intuitively, but now I see it more differentiated. We are talking here about the long-term experiences of the after-change generation - of course in combination with the GDR experience - and I believe: Especially in this combination may be an explanation. Finally, the trust is a central component of this shock-like reversionary experience. The people in the East have often perceived the work of the fiduciary as a degradation. People came from West Germany and took the book in the East. Then one suddenly arrived from Dusseldorf and said: 'Your business is worth nothing.' That gets stuck.
SPIEGEL: Is not it also about the fact that many affected people are looking for an understandable explanation why they fell so dramatically in the early nineties - and do not they find the perfect scapegoat in the fiduciary?
Böick: There are two interpretations of what happened after the change in the East, which was the cause of the turbulence. Some say: In the end, the GDR itself is to blame for the shocks and shocks, the ailing SED regime, its crimes and its economic inability. From this point of view, all that came afterwards is only necessary crisis management to clear away the rubble of socialism. This view is the classical right-conservative view of the old Federal Republic. The second camp, on the other hand, sees the ice-cold vanguard of neoliberalism in trusteeship: these are the cold settlers who ruthlessly dragged everything that did not fit into the capitalist "schema F". According to this view, the trust in particular has caused unemployment and acted in the interests of Western capital owners. It was also a question of clearing away the unpleasant East competition from the West industry. The view is widespread in the East.
SPIEGEL: Both are very schematic. Who is right?
Böick: Both sides a bit and not really. It was not just one or the other. The thing got its force, that just because two things follow each other dramatically, intertwine with each other: the frozen GDR planned economy is replaced immediately by the force of privatization. Both work together inseparably.
SPIEGEL: You have conducted many interviews with former fiduciary managers, mostly men from the old West industry. How do they remember the time?
Böick: "We are sitting here trying somehow to satisfy the expectations and hopes in East and West," that is a typical sentence. But that was difficult under the politically set conditions and with the enterprises. Many felt they were being beaten while the key players were keeping in the background.
SPIEGEL: You mean the Federal Government?
Böick: Bonn deliberately gave the trustee the function of the lightning conductor, as the administration expert Wolfgang Seibel has worked out well. It was said: It storms, there are lightning down on the new, extended house Federal Republic. But the lightning conductor Treuhand derives the displeasure of the disappointed East Germans and so the political house remains intact. Today you have to ask for sure, if this comparison fits in the long run. We see the massive long-term socio-economic and cultural consequences. The Trust Course has produced deep tears and conflict lines. This has shaped mentalities and millions of those affected a deep need to find explanations for these fractures. Why suddenly became unemployed; why suddenly my own business was worth nothing anymore. The working-class figures with helmet and blue-collar, they had just been the heroes of socialist work-and then suddenly they were the problem bears of post-socialism, early-retirement candidates, or job-creation programs to tear down their old factories.
Arne Kulf / THE MIRROR
Balance sheet of the trust
SPIEGEL: How is the breeding ground for populists?
Böick: The trust experience joins the argumentation of "The ones up there cheated on you". And the topic is very emotionally charged, every family in the East has something in common with it. On the other hand, the trust in the public debate was barely long. There was a huge vacancy, in the school sector, at the universities, even in the media, apart from occasional MDR reports. Greens and SPD have tried to fill even the discussion. But they have tried to differentiate - but so the horse is incredibly difficult to ride. Now the left has called for a committee of inquiry. Since the AfD has drangehängt directly - which in turn had the consequence that SPD and Green back row. They do not want to have anything in common with the AfD.
SPIEGEL: Why is it that the topic does not matter at school?
Böick: It lies in the gray area between subjects, between history and social studies. There is still little empirical-historical research. This is finally changing, for example through the work of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. In addition, in a very limited number of history hours, a wealth of topics must be treated: National Socialism, Federal Republic, GDR. In social studies, in turn, the topic often goes back to more recent ones: Europe, migration, climate protection. This is a significant gap in education. It was similar in politics. For the parties, it was like Pandora's box: Do not open the door because you know that an open debate might quickly become uncomfortable. Hopefully that will change under the impression of the rise of the AfD.
SPIEGEL: Does not that have to do with repression? The Federal Republic went into reunification with the conviction that it had the system superior in all respects. This could scratch such a discussion yes.
Böick: If you look at the official culture of remembrance, then you could get the impression for a long time that, on October 3, 1990, the story ended after all the disasters of the 20th century. The day marks the national happy ending. This is also understandable: So a spotlight should be directed to the peaceful revolution, which has led to the unexpected end of a dictatorship, the introduction of a democracy. In addition to this bright achievement, however, is now this gray muddles on intricate East-West conflicts, which does not quite fit into the first picture.
SPIEGEL: The story does not end in 1990.
Böick: Soon after reunification, there will again be Monday demonstrations in the East, only then they are already directed against the Treuhandanstalt. It goes wild to the point: Helmut Kohl is compared there with Erich Honecker, the Federal Republic with the GDR, the fiduciary with the Stasi. This frustration of the East, unemployment, does not fit into the picture of a national happy ending. In public and official consideration, this usually falls down the back. That is why the festivities on 3 October always seemed rather strange: celebrations are taking place in the respective provincial capitals, but at the same time one wonders in the East and the West alike whether there is any reason to celebrate.
