The Logistics of German Reunification

[@nass44k]

Maybe a little fun fact to put the scope of the projects into perspective: I wasn't even born when the VDE9 project was started and now I'm a project manager involved in it. Kinda crazy how far away the reunification is, but is still felt in so many ways still.

[@peterise192]

get off youtube and get it finished! haha

[@Greenteabook]

​@@peterise192 They're a project manager, they sit and watch KZbin all day anyways 🤣

[@LordSesshaku]

I'm sorry but to me this sounds more like a classic example of state inefficience than about "the complexities of reunification". No technical challenge could excuse so many decades of delay.

[@nass44k]

@@peterise192 haha, I wish I could speed it up but my main involvement will start only next year in autumn.

[@nass44k]

@@LordSesshaku there for sure were delays, but the reason it takes so long is because of existing infrastructure and the German law. Politicians were/are very hesitant to enforce compulsory expropriation, so getting the land for these projects takes time. Also the track has been in use throughout, but now the final stages are being finished while still holding traffic. Completely blocking the track from longer periods of time is simply not feasible.

[@jensschroder8214]

East Germany had diesel locomotives. But when the price of oil rose and diesel became expensive, all existing steam locomotives were quickly reactivated and operated with locally mined brown coal. However, this coal was inferior, often wet and of low calorific value. The efforts even went so far that East Germany built steam locomotives again and phased out diesel locomotives. Today the only factory that can repair or even build steam locomotives is located in East Germany.

[@himaro101]

The one factory builds boilers etc for many heritage trains around Europe now I believe

[@hollister2320]

Gotta luv Russification😍 want your country to regress 60 years, open up to the Russians

[@Alias_Anybody]

@@himaro101 That's actually kind of cool. Even if the tech is effectively redundant, it's so historically important that we should keep this tradition alive.

[@kornaros96]

@@himaro101 and boiler tubes and flues.

[@imzachjones]

While locomotive shops in old East Germany are still important to the steam industry, they aren’t the only places where steam locomotives can be repaired. Many heritage lines throughout the world have the capability to repair their own locomotives, and some like the Durango and Silverton in Colorado and Strasburg in Pennsylvania are open to contract repair work. Places like the Ffestiniog in Wales are also fully capable of building new locomotives. Ffestiniog just completed the locomotive “James Spooner” which entered service this year

[@jensschroder8214]

It was even more. The zip codes in East and West Germany were assigned twice. Some of the telephone numbers in Berlin too. In addition, thousands of telephone connections were missing in East Germany, meaning that almost the entire telephone network had to be rebuilt. The existing technology was from the 1930s. The power grid from west to east had to be rebuilt and often reinforced in the east. Electricity generation in the east had to be modernized. The Lahn-Dill district had to hand over the letter L to Leipzig for its license plates. In return, Lahn-Dill got: LDK Large cities usually get single letters on the license plates and less significant districts longer combinations.

[@0topon]

Lahn-Dill had to take the L

[@hypotheticalaxolotl]

@@0topon And the D. And the K. ... Donkey Kong?

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

And we are very grateful that we got that single letter license plate and honestly it makes more sense to give it to a big city. I was born in 1992 and never knew a time when that wasn't the case.

[@xelaxander]

Lahn-Dill…sounds like some pickled food.

[@ClemensKatzer]

@@xelaxander Lahn and Dill are rivers (though Dill is also a herb). LDK thus stands for Lahn-Dill-Kreis (Kreis = one level of government, perhaps like a county). For decades, the L and some other one letter codes had been reserved, "let's keep them free, in case East Germany joins", in case here L for Leipzig, C=Chemnitz, J=Jena. Eventually they concluded "won't happen", and gave the L to Lahn-Dill-Kreis. Bummer.

[@scubaad64]

This story has so much more meaning and impact for my family. My mother was a small child in Germany during WW2, but still remembers quite a bit. We took a trip to Germany in 1992, so she could see family who were in East Germany, who she hadn't seen in over 50 years. She thought the wall would never come down in her lifetime, and thought she would never see those family members again. For my family, this was an amazing thing to have happen.

[@skylineXpert]

out of curiosity did your mother get out before they build the wall encircling west berlin? I have heard about a lot about families getting out before the wall was build. also my german teacher told me a story about a trusted east german that managed to get his wife out because he had the privilege of travelling & he always came back. The government then allowed him when asked If he could bring his wife. he then went straight to canada & never came back.

[@EdinoRemerido]

Rest in peace.

[@orboakin8074]

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing this. Respect from Nigeria

[@scubaad64]

@@skylineXpert She and her parents were in West Germany at the time, not far from Mannheim. It was her dad's family that got trapped in East Germany.

[@MaksB.]

Great

[@ВикторФирсов-е9ф]

You know, it’s crazy how complicated this reunification was. Gives you perspective on the vastly harder task of reunifying Koreas.

[@irtwiaos]

Hence there is little to no chance Korea reunifies. It will probably take North Korea to reform like China did first and get to a similar economical level as South Korea before any talk of reunification there is realistic.

[@MissDatherinePierce]

If they ever attempt it, the social reunification will be hard and a long process. I was born after German reunification to an East German mother and West German father, and family holidays often escalated into fights about East and West. Mind you the two Germanys were still rather connected by media compared to the two Koreas during their division, and the Koreas have now been divided for even longer and even more difference between them. It will take generations to heal if it is even possible at all.

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

The Koreas has been split for longer and have even less infrastructure that is even close to what they have in South Korea which would be the standard they would need to meet because that's how the world is today. Reunification would be a Herculean effort.

[@Arkiasis]

The economic differences are insane. South Korea is a Cyberpunk tech land. North Korea is as poor as a sub-Saharan African nation.

[@arthas640]

@@irtwiaos it's also why as time has gone on reunification has been steadily dropped in support with people in the South. East Germany was repressive and poorly managed but North Korea is way more repressive and way more poorly managed to the point that North Korea is more like a medieval state ruled by a bronze age style god-king and bits of outdated but recent tech.

[@fgaviator]

Connection issues didn't just affect roads, trains, subways. It was the same with the communication network: there were very few telephone lines between East and West Germany - and no other means of communication (no internet etc). Yet, when the borders suddenly opened, there was a sudden huge communication demand. Also administration and government officials needed a way to talk to their counterparts across the border. Yet, the few public phone lines across the border were constantly overloaded. I was serving in a communications unit of the Bundeswehr (West German army) at the time. A unit originally intended to quickly create communication links, if the Soviet Union had attacked and managed to cut links in NATO's landline communication system. Yet, the first "real assignment" the unit ever got was in the days of the peaceful reunification. The order basically said: put all units into service, tap into the East and West German landline network and create as many links for the government as you possibly can. The unit's vehicles (trucks with microwave transmitter towers, each capable of transmitting about a 100 connections or so) were among the very first military units to cross the border - even before the official unification day. Turns out, establishing basic communication is kind of important - not just when you are trying to reunite two countries...

[@Jumpsomedrops]

Bisschen spät, aber danke für deinen Dienst! Und das ist ne echt interessante Geschichte, war bestimmt eine komische Situation damals, oder?

[@liv-oi6vg]

wow, that's interesting! thank you for sharing

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

"no means of communication" ... you could send letters and parcels. But yes, telephone lines were very limited.

[@Lucas-zg1vz]

Cool, thanks for sharing!

[@Robespierre-lI]

​A bit pedantic mate. No one except you had any difficulty understanding his meaning. And English is his second language, so maybe lighten up a bit. How's your German? ​@@TylerDurden-pk5km

[@cooljonathan]

5:30 "The entire countries railroads were operating using highly inefficient, capacity constrained, delay-prone single tracking methods." Good thing no other first world countries rely primarily on single track railroads owned by freight companies for their passenger rail!

[@marco23p]

The 2nd tracks were also partly existing in the pre-war era but later removed in the USA. Because, well, maintenance and property taxes. For example, the Florida East Coast railway installed double track in 1926, and removed it again in 1972. Luckily, new 2nd track is installed since 2017.

[@kiruuttori8539]

​@@marco23p wait, so USA has mostly single track railroads? I must understand wrong.

[@CyanideCarrot]

Except unlike in East Germany where the Soviets stole the second track, we did this to ourselves!

[@_jpg]

@@CyanideCarrot Curse Robert Moses 😤

[@WaffleAbuser]

I assume you’re being ironic, which country are you talking about? Is it the US?

