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The Dessau-born Green politician Steffi Lemke is one of the few East Germans with a top position in the federal ministries
Photo: Michael Huebner / Future Image / IMAGO
Even more than 30 years after the fall of the Wall, East Germans are clearly underrepresented in management positions.
The traffic light parties have made it their mission to change that in this legislative period.
The new government also has work to do in its own federal ministries.
According to a new study, the proportion of top civil servants from East Germany is extremely low there.
At the moment, there are even fewer East Germans at the cabinet table than in previous federal governments.
This emerges from an analysis published by the University of Kassel on Wednesday.
According to its own information, it has systematically evaluated almost 3,600 career biographies from the imperial era to today's Germany and also examined the representation of East Germans in top positions.
The researchers differentiate between government members (political elite) and top officials in ministries (administrative elite).
Under Kohl more East Germans in the "political elite"
In the "political elite" the share of East Germans is currently around nine percent: the ministers Clara Geywitz and Steffi Lemke as well as the state secretaries and state ministers Reem Alabali-Radovan, Carsten Schneider and Michael Keller. The value is lower than in most of the previous governments after 1990. As study author Sylvia Veit announced on request, it was more than 15 percent in the Helmut Kohl cabinet between 1990 and 1998. During the term of office of Chancellor Angela Merkel until 2017, the number fluctuated between 8.5 and 13.2 percent.
In the "administrative elite" of top officials such as department heads or state secretaries, the proportion of East Germans until the end of Merkel's third term of office was usually only around one percent.
Even under the traffic light coalition, there is only one State Secretary who grew up in eastern Germany: Antje Draheim in the Federal Ministry of Health.
svs / dpa