SPIEGEL: The West blames Jammer Ossis and socialism, for the Ossis it is the Western managers of the trust. Who is right?
Böick: That's the wrong question. To this day, the Federal Republic derives its self-image from a specific interpretation of the past. Historians call this master narrative. It reads: With German unity ends the post-war period, and it begins the unified Germany in unifying Europe. This neo-patriotic saga of success and heroism is questionable, it no longer fits in with the ever-clearer inner-German differences. Europe is also shaken, it is no longer clear that the development of the EU is only ever progressing, as an unbroken, irreversible success story. The question is whether we can finally find narrative perspectives or interpretations that can better capture that. And what happened then.
SPIEGEL : You mean: the rhyme that politics makes of history does not fit?
Böick: To this day, a western perspective dominates. It is a seemingly unparalleled hero story. At the time, all those who acted at that time are stuck: the Federal Government, the Treuhand. They combine this with a great lack of interest in everything that does not fit into this picture, sometimes it turns into annoyance: What's the hooligan thing? The East, on the other hand, maintains its classic sacrificial and submission history: Everything we had was devalued. We were not allowed to get involved, had to adapt. This does not continue. I would suggest seeing the East-West relationship as a complicated relationship story: how exactly did this historical constellation come about? How then could these interpretation patterns in East and West become so solid? This should be discussed not only between East and West, if these categories make any sense at all, but also between generations: grandparents, parents and children.
Read the first part of the interview at SPIEGEL +
SPIEGEL: All sides are firmly convinced that they are right. How should this work?
Böick: I always try to explain with which march baggage each side was traveling when it suddenly found itself in the situation 1989/90. With what ideas did the West Germans go to East Germany? What did the East Germans expect of them? You can work that out in a differentiated way without making a hasty moral judgment. It can then be shown how conflicts develop, although the majority of the actors are firmly convinced that they are doing the right thing, in the interest of all. Then you come out of these schemes of black and white, victims and perpetrators.
SPIEGEL: Does that work?
Böick: At discussion events many listeners say: Now at least I can understand where this frustration is coming from. The Wessi gets a sense of how that was concrete: to be sent home with 50; your steel mill is scrap metal; What you did in 30 years is scrap. But hey !, you get social help.
SPIEGEL: And what do you explain to the East Germans?
Böick: I have spoken to many trust managers of the time: they came with good intentions. They wanted to break something, most wanted to help people get better quickly. But then they also failed because of the confusion and contradictions of the practice. That was an extreme upheaval, from which ultimately the West Germans active there were carried away and in which they themselves carried away helplessly.
SPIEGEL: You experienced this time as a child in Saxony-Anhalt. What has that done to the families?
Böick: For some of them, this could well be a time of departure, new career opportunities and unimaginable freedoms. Some have asserted themselves as teachers, employees. For many, however, it also meant demolitions: unemployment, lack of prospects, early retirement, retraining, job creation measures. But one has to understand that a social shock of this magnitude then affects all groups: even the "winners" have seen and experienced the shock in their environment. Like a car driver who sees a serious car accident on the highway and thinks: That could easily have caught me as well.
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SPIEGEL: Can you think of an example?
Böick: I talked to a former senior executive of a medium-sized GDR company. The trust did not have an investor. At some point he himself faced the choice: Either I do it now - or here everyone is unemployed. It succeeded in his case, but is not suitable as a triumphant founder story. For him it was an enormous risk, he had stress and knows he was lucky in the end as well. When he takes stock, his gaze automatically goes to the next man, to those who did not make it. To the families who broke it. Everyone knew: If I had to quit my job, what would be the prospects for an unemployment rate of 30 percent?
SPIEGEL: What has to change so that a German-German conversation gets underway over this old scar?
Böick: That's not a question for science. That must be on the curricula, that must be in the schools and colleges. Only in this way does this theme get out of the mythical murmuring memory. We have to get the debate out of the kitchen talk of the family and make it broader. The question will be how politics deals with it: Does it ignore the topic as it has done so many times before and merely remain symbolic and idiosyncratic?
SPIEGEL: What role does the media play?
Böick: So far you are stuck in the old woodcut-like templates: The trust is always negotiated similarly. Either the scandal stories about the "felony of the fiduciary" - or just discussions that the fiduciary could not do otherwise. But this is not the way to start a dialogue that puts the multiple contradictions in the spotlight. Instead, polarization continues to advance. Both camps have arguments. But they all deduce from this that the other side must necessarily be wrong. That is the reason for this bitter unforgiveness. But this change was so enormous, so complex that both are equally true - and the search for guilty will never bring a clear, satisfying result. That's why we need different perspectives.
SPIEGEL: Could committees of inquiry or a truth commission help, as demanded in Saxony's SPD?
Böick: I'm skeptical. These are formats of political struggle, they also operate according to the logic of scandals, revelations, guilt and political responsibility. We also have to accept that we have something in our recent history that is neither black nor white.