[@Blex_040]

What I think is especially chilling... Look at how West- and East Germany were divided for 40 years and how after 30 years they're still so torn apart. And now think of North- and South Korea and how they are split apart for nearly 80 years now... It's hard to imagine how a unified Korea where you don't see or feel the difference between North and South would be possible, even a century after formal reunification

[@zeroyuki92]

I think the best way forward for NK is to stay as sovereign state, but slowly reintegrating itself with the rest of the world. Later they can talk again about joining as one (or maybe as a federation of two states) once the gap tighten.

[@jati]

@@zeroyuki92 That was one possible way forward for Germany as well back in 1989/90 and seemed even more likely for a short time. The problem was: Too many people living in the East didn't want to stay and wait for their home to prosper. Instead they came over to the West for jobs and everything they had only seen on TV and dreamt about before. That quickly looked like a big problem for both countries. Therefore, it seemed better to promise the now infamous "blühenden Landschaften" (blossoming landscapes) in the East. I imagine, Korea would face the same problem.

[@underscoredfrisk]

You're completely right, But reintegration is sadly a bit improbable. NK will never merge with SK, with China in the picture (they don't want NATO ally on their doorstep), and NK will have a really hard time to become a normal-ish semi-hostile dictatorial country without changing nearly everything. Maybe with China's aid, NK can be under Xi's sphere of influence and become a place for China to dump construction projects, and NK can become more productive and trade with China. Doesn't help much with the geopolitical issue, but the impoverished people can be slightly less impoverished

[@underscoredfrisk]

@@jati I think what zerouiki92 meant was: Step 1: North Korea will remain very dictatorial for a long time (~40y), but they simply do some* trade now, and become less* millitaristic, and less* oppressive (like China's flavor of censorship), as the people become less dirt poor. The problem of North Koreans (East Germans) rushing to prosper in South Korea *Will* need to be dealt with at Step 2, when they reintegrate with eachother, but we aren't even close to normalization yet. If reintegration was to ever happen. I doubt either will happen in anyone's lifetime (but perhaps normalization or some minor thaw)

[@kingace6186]

The real problem is not the division. The real problem is East Germany had to deal with 4 decades of thuggish "communism". And North Korea has been a brutal dictatorship with a brainwashed population for 80 years. THAT is the real reason that East Germany is still shit.

[@koimex7020]

Watching the segment at 6:45 while sitting on a train on that line is a kind of imersion i was never expecting from a Wendover video

[@Rasscasse]

I visited Berlin from UK a few months after the wall came down. I walked around looking in the former East, I went to Check Point Charlie, where they used to exchange the spies they once caught. I walked more, looking at candles and flowers laid in memory of those who had died trying to cross to the west. There were too many of these little memorials, created by family members for those they lost. Very sad to see. I met a guy near Brandenburg gate area. He was sat in a former guard hut. He had a few cardboard boxes, which were full of blank visas. He also had the official stamp machine to validate the visa. I have a visa for that date. I also have a visa stamped with the last date that a visa was required to pass across. He was a young cool guy and spent time telling me about the night he could go through a gap in the wall for the first time in his life. I picked up a few pieces of the wall laying on the ground to take home with me. I’ll always remember my visit there.

[@arthas640]

crazy thing is the Soviets maintained that the wall was to protect East Germany from fascism, even calling it the "fascist protection wall". This all in spite of the fact they welcomed some people who tried to flee east because it was a PR win (although that was really rare like people fleeing from south to north Korea) yet they shot many people fleeing west. The official death count is around 140 +/- ~30

[@Rasscasse]

@@arthas640 Thanks for the info. I did not know that the GDR called it the anti-fascist wall. Actually I thought the death toll might have been higher, given that the Berliner Mauer was in place for 38 years. I did read that around 100,000 people tried to escape but only 5000 did.

[@piercehawke8021]

​@Rasscasse the Wall was built in summer of 1961 with it collapsing in fall of 1989; 28 and change years

[@arthas640]

@@piercehawke8021 its weird because with its impact on history you'd think it was this age old thing that was broken down but no, 28.

[@mdenmark604]

Thank you for sharing that poignant experience from that era

[@me0101001000]

"They are far more than lines on a map." William Spaniel did not like that statement.

[@EEEEEEEE]

E‎ ‎

[@j.j7380]

I came directly to the comments after he said that to see if anyone caught it.

[@kingace6186]

His alter ego is hunting Sam down as we speak.

[@HT-ww3zg]

HA! I thought the exact same thing! 🤣

[@silversolver7809]

Nor presumably Sykes or Picot.

[@sandcastle-zr6nq]

18:06 This part is only partially correct. While East Germany was homogeneous, there were still very large populations of non-Europeans, notably from Vietnam, Mozambique and Cuba. The difference to West Germany was how the East German government viewed them. The East German government forbade any contact between local people and guest workers. If you have a child then you have to abort it. This resulted in little to no contact. When the wall fell, the no contact policy also fell with it. It wasn't really like how it is portrayed here that West Germany suddenly brought immigrants with it to the East. It was more the East realising that they had immigrants at all (Google the pogroms in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Hoyerswerda etc. for more information). It is important to point this out because the way Sam portrays it here is the way that Populist politicians in Germany tend to frame it.

[@jasonhaven7170]

Wow, that's actually disgusting.

[@linkergenosse363]

@@jasonhaven7170 Because its not true

[@linkergenosse363]

Wo hast du den Unsinn her?

[@jasonhaven7170]

@@linkergenosse363 The burning of refugee centres? Did you forget?

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

Bringing in the Vietnamese was one of the most capitalistic things the GDR has done. They were brought in on a commercial basis on western airliners paid with hard currency. They produced consumer goods in east Germany factories, to pay back the loans that West Germany had extended to East Germany. Seeing that raising work hours already lead to in riots in 1953 - the East Geman leadership opted to import East Asians instead.

[@DrTurtle]

Riesa mentioned, never thought the day would come my hometown in the middle of nowhere would be in a wendover video. Cheers from east germay!

[@cn.st.182]

1:06 the black and white highrise building in the top right corner is where I'm currently going for my French lessons every day, haha. Berlin is my home and it's nice to see a feature like this on it.

[@onurbschrednei4569]

that building has a cool story btw, it was built in the 70s by a Japanese architecture firm for the East Germans and was supposed to be the East German World Trade Center. It housed several embassies at the time.

[@kalle5548]

Cool, visited Berlin very recently from Sweden, and wow, such a beautiful yet quirky city, and when watching the video it was nice to recognize places and learn even more about them, like the fact we lived next to U2 line at nolendorfpalatz and took several trips to Alexander platz without knowing all the history that lies in between Must be even more amazing to see as a local (or you might know most of this already)

[@sitterr7593]

16:34 Lenin casually poping in Germany some 80 years later

[@0topon]

good catch xD

[@nehmiaa]

Yeah I just saw that and paused at 16: 34 exactly. Lenin staring warmly into my soul. Nice insert, don't think it was a 1980s Lenin cosplayer haha.

[@linkergenosse363]

Thats a video clip from Russia, not Germany.

[@veitforabetterworld]

Dieser Kommentarbereich wird zum Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland - nach meiner Kenntnis ab sofort, unverzüglich

[@gabbyn978]

And why not, he talked about us, after all. Just don't come up with conspiracy theories, I've seen enough of them.

[@underscoredfrisk]

Shoutout to Günter Schabowski for flubbing it

[@kingace6186]

Is this a joke? Or a conspiracy theory?

[@gabbyn978]

@@kingace6186 OP is referring to a famous quote from the public speaker of the GDR while giving a press conference

[@flummi6966]

@@kingace6186 its a cultural tradition and a nod to history. Weil das halt nun mal so ist

[@marvellousmeatball123]

I really like how you summarized the current political tendencies at the end. Unfortunately, it really feels like the spirit of unificaiton and community only prevailed for a short time. We Germans need to bring back that hopeful atmosphere that defined the night of November 9th 1989.

[@smalltime0]

That's a very Wessi sentiment. From the point of view of the East, it was less a (re)unification and more annexation. You see it to the very core of the political establishment, but also the dismantling of some very good DDR companies (Superfest, for example, was simply better). Also there are no Bananas in the DDR. Oranges should be Apfelsine, etc. Ostdeutsche aren't that xenophobic, they had large-ish migrant communities (Cubans and Vietnamese being notable). They just feel like they're being dictated against.

[@Schmogel92]

@@smalltime0 That's a very Ossi sentiment. The GDR government gave up and everyone was left with a mess that needed quick solutions. It's a shame things didn't go down more smoothly but it was not because of malicious intent.

[@alezacrespublik6655]

​@@Schmogel92 It's more of the inherent inability of capitalism for the people's well-being. After all, the state media's biggest lie is hiding how bad the west actually is to live in.

[@UloPe]

@@smalltime0I’d be very interested to know how old you are.

[@tayl0r612]

And that ^ is why East and West still don't mesh. Both had quality standards of living in their own ways, but both wanted their way of life to be *the* way of life. It's culture clash, and it's completely unnecessary. Not everything needs to be intertwined. It's a silly human instinct that causes conflict over and over again. Interior vs. exterior US. Israel vs. Palestine. Race issues. It's okay to be distinct and separate. We don't all have to be the same or live the same way. Freedom is having choice, not assimilation.

[@marcbeebee6969]

After World War II, my grandma fled from East Germany to Berlin. My grandpa, who was in the US Army, bought a passport from an Austrian woman and threw it over the fence so my grandma could escape to West Germany. They eventually made it back to the USA together. My grandma shared this story with me, and even after all these years, I could still hear the fear in her voice. She described how terrified she was as she crossed the border at Checkpoint Charlie in a taxi, so scared that she actually wet herself on the seat. Her bravery and the risks they took are a testament to their incredible resilience and love.

[@medicolkie3606]

Beautiful story

[@peterii3512]

They should be scared after what they did to Europe

[@leandersearle5094]

@@peterii3512 Civilians were barely involved, and plenty of them suffered under the Stasi. And the Gestapo before them. And the street fighting (and doubtless intimidation) of the black and brown shirts before that. The current establishment enjoys flagellating the German people for the actions of the Nazis. I'm not fond of the German nation spirit (the drive towards the absolute), but an individual German does NOT deserve reprimand for it.

[@peterii3512]

@@leandersearle5094 barely involved? Where do you think those 13 million soldiers came from? Civilians actively supported the war effort by joining up, by paying taxes and by not opposing the nazis. If even 10% of the German population actively resisted (sabotaging rail lines, setting arson to weapons factories, basically insurgent activities) then Germany wouldn’t have even been able to invade Poland. Almost all German people were nazi supporters or sympathizers. Nazis didn’t just rise out of nowhere.

[@peterii3512]

@@leandersearle5094 great youtube removed my comment for calling out ACTUAL nzis

[@Blex_040]

Hearing Sam trying to pronounce all the German street names is a field day as a native German speaker 😂 Don't get me wrong, he does a good job for an American and I heard far far FAR worse before, but it still feels a bit random how they're pronounced 😅

[@wolfangstrike2220]

Such a typical German response

[@theprodigal72]

I'm always most annoyed about the "z", as it's not even difficult to pronounce, the sound is just represented differently in German. It just shows that they didn't really put any effort into the pronunciation.

[@neondemon5137]

@@wolfangstrike2220 Correct and Precise?

[@wernerlindorfer3693]

I dont get why KZbinrs dont ask their community for the right pronunciations. A simple "Hey guys, I'm doing a video on Germany. Could someone from Germany send me audio clips with the pronunciation of the following persons/places/things/whatever?" and I'm sure lots of your supporters would gladly help. I mean we are talking about a channel with almost 5 millions subscribers, butchering foreign words seems like a something so easily avoidable. But then again, at the football world cup, olympics etc the same happens. I guess nobody cares enough.

[@Droidman1231]

@@wernerlindorfer3693 A lot of words might have different pronunciations depending on regional dialects. That would also add another big step (getting and going through tons of submissions) to an already complicated video creation process.

[@cms8989]

Economic integration failing was the worst thing to happen in this process. One should also not underestimate the role of the 'Treuhand', that basically gave east German factories and production facilities to western companies who would close many of them soon after. Luckily there are some exceptions (the east has a fantastic semiconductor industry for example), but the general way it was handled really didn't help.

[@cooltwittertag]

the easts living standards have risen way faster than the wests, the reconstruction efforts were a full success

[@cms8989]

@@cooltwittertag Calling them a "full success" is just quite simply not true. Of course the living standards in the east have risen way faster than in the west, coming from a much lower baseline. The fact is that the living standards between east and west are still very different, and that has naturally lead to resentments, something that we see right now in the massively higher voting numbers for the AfD in the East. I'm not arguing that there haven't been successes in the economic integration as well, what I'm arguing is that an opportunity was wasted here to do it much better.

[@ΣτελιοςΠεππας]

"The East had a fantastic semiconductor industry", yeah... Maybe by eastern block standards it did. But by western standards ot was a dismal failure.

[@cms8989]

@@ΣτελιοςΠεππας Not had. Has. The semiconductor industry around Dresden (and with Intels new factory soon also around Magdeburg) is still one of the stronger semiconductor areas in Europe. It's not tsmc obviously, but then again, nothing else is as well.

[@denniskrenz2080]

Yeah, I remember a documentary, how they cheated the east german companies by assigning a huge debt on them by default, either because the Treuhand managers never understood socialist bookkeeping or because they never wanted to do correct bookkeeping. That way, healthy companies with huge assets would be bankrupt overnight and not even really sold, but just given away to west German companies, boosting the west German industry for a short time, but stealing money from the unified state and actually harming the German economy in long term. The winners of the early 1990s became the troublemakers of the 2000s.

[@adrielsebastian5216]

Fun fact, the East-West divide in Berlin is still visible from space. West Berlin had begun transitioning to white fluorescent light, but the East were still using salt vapour lamps that have a soft yellowish hue.

[@gustavobscura5846]

This was true but with LED lamps arriving on the scene the division becomes less and less visible over time.

[@smalltime0]

@@gustavobscura5846 The actual sockets are different, so they realistically only get switched over during major works.

[@Bauer-ke6lp]

​@@smalltime0they usually replace the whole lamp head when switching to LED, so the sockets don't matter

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

Visible on the ground too, like East Berlin has more trams, commie blocks and the streets are a lot wider than West Berlin

[@SuperFukuman]

The Western press doesn't mention that "peace wall in NI". much taller, longer and longer lasting. Amazing that.

[@Timey254]

As an East German here is an example why we often feel like second class citizens: My parents both earn less than their Western colleagues. This is justified by "lower costs of living". Yet when Western colleagues MOVE to East Germany and get a position there... they get paid the full Western wage. Often while also being less qualified. Meaning they get paid more for doing less by pure virtue of being from West Germany. And then of course there are things like i.e. education system. West Germany often praises the scandinavian system and tries to emulate it... yet the scandinavian system is a near 1:1 copy of the old GDR education system. This fact is never acknwoledged. But East Germans know. Because you are not allowed to praise anything from the GDR. But as horrible as the dictatorship was it was still their home full of still fond childhood memories. But they are being told it was all shit and it was all worthless. Because of this it often feels less like a "unification" and more like an "absorption" of East Germany into West Germany. Because a unification implies that aspects of the East would find their way into the West. But that never happened.

[@Pietro-Smusi]

What aspects of the east were worthy enough to be absorbed into the west?

[@pioxels1213]

Sorry, but the fact, that the GDR ediucation system was skandinavian like is just a myth. The ediucationssystem was very idiological and far from liberal.

[@CrystalStearOfTheCas]

This is frequent for overseas territories in western countries, notably France. In the French West Indies, workers from the mainland receive a "far away bonus" (But the main difference is that the cost of living is actually higher, not lower so it makes sense). Not the locals. Another big difference is that although west and east Germany are quite similar in terms of climate and geography, the Caribbean are a tropical paradise. One would think that's bonus enough

[@durdleduc8520]

that fact about the education system is so interesting. i think a lot about how we emphasize so much about "learning from the past" that we have a habit of doing the opposite. i was also thinking about how i always personally remembered Germany as a comparatively socialized state considering what we have in the US, and how i look to them to see what modern socialism could look like. knowing this came from a state that previously declared "socialism never again," it's... interesting. i never considered that Germany could be borrowing ideas from the GDR and not admitting it. i sort of assumed they were modern inventions.

[@Timey254]

@@Pietro-Smusi 1. Kindergarten system, in fact the West does try to emulate it now... badly. Not having enough spots all the time in the West while it's easy to find one for your kid in the East. 2. Higher education (high school equivalence at least), it's more selective with students being less about watering down standards just to let as many kids as possible finish, higher focus on vocational training for those that won't finish High School. 3. How to integrate women into the workforce, especially after just having children (West still sports higher rate of women ending up unemployed or in the "part time trap" after having kids in the West) 4. (Surprisingly) more Democracy at the working place. While the centrally planned committees by the government erased any advantage because it resulted in an overall lack of resources this may have had, in the GDR the employees could hold a vote and veto their boss' decisions. Without it East Germany would probably have ended up even poorer since it was a counterweight to incompetent superiors Things that quickly come to mind. And that's besides what's often seems like intentional sabotage by the West due to rampant corruption in the early post unity years (using shitty cables for telephone network as a result of corruption which results in the East being far behind in broadband internet because the cables are incompatible with current standards) On top of that: there was a case where an East German wanted to get hired for a job but was not taken SPECIFICALLY for being East German. They sued for discrimination. They lost. Because being from the East is (somehow) not covered by the law. This means not hiring someone for being Black is illegal as it's discrimination. While not hiring someone simply for being Eastern is PERFECTLY legal. That lawsuit is also a big fertile soil for xenophobic sentiment because for this specific case, foreigners (or at least "non ethnic German citizens" do indeed have more rights than "native" German citizens.

[@olfrygt]

I live in Leipzig. In a house with 15 aparments. 13 of them are owned by people from Bavaria. It's marvelous to have that gorgeos pre-war house restored with private investments. The city was crumbling in 1990. But it impacts a city and the people renting the place if its owned by people very much detatched from it.

[@poorwotan]

True in many cities worldwide, especially those with something to offer. The house next door used to be subdivided into 4 smaller apartments (perfect for this area; college near-by; banking/government district). An investor bought it and reverted it back to a large house on ground floor and the 2 smaller apartments on the roof became one - where he stays when here. I like the guy, he's super nice, but the fact remains that 4 apartments are now 1 Airbnb with a second apartment used part-time.

[@xgimi456]

Read David Harvey: „Rebel Cities“ on that ;))

[@danielschein6845]

I’ll bet if you draw maps of the United States showing political or cultural attributes the way this video did the Germany you will see a similar patterns along the border with what was once the Confederacy. Some of these cultural attitudes will never change.

[@irtwiaos]

I mean you don't have to if it. Pretty clear just looking at the electoral map from 2020 and polling today.

[@Arkiasis]

The US is more so divided by race.

[@stephenandersen4625]

Some of the borders reflect the compromises made in the antebellum period. The economic differences have gotten much smaller but only in the most recent decades. The poorest states are still former members of the confederacy.

[@ranelgallardo7031]

Funny you mentioned that, the Reconstruction era of the US after the Civil War was one of the models on how to do the German reunification

[@mariano7699]

​@@stephenandersen4625 : There's poorest states because are kept strangled in struggle by the riches states.

[@leopichler]

Cool that I went from being inspired by wendover productions and chicken sandwhiches to currently studying the topics of these videos at university. crazy how time passes. great video, well written and big thanks to sam and the team!

[@LoFiAxolotl]

As someone who was a Teenager in Berlin when the wall fell, this is an amazingly informative video and really well researched and explained. Thank you for that, some of the images literally brought tears to my eyes. I grew up with the Wall literally at our backyard and my father being a french soldier at the wall. We had family in the East and that was incredibly hard especially in the later years when the Stasi cracked down more and more on dissent. Little known fact, Putin, the egolomanic warhungry Russian leader used to be a KGB spy in Berlin for decades.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

The "egolomanic warhungry Russian leader" maybe - the wise, based and power full Russian leader Putin was stationed in Dresden in reality.

[@longwlenguyen4214]

Funny enough Putin not even a spy he just a glorified pencil pusher bureaucrats for the KGB, and most of his job were trying to convinced small technology companies in West Germany to spy for them and the only moment that he got to action were stopping an angry German crowds during the fall of Berlin Wall with a pistol and claimed he work for the KGB (not sure how the moment went) stalling the angry mobs long enough for Putin colleagues burning all their documents.

[@hansburger285]

Dresden, not Berlin!

[@enricoreimann5609]

At 04:35 there is a typo. It is "M-Bahn" not "M-Bahm" :)

[@GoTownMedia]

18:00 homo-genius instead of homogenous

[@kacperborowiecki2015]

It is so cool that you published this on June 4. This is the 35th anniversary of first partially free elections in Poland - the negotiations for this were an impulse for other political changes, including German unification.

[@TheIrishvolunteer]

My favourite story from the fall of the Berlin Wall is of a lady who, in her haste to cross from East to West in the early hours of the open border, ran out of her home having just jumped out of the bath. She was just wearing a bathrobe and curlers in her hair!

[@JustMe-pb9ep]

many didnt believe the border would be open for long. for them it was a once in a lifetime chance to escape to the west, wasting time was risking to be too late

[@bahnfahrenaufschlau]

2:10 the northern expansion of the U8 happened after the German reunification. During the division of Berlin, there were only two stations of the U8 located north of the transit through East Berlin

[@juliemittel3931]

My mother was born and lived in east germany all the way until the wall fell - she's told me many stories about what it was like to grow up there, and especially what it was like to live and work there. For example, she told me about how few options there were when buying pretty much anything: Most types of food were only made by one or two brands, most household appliances were only made by a single company that was usually from the same state you were buying it in. And even if it wasn't, you would still see only 2-3 different brands making practically all of your electronics; dishwashers, washing machines, toasters, drills, kettles, you name it. Another thing that she told me about is how east germany had to export a lot of what they produced in order to keep their economy at least somewhat afloat, since they had very little in the way of international cooperation or projects. This was reflected in how it was often very difficult to buy certain fruits because most of them would be exported before what little was left hit grocery store aisles. And when they did, things like fruits frequently sold out due to simply being in low supply all the time. I've lived in one of the former east german states my whole life - I was born and raised here. And even though I was born years after reunification, I can still see the last few remnants of east germany everywhere in my city. Old, standardized cookie-cutter school buildings that all have the same internal and external layout, with renovations to many of the schools either not having started or still being ongoing. Tons and tons of efficient, large-scale apartment blocks or "Plattenbauten", named for the way in which these large complexes would be built with lots of pre-manufactured concrete plates used on the exterior of the buildings. Poor road quality, even to this day, on streets and in areas that are more toward the outside of the city.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

The problem was less, that it were only "3 brands" ... but that they were 10-20 years behind western standards. Nobody would have complained if there would have been only one TV brand - if it would have been at Sonys standard (and as available). 😀

[@piereandreturner2818]

How different are the languages between East and West German? I'm not a Korean, but from what I learned about Korea's divisions, a topic I'm very interested in is that languages are also a big barrier. The biggest problem that North Koreans seeking refuge in the South often faced was the language. At this point, North Korea and South Korea are essentially two different languages. One South Korean scholar said that if the two Korean nations decide to reunify, the first step should be the integration of the two Korean languages. I heard North Korean refugees in South Korea had to learn South Korean languages, and there's a North-to-South translation app to help them in South Korea.

[@piereandreturner2818]

Apparently, North Korea in South Korea often faced discrimination because of what South Korea perceived as a strange version of the Korea languages they used while not being able to understand each other despite technically using the same language.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

​@@piereandreturner2818 Not very different, there are differences in dialect within the German regions, but the Eastern ones have no bigger differences that the ones within West Germany. Maybe with the exception of the Saxons, whose dialect is regarded as funny by all other Germans (East and West)... but that is also true for the Bavarians. Once Korea reunifies, I am sure that Kim Jong Un will make sure, that all South Koreans will get help to be educated in the language of the dear leader, to become productive members of the DPRK. 😀😀

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

@@piereandreturner2818 All German dialects are pretty close to "high" German as it is written, so there are no real communication barriers. This would be different for Switzerland for example, there the spoken language has diverged from High German and can be hard to understand for someone from Germany (but still possible).

[@DumbyDooDoo]

I do enjoy many of Wendover's videos but I can't say I appreciated this one very much. There was no talk on the Treuhandanstalt's effect on East Germany or the effect of the Marshall Plan on West Germany, let alone the different states WW2 had on their respective sponsors. Seems like a hell of a thing to miss, even for a video made with a short runtime in mind.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

Marshall plan is not the relevant since it was way before reunification, but "Treuhand" should have been mentioned.

[@DumbyDooDoo]

@@TylerDurden-pk5km I should have made this clearer in my comment, but the Marshall Plan gave West Germany a significant head start on economic rebuilding as opposed to East Germany

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

@@DumbyDooDoo Hi, that is true - but personally I think it is not of primary relevance for reunification (but if of course explains the differences).

[@cooltwittertag]

East Germany wasn't "sponsored" by the Soviets, thats the difference. It was gutted in a colonial fashion

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

@@cooltwittertag The "gutted" part is only true for the direct post war years (and the western powers did the same thing after WWI). Then were was a time of "sponsorship" (as a showcase that was closest to the west) and then, with the mounting failure of the socialist system within the soviet union - disinterest. The economic failure of the GDR was not because of "colonial gutting" - but because of the failure of socialism as an economic system - within the GDR itself and the socialist partner countries. And without the soviet union - West Germany would have been gutted too - that was the initial plan of the US (Morgenthau Plan) all along. Only systemic competition with the soviet union made that an imprudent plan.

[@Pestsoutwest]

I visited Berlin in the summer of 1990.... they were selling parts of the wall in stalls next to the crossings.

[@Heidelaffe]

They still do. Along with certifications of authenticity.

[@jensschroder8214]

In my opinion, the adaptation of the East to the West will take at least one generation. So 40 years after 1990. The East will not have caught up with the West until after 2030 at the earliest.

[@caezar55]

Probably correct but only because all the old industries in the East will have shut down by then and vast areas depopulated. So the only way is up from there.

[@shynrou2]

It's also just hopeful that a catch up can happen within decades. Unless you give the east a big advantage or edge, both will likely continue to grow in step. I'd already consider it close to a miracle that economically the east has caught up so much. The shame is really that the reunification was fumbled so badly, which just made the starting point so much worse than it could have been.

[@MTTT1234]

One economic issue was how they tried to consolidate and update the many 'Volks-Eigene-Betriebe' or VEBs. I read somewhere that some politicians and business managers quite maliciously and intentionaly wrote many companies and corporations off to make a monetary gain from it, selling assets and everything, despite the companies being able to be modernized. So this surely led to the harsh economic downturn in the East. On the social and cultural level, I think there is a stronger divide because the East did not have such a strong 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung' as the West had. So there surely came up frictions as well. At least that is what I gather and learned from reading about the two nations and people.

[@timsprung1154]

Especially with what is currently happening I feel like our "remembrance culture" is more a thing to hide behind than something we actually have.

[@voidvector]

Intentional write-off is common of today -- private equities would buy businesses from the owners that want to cash out. Many of those businesses are still profitable. They would sell the good part for a profit, and run the bad part into the ground while collecting huge fees before bankruptcy.

[@armatus]

not just monetary gain, many companies that could have competed with western companies had the rug pulled under them with the currency suddenly becoming twice as expensive from one day to the other, and east germans simply being in a craze buying anything thats not from the east, no matter how bad or expensive. And the treuhandanstalt, a thing that was created to manage the transition from communism to capitalism basically sold what could have been competition to western companies for pennies on the dollar, since people from the east had no expirience how to value what they had correctly. same goes for housing btw, sooo many people sold their houses for nothing and were getting screwed by west germans. Dont get me wrong, i'm still very happy about reunification, BUT the west fucked the east immensly in the process.

[@mitchellcouchman1444]

@@armatus I think similar things happened to all of eastern Europe, powerhouses before ww2, no more than husks today doing barely better than in the USSR, weirdly enough the current political football is one of those countries with such a fate

[@MannIchFindKeinName]

@@mitchellcouchman1444 It was the same for most of the eastern countries. In germany we just got the special situation now, that the victims (and their kids) and the winners (and their kids) sit in the same country. And jeah, the winners were the capitalists, which creates a lot of political tension and weird perspectives on each other, considering that a lot of them actually tried to not be capitalists.. :D

[@Sneaker3719]

The story of East Germany’s stagnation is unfortunately the story of a lot of the Eastern Bloc: after the USSR collapsed, its constituent states were immediately exposed to the Western free market, and were given no chance to develop their own economies to similar levels. This led to western companies coming in, and siphoning the wealth of the countries for themselves, and leaving the rest to get eaten up by oligarchs. And of course, this paves the way for far-right populism to take hold and institute authoritarian measures based on the false promise it will makes their citizens’ lives better. We saw this in Russia with Putin, in Hungary with Orban, and unless Germany gets itself together, we may very well see this with the AfD.

[@Jasonwolf1495]

Yeah free market sounds nice but its just private exploitation rather than government exploitation in the end. They just call you a customer instead of a citizen.

[@Croz89]

The odd thing is some eastern bloc nations are actually improving rapidly. Poland and Estonia are two that stand out, in the near future Poland may be wealthier than former east Germany (though not Germany as a whole, that's a much bigger hill to climb!)

[@LostieTrekieTechie]

Where has after the second world war there was a Marshall plan and plenty of funds for a welfare state-with the alternative of socialism just across the border, the US and west were under pressure to deliver

[@FaySmash]

But now a lot of international companies hesitate to open business branches in the middle of a a Nazi infested hive

[@ShubhamMishrabro]

Stagnation was already in East Europe. Ussr collapsing and adopting capitalism led to huge depression

[@Xzibitfreek]

Besides Merkel who is from East Germany, the famous band Rammstein is also from East Germany and they have a few songs about this divide. Its part of the "Deutschland" music video, in the song "Radio" they sing about being able to hear western radio for 1-2 hours a day in the east and how it affected them. Till Lindemann has a song independent from Rammstein called "Sport Frei" singing about his experiences as a competitive swimmer in East Germany and the inhumane conditions he experienced.

[@Larzipan146]

I started researching East Germany about a year ago and in that time I also moved cities. When I got settled, I needed a new hairdresser and by coincidence she was born in East Berlin. Now I get a haircut and a history lesson. It's been special to hear her stories and how they align with other stories told by others.

[@JusEnTin_Archief]

This was the video I've been looking for for years. I've always wondered how the administrative reunification worked out. Thankyou!

[@ClemensKatzer]

Complex and expensive. Imagine North and South Korea. Western Germany was significantly bigger than East, and people in the East were at least not starving. Korea.... oh boy.

[@pinienapfel8685]

Kudos, you did an amazing job in summing it all up in just 20 minutes! Really interesting to get an outside perspective. Usually, this story is told by either an eastern or western German with the according biases. Thank you so much for that video! Hope my country will truly reunite asap ❤🎉

[@j.p.obregon1415]

I find this topic incredibly fascinating. The part about the transit is especially interesting. It's crazy that they had these ghost stations in East Berlin that sat for 40 years, and then they managed to reopen them and begin service again. Imagine riding a train through those ghost stations, and seeing the empty dark station. That must be incredibly sad, to see your former country in that state of disarray. I can't imagine.

[@marrs1013]

At 5:14 it is a Hungarian operated train. You can see the MÁV logo on front: Magyar ÁllamVasutak. Meaning Hungarian National Railways.

[@axelschellert9127]

Hello there, I adore your work/content am for its high level of edu. & entertainment! Thanks for your effort sir. Best from 🇳🇱

[@tituslasse]

German follower here: great documentary, a lot I did not know yet. Keep it coming!🎉

[@moritzl7065]

A very interesting video about my home city! One notable infrastructure difference that didn't make it into the video though are the trams. Berlin's trams used to run through the whole city, but like many other western countries, people in the 60s believed that cars were the one and only future. So the tram lines were all removed. However East Berlin kept them, which is why if you look at Berlin's tram network today you'll notice that it operates >90% in former East Berlin (the other

[@Schmidtelpunkt]

The west was a lot denser, reducing the advantage of trams compared to busses. In the east there are several lines on wide roads with a dedicated lane, which allows them to travel quicker than the average traffic and to prefer them at traffic lights. In the west they were essentially less flexible busses which got caught in the increasing traffic, while space got more and more valuable. And the tram lines were not positioned as a strategical net, but just how every little town later absorbed by Berlin thought it would make sense... There came the subway boom, which offered a significant improvement over trams in speed and volume and because of the preferred placement under wide streets, often doubled former tram tracks anyway. So it isn't really just the idea that cars or individual traffic as such were the future. Especially not in the 60s were cars were still a luxury.

[@kalle5548]

Visited Berlin for my first time just earlier this month and Wow, such a beautiful and yet quirky city today, and such emence history, great video, keep up the hard work

[@jschaibly]

Weird that U2 recorded "Achtung Baby" during the month the wall fell down and the U2 line reunited and merged to complete the process of "One"

[@horstborscht7401]

Funnily enough, I first came across U2 during their „Achtung Baby“ album, when I was 11 year old. And since the band were staying in Berlin to record their album, I assumed their band name was taken from the U2 underground line 😅

[@jpablo700]

In elementary school (US), I remember a girl coming back from her trip to Germany and bringing a piece of the Berlin Wall to show and tell. The piece of wall (cement) was cool, it had graffiti and other markings on it. I come to appreciate that day even more as I got older and really understood what that meant.

[@fallen_cookie]

I need a 1 hour version of this ASAP

[@SimonBauer7]

13:28 wages in the east are still a bit lower than in the west even now. crazy how much they have ruined. its also said that the west was so much more wealthy we basically owned the east, due to their loans.

[@timm1998]

When he said Jannowitzbrück at 3:02 I was just stoping ther on the S-Bahn. :)

[@davidstrohl]

I was an American airman stationed at Tempelhof Airbase in West Berlin before during and after the fall of the Wall. Living through East Germany de-commiefying itself was the best, most unique, and most substantial experience that I’ve ever had in my 58 years on earth. I’m so grateful to have lived there whilst the city briefly became the center of the known universe in 1989-1990. The total effect of 45 years of enforced division was both a short and long term problem for both countries and their people, and it was always going to be. Everyone with half a brain knew this, even in 1989. East German citizens had cradle-to-grave government handouts and subsidies for nearly everything they required, while West Germans did not. This caused East German skills needed to operate in a competitive market economy to atrophy or never develop. Most East Germans didn’t really know what a market economy was because one wasn’t a possibility in East Germany. Why learn how a system functions that wasn’t ever in the cards for them? If they were trying to learn about it then they’d probably be subjected to a Stasi “interview” for “uncommie-like behavior” or whatever Orwellian thought crime the East German apparatchiks would’ve charged them with. Probably Counter-Revolutionary Acts Against the Socialist State or some other such folderol. Then they’d be quietly thrown into prison for a few years, to drive home the point that such behavior is frowned upon by communists. Either that or they’d be hired to work in the GDR’s secret Commercial Coordination (KoKo) department. It’s going to take generations to bring the people of these two formerly-separated nations together, and there will always be a revanchist contingent who complains about how much better they had it back when the two nations were separated. As for the rise of a right-wing in Germany today, there’s no political party that could be classified as truly right-wing there now. When most Germans say right-wing, what they actually mean is anyone who isn’t operating in lockstep with the far-left, much like what’s happening in the USA and UK at the moment. It’s a cudgel, an avenue of attack from and by the far-left. And it works most of the time, which is pretty insane considering that it was far-left commie dictators like Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Pol Pot who collectively murdered well over 100 million of their own citizens. The accusation is the attack, and it really doesn’t matter if the attacker can back it up with facts. The process is the punishment. I really enjoyed your video, you’ve done an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of the issues that Germans now face and how they came by them. Well done!

[@gohanssj48]

I live in a big country who had the same economic system in all of its territory forever (Brazil) and there is great economic disparities. The United States has big disparities among its states. The EU has lots disparities among ita nation-states It was totally madness to think that two parts living on totally different systems would converge in less than generation. The AfD will live on the memories of the false promises made in the Reunification.

[@highly_elusive]

Germany is comparatively small tho (Brazil is almost 25 times larger) and there is also a money-transfer scheme between states. So well-off states transfer money to poorer states to balance out economic disparities.

[@Imagionis]

@@highly_elusive One of the problem with the Federal Monetary Balancing Fund (I think that's the translation) is that there are only four states paying into it and twelve receivers and we're not talking about a lot of money. At least in the scale of Germany as a nation

[@gohanssj48]

Germany can be comparatively small, but still is a big country and have a huge population. See my European Union example.

[@CastorRabbit]

@@gohanssj48 Hey! Settle down... you guys always get carried away when you start talking like that

[@maciejszulc2684]

@@highly_elusive Poland is even smaller - and we still have deep differences remaining from the pre-1918 era, even after we've been through WW2 and communism together.

[@Kalanalbert]

My grandpa was born in Germany, he lived in east Berlin for a while then he escaped using a train. I don’t know how he did it but his escape started 2 new generations of my family thanks to him. He has passed sometime in 2016 when I was younger I wish I asked him how he escaped by train. Later on when my dad was born he and his grandpa visited their family in Berlin around the 80’s my dad described east Berlin as the saddest city he has ever seen. My family was lucky.

[@Freak80MC]

It makes you wonder whether they should have reunified, or whether East Germany should have just became it's own country.

[@mikethespike7579]

It's true that the incomes in former East Germany are far lower than in former West Germany. But for that life there is cheaper, property is cheaper, hotels are cheaper, gastronomy is cheaper, even many foodstuffs in the supermarkets are cheaper than in the west. Although subjective, I have the impression that people in the east are more relaxed, not so hectic like in the west.

[@tobiwan001]

West Germany also had to send railway tracks as sepration to Western Allies (e.g. France). There are still railway lines in the West that are single track because of that, despite being double tracked a century ago. Overall both Germany's paid between 90% and 100% of GDP in reparations.

[@erik_griswold]

It was the Soviets that took infrastructure as reparations. Can you city me any instances where the French did?

[@tobiwan001]

@@erik_griswoldall occupying nations already agreed in Yalta to finance reparations by dismantling industrial equipment in their occupations zones. Britain mainly dismantled industrial equipment in the North while France dismantled mainly railways in today‘s states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. In my reparations figure it is not included that large parts of Germany were annexed and ownership of assets abroad was seized. And this is of course understandable after WWII. I am just making this point that it was not financial support or the Marshall plan that helped Germany after WWII because it was a tiny amount that came years late - it was the integration into western markets, the still existing industrially trained population, the demand for civilian and investment goods and the monetary reforms that made the German economic miracle happen. That’s mainly the lesson to take away for future tasks. That’s also why reunification in Germany was slow and painful, although it might have been the only political option.

[@varana]

@@erik_griswold In the first two or three years, the French occupation was much more heavy-handed than the British or American ones. Apart from the "Iron Curtain" separating the Western zones from the Soviet one, there was the "Silken Curtain" keeping the French zone apart. That was obviously in no way comparable to the East-West split, and faded rather soon as the post-War order emerged.

[@erik_griswold]

@danielhalachev4714 VW wasn’t “taken over” by the British. It was restored by them to provide jobs and income for the local population who were right up against the Soviet Sector. It remained a German company.

[@phmagnabosc0]

Reacting to the sentence on judges at 13:00. It is implied that GDR judges were following "dominant party stances" rather than law. They did, when party politics were involved. But they also presided over all the other cases that any judge in any country would, and did so simply following GDR law. Like in any country. Not every outlaw in the GDR was a freedom-loving capitalist rebels that had to be judged along political lines. There were those run-of-the-mill criminals you get everywhere, too. So the retraining of judges is not simply about ripping out the partisan, communist reflexes out of them. It was also, and perhaps more importantly, about retraining them into West-German law, that had evolved separately for 40 years and had suddenly become the new law of the land in the former GDR.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

Also: It is not, that current German judges are free from party line politics - quite to the contrary. Sometimes hilariously so: Like then the highest court in Germany , the Constitutional Court let fly themselves in the private jet of the government to a nice evening dinner - to talk about a current case before that court ... without the other party being present and without a written log. And then decide the case, without an oral hearing of the other party. Yes, that really did happen ....

[@AlbertRN]

Slovakia catching strays at 16:47

I believe it's already the second time in recent months that Sam used us as the less favorable example :D

[@piotrb4240]

The funny part, is that 75% is not that bad in terms of differences. In Italy, the richest provinces (South Tyrol, Lombardy, Trentino, Aosta Valley etc.) have a GDP per capita over DOUBLE that of the poorest regions (Campania, Sicily, Calabria, Apulia). Regards from Poland

[@iGamezRo]

The problem with German reunification was how speedy it was. East Germany could've de-jure joined the FRG, but an actual "reintegration authority" should've been put in place and had West German money pumped into it until it would've caught up. As unprofitable and bad as they were, those East German factories were, they needed to be constantly kept afloat for at least 10 years. Yes, it would've cost a lot, it might've been harder to justify to West Germans, but it would've worked out in the end. Only after the East had economically and socially caught up to the West, then it should've de-facto joined the FRG.

[@SiVlog1989]

In a sense, even when reunification happened on October 3rd 1990, the BBC hit the nail on the head about one of the fundamental issues about the reunification itself: "The new United Germany joins the International Community this morning as one of the largest and most influential of nations. But, I reality, these celebrations are marking an absorption of the East by the West, rather than a merging of equals." One of the last hurdles to overcome during negotiations was what Germany's borders would look like after reunification. East Germany and Poland agreed that the border between them would be the Oder/Neisse line, but West Germany at that time never really gave up its claim to Germany's borders that existed pre-WW2, namely Pomerania, Silesia and most notably, East Prussia. All the nations that were involved in the negotiations all made recognition of the Oder/Neisse line border a condition of reunification. Either they accepted it, reunification with East Germany and Berlin, but accepting that they'd finally lose territory in Eastern Europe, or nothing

[@ClemensAlive]

It’s crazy to see places in this video that you casually commute by on a daily basis

[@ProffyChaos]

Living standards in West Germany were higher than the UK and France. In the UK there was a famous TV show in the 80s called Auf Wiedersehen Pet about Brits working in construction because there were jobs in Germany unlike the UK at the time.

[@Proton_Decay]

Yours was my favorite channel on nebula, before the break from curiosityStream, but I just cannot justify that subscription cost for your channel alone

[@CharlesGregory]

It's worth it if you subscribe for Jet Lag The Game as well!

[@paulproux7276]

Dear @Wendoverproductions, I am not here to say that this is a bad video it is not, and there is only so much information to fits in 21:14 minutes. But please check your sources, like the part about the railway, yes it was badly maintained but the lines between the most important cities like, Rostock, Berlin,Dresden, Halle, Erfurt, Magdeburg and Leinzig were electrified. Besides that, the Wirtschaftswunder in the FRG was only possible due to the Marshall plan, also the territory of the GDR was even before the war less industrialised than the territory of the FRG, and there are a lot of other reasons way the east German industry tanked after the unification and its not mainly because nobody liked there stuff. For example, before the unification the GDR was a low-cost country but with the unification the salaries were synchronised, the industry was sold of or closed down by the Treuhand or some times even gifted to some investors. But all in all, I liked your video, but please get your facts straight. Best regards Paul Proux

[@walpoleandworcester]

Seems like there were strings attached and lingering effects that are felt to this day. Thanks for dropping this!

[@chheinrich8486]

As a german, even one born in 2001, all i can say is: you have no idea

[@GWT1m0]

​@@chheinrich8486Is it true it was more of the FDR annexing the GDR ? Instead of "reunification" ?

[@gabbyn978]

@@GWT1m0 It is called the FRG, and has been since 1949. Actually, the east virtually ran into the FRG, and the west was somewhat annoyed that they could not wait, and that they were so much after getting our Deutsche Mark. Well, the eastern version had no validity outside the Warshaw Pact, so imports would have to be paid in foreign currencies nevertheless. Did you know that the currency trade was two eastern Marks for one western Deutsche Mark, when the monetary reform started?

[@Bragosso]

@@gabbyn978 Only two eastern Marks for one whole western Mark feels like a subsidisation from the west.

[@kilianortmann9979]

@@GWT1m0 Officially and legally the GDR joined the FRG and accepted all laws, regulations, institutions, the money, stamps etc. Modern day Germany is a direct continuation of the FRG and the GDR ceased to exist, of course a few aspects of the GDR made it into modern Germany and time was given to align the two states, but it was not a new state formed of two parts.

[@jekker1000]

the stock video footage is so random that is rather distracting than adding sth. to the video. Like @ 10:00 talking about government provinces and showing ultra right demo. Or the guy cutting roses. etc.

[@alexclement7221]

2:20:".....trains simply would not stop at them." Not true. I don't remember if it was A6 or A8 on the U-Bahn (I think it was A6...), but one of them stopped at Freiderichstrasse Station, where there was an Intershop store where you could buy mostly western items tax-free, and could enter of leave from the train station (which had separated platforms for West German trains). For this staircase, you didn't need to clear customs, since you were technically in a restricted immigration area. This was the primary entrance to West Berlin for people arriving from the DFR. But, there was a different part of the subway platform where you could enter the DDR, and go up to either catch an Eastern train, or to walk out the door of the station (which was entirely on the DDR side of the wall). You would need to exchange all your D-marks for O-marks (at a 1 to 1 rate), and were granted a 1-day stamp on your passport, good only until midnight. I knew of one person who actually crossed early one morning, took a train to Dresden, saw the sights and came back, just barely clearing the border before midnight....

[@andreasvogel5186]

Wow, the choice of footage is so random it detracts from the great primer on reunification in the voiceover!

[@wangsengsin2527]

This, my first thought was what does funny moustache man have to do with delayed train services from Berlin to Hamburg?

[@modern_milkman]

@@wangsengsin2527 That clip made at least a bit of sense, as Sam was talking about how much faster the train connection between Berlin and Hamburg was during the 1930s. So during the time of the mustache-wearing dictator. But a lot of other clips didn't make any sense whatsoever. E.g. most of the clips of random demonstrations. Especially the clip of some far-right-demo while he was talking about the government provinces at 10:00. Or another far-right demonstration while talking about everyday life, at 16:30

[@INSIGHTCO]

Living here and seeing it and talking to people from both sides is a soul opening.

[@Carewolf]

Well Saxony is the richest of the former east german states, and Dresden one of the few cities attracting foreigners, but Saxony is also the core of the new right wing.

[@swell07_]

is "right wing" just a euphemism for people who disagree with importing only males of fighting age from african countries?

[@hothoploink1509]

@@swell07_ *african and middle-eastern, otherwise correct

[@gabbyn978]

The people aren't imported by the state. They come on their own, because they had seen german TV shows and believed this is paradise, and some are actually fleeing from a war. Traffickers exploit their beliefs, and demand a fortune for opening the path into this 'paradise', and when their 'customers' can not bring up the money, they get literally enslaved. Also, these travelers aren't all adult men, there are women and children, too, which fell for the same scams.

[@hans8372]

@@gabbyn978 Most of them are actually adult men. The women and children often come afterwards under a program called ''family reunification''. Many of them are actually not fleeing from war or anything. Most ''refugees'' to Germany actually come from Turkey - a country where Germans fly in the millions every year to make vacation... And yes, the German government is actively motivating these people to come to Germany - against the wishes of the own population - they are incentevising and in some cases actively flying people in and when they are here, even if they have no legitimate claim for asylum the government is refusing to send them back to their homecountries.

[@YoY664]

Germany had linked its states with a "national" rail network before there even was a German state, this tendency to plan, compromise, commit and execute is something so rare that I've only seen it amongst the Dutch.

[@MrDellasc]

After graduating college in May of 1989, my friends and I traveled in Europe during the summer. In August, When we were going from Rome to Germany through Austria on an overnight train, the train made an unexpected stop in what I think was Vienna in the middle of the night, and there was a lot of commotion when the train picked up a a sizable group of East Germans. Everyone was wondering why and how they got into Austria, since the borders were still closed. After we finally got into Munich, my friends and I forgot about the East German’s on our train, and continued our travels through Europe. It wasn’t until we got back to the states in September and watched the news about what was happening in Germany that we realized was happening and history was changing. Keep in mind that in September of 1989, the world didn’t think Berlin Wall was about to come down, but we had a sense that something was happening that would change Europe. I’m glad I was able to witness the beginning of the reunification of Germany. I still have about 10 west German Marks somewhere in a box somewhere.

[@Theurbanmajor]

Unfortunately, too much focus was placed on replacing the infrastructure of East Germany with that of West Germany, without recognizing in which aspects some things in the East were actually better. The best example of this is the polyclinics.

[@Alex-gd9li]

Nothing in the East was better

[@amosm9471]

My Grandfather’s family is form the area around what used to be known as Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, he and his siblings fled when the red army came and the after a few years in Poland they settled in Thuringia. My grand father was later conscripted in to the GDRs army and managed to move to the west on a day off just days before the wall went up. He visited his family in the GDR on a regular basis and when asked soon as I was old enough to understand what that divide meant my mom told me the stories she experienced when they were crossing the border and I hear the same stories almost every time we go past the old border crossings Dreilinden.

[@samgoodwin3622]

Probably one of my new favorite wendover videos. Great job!

[@Certago]

I grew up in east Berlin and having seen my country come back together peacefully is amazing.

[@knguyennguyen5559]

If the Koreas are ever united, it's gonna be even messier than Germany

[@alexandermallett1852]

I recently visited Berlin with my family. My parents had been before, once before and once during the fall of the Berlin war! They were surprised at how there is still such a difference between east and West Berlin!

[@triadgaming3323]

Great video once again

[@nicolasblume1046]

2:40 one mistake: Friedrichstraße on U6 was open! There was a border Checkpoint there, and you could change to the S-Bahn

[@honeycoffeeandmilk996]

19:04 Tübingen jump-scare xD

[@kalilebron007]

Talking about "Simple everyday aspects of life.." at 16:28 while showing a bunch of Neo Nazis protesting is kinda counter-productive to this video. Rest assured this video is quite informative and quite accurate.

[@NoelmineZockt]

Things I miss from old German engineering: Magnetbahn, Transrapid

[@fixminer9797]

It’s a cool concept but simply too expensive compared to normal high speed trains.

[@NoelmineZockt]

@@fixminer9797 that's only partly true. The expensive part is the rail network needed. Which surprisingly was in the German approach back then partly in the ticket prices while ICE rail networks get subsidized 100%. So ofc it's too pricey. Then you need to value in that the first train is more costly than mass production, and so on. Normal trains had just have tenths of years more time to be more cost-efficient. The big problem back then was more that DB didn't want any competition. Something what is more energy efficient often turns out to be more long term more cost-efficient, short term unfortunately this is not the case.

[@MartinBrenner]

There is a current system from Max Bögl with a similar idea: regional/local public transport with robust maglev technology. Cheaper to build than a subway but faster and more capacity than trams.

[@TheFarsethi]

Good short film about this topic. If you ever follow up on it, look into Treuhand and what it meant for East German economy. It shaped the East's reunification issues quite a bit.

[@mahuhude]

GDR had a program called „contract workers“ which caused some immigration from Vietnam, Angola and Cuba. But this immigration wasn’t intended.

[@gupiter1562]

One of the more fascinating videos from Wendover on an issue rarely covered outside of Berlin.

[@chuckygobyebye]

Hang on a second, the assumption is that both east and west started from equal points. However, industrialization has always been concentrated in the west and those states on the west side of the curtain were historically wealthier, even before division. So the comparisons are probably a false equivalency. It would be better to compare pre-WWii or even pre-WWi prosperity to what's apparent today.

[@varana]

Some of them, yes. On the other hand, Saxony, parts of Thuringia, and Berlin were major industrial centres before the war while Bavaria, much of Lower Saxony, or Schleswig-Holstein were not. That explanation is too simple and misleading.

[@bjornwinkelmann465]

As a German I must say - I learned something about my own country by an American. Never thought that would happen. Hats off to you and your research team, Sam. Great B-Roll, very suitable to what you say. Keep up the great work 🚀

[@DrHenrik]

Man noone could even rush east you completely underestimate how many people rushed west. Also the "dense" area not served by the u2 is called potsdamer platz and it wasn't dense it was an empty field I lived in Berlin for my entire life and find it quite quaint to hear that it was "underserved" when until 95 or so literally none of these buildings existed

[@av_oid]

It was a blank slate for nearly 15 years wasn’t it?

[@DrHenrik]

@@av_oid Something like that I mean it was a blank slate for the entire time the wall stood and then for a further 5-10 years. The thing is that is also that he makes it sound that its a residential area but its exclusively for Business (including shopping and cinema) I mean zou even see the sony center on the screen (its the tent like building). Generally he often makes avoidable mistakes I have to say.

[@LPMaxytb]

Really would've liked more talk about the rushed currency unfication and the fact that 85% of the privatised state property went to west germans.

[@foximacentauri7891]

I am convinced that the major mistake of the reunification was that west german companies were allowed to just sweep over the eastern market and devour everything like an invasive species in an environment without any natural preditors. The german head of state at the time (Helmut Kohl) was rather liberal in terms of economics and supported a less regulated economy, just like the american president at the time - Reagan. Had the eastern companies the chance to get competitive before they had to face the western economy, things could've gone very different and east germany could have a strong industry today. But back then everyone wanted the unification to go as fast as possible, which I admit, is understandable.

[@markseychell8443]

Super video thank you. It would be extremely interesting to see an "opposite" scenario, the logistics of the breakup of the USSR

[@brend2718]

You should make a video about how the US reunified (after the Civil War) and how it went better or worse than German reunification.

[@CastorRabbit]

Ongoing

[@lukasrentz3238]

Certainly an interesting topic though it might be difficult to compare because the causes and length of division were quite different. Also a very different time period. But culturally (especially in respect to extremism) this might work.

[@motormann2083]

Best video essay about this of someone not native to Germany I've seen so far. Great Video.

[@tobywatson9351]

Honestly it’s really impressive they managed to unify Germany so smoothly post Berlin Wall so quickly.

[@Baor_8]

But not smoothly or fairly. There is still "ostfrust" east frustration as fabrics and living space were all brought by west germans and to this day are you paid worst in the east. A little divide in east and west still exist and can't really be changed.

[@tobywatson9351]

That’s fair. I’m seeing it from an outsider perspective, so I definitely missed a lot of the nuance, and of course, it’s definitely not perfect and will still take more time, but the process of economic and more importantly cultural reconnection is pretty impressive when looking at it from an American standpoint, as it is seems similar to the efforts taken to reunify the Southern and Northern US states during our reconstruction. Even today America has a sort of cultural scar from that process that’s still struggling to heal, and that creates a polarized political division that still lasts today. Im just really impressed by the shared German identity that persisted even after decades of occupation, and how (even if not perfectly) they were able to take back a place on the world stage so quickly

[@amcalabrese1]

My sister in law had a friend from the west who was sent to the east to help integrate a business unit that was purchased by a western company. The problem was that eastern employees were always looking to inform on each other.

[@workspilot.]

I waited months for a new video!

[@JB-yl4om]

As an academic who studies freedom and citizenship, their relationship, and how illiberalism can arise in countries committed to 'freedom', I thought that this video was exceptionally well done and researched. Though under explored (of course it is -- this isn't an academic paper or doctoral thesis) the identification of the issue of immigration and pre-existing economic inequality of opportunity was very well done, and provided excellent insight into the contemporary rise of illiberal politics in Germany. Very well done.

[@TylerDurden-pk5km]

Germany certainly isn't committed to "freedom" or liberalisms - since it's constitution does not guarantee free speech and you can and will be locked up for a long time, if you say the wrong things in public. The list what is forbidden is ever expanding.

[@supraphonic88]

Literally just got home last night from a trip to Berlin so this is excellent timing

[@roblox.apple.]

i went last week its literally my favourite city ive ever been to

[@sleepy_chronotype]

How did you guys like it and why. What was good and bad? Always interested in hearing about my hometown :p

[@bananenmusli2769]

@@sleepy_chronotype There are two cities in Germany that don't feel like any other German city: Berlin and Hamburg. I am from Bavaria and when I was in Berlin it felt really different from any place I've been to before. Munich, Nuremberg are boring but Berlin is just awesome, same with Hamburg.

[@gabbyn978]

Berlin can be provincial and international at the same time. You can make a world travel by just taking a U-Bahn from say, Alexanderplatz to Wittenau. There are dozens of cinemas of all sizes, with all kinds of programs, several theatres, a lot of flea markets, city houses that are a hundred years old along with postmodern ones (I think the later ones are even more ugly), several boulevards, night clubs, a nightlife that never ends, street performing artists, several shopping streets, a ton of museums of all kinds, some grouped on a specific island within the river Spree, libraries, three universities (Humboldt, Free and Technical University plus the Academy of the Beaux Arts), and - well a very active LGBT+ community.

[@Entertainment-]

@@sleepy_chronotypeI don’t like Berlin, it’s too grey with too many concrete Soviet-era blocks.