-
2. Reunification with East Germany and the Refugee Problem
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
2 Reunification with East Germany and the Refugee Problem Introduction With the regime changes that occurred in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s came an additional movement of peoples. These individuals consisted of persons seeking better economic opportunities , refugees fleeing the civil conflict in Yugoslavia, those running from oppressive regimes in nations such as Iraq, and ethnic Germans who were free to migrate for the first time in years. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, residents of the former German Democratic Republic also were able to migrate. These migrants landed primarily in the Federal Republic of Germany because of the nation’s liberal refugee policy and the economic opportunities offered. I begin this chapter with a discussion of the collapse of the GDR. More than any other event, the end of the former Communist regime greatly accelerated the number of incoming residents who would live in Germany during the 1990s. The huge influx was also said to shape attitudes toward the new residents in an economy that was already strained by reunification . The struggling economy combined with the large influx of foreigners also encouraged the rise of extremist parties and their limited success in the polls during the 1990s. The discussion of the collapse of the GDR is followed by a description of the migration of peoples that it triggered both within and outside 32 Reunification with East Germany and the Refugee Problem 33 Germany. I argue that residents of the former GDR, ethnic Germans from the former Communist states of Eastern Europe, and refugees and asylum seekers fleeing primarily from the war in Yugoslavia all entered West Germany at a time when the economy was already lagging. In addition, many Germans were already unhappy with the large number of guest workers (primarily Turks) who were residing in the nation. The pressure of these groups migrating to West Germany led to a great deal of resentment against the newcomers. The negative attitudes toward non-Germans were influential in the support for extremist political parties that won several state and local elections in the eastern Bundesla ̈nder. But it is a matter of debate as to whether it was the economy or simply bigoted attitudes against the new groups that were responsible for the degree of prejudice and right-wing activities that accelerated greatly during the 1990s. I argue that the prejudice that was manifested against these groups is a product of negative stereotypes and bigoted attitudes toward the non-Germans rather than any dissatisfaction with the economy. Nevertheless, I conclude with the observation that part of the frustration with reunification had to do with the high economic expectations placed on the new state by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other Christian Democratic politicians. The Collapse of the German Democratic Republic The collapse of the GDR cannot be viewed in isolation but only as part of a whirlwind of events that happened in the European Communist nations during the late 1980s. Marx stated that capitalism contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. But if this statement may ultimately prove to be true, the same must be said of the former Communist regimes of eastern and central Europe. The most obvious reason for the failure and collapse of the Communist regime in the GDR is that over the long haul a centrally planned, state-managed economy, coupled with a totalitarian political system, could not provide a prosperous and satisfactory life for its citizens, just as it could not in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, or Bulgaria. Over the years there was evidence of cracks in the system as evidenced by the strikes and demonstrations in East Berlin and the GDR in 1953, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, and the Prague Spring in 1968. At least in the short [54.91.19.62] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:56 GMT) 34 Reunification with East Germany and the Refugee Problem run, the power of totalitarianism and the military might of the Soviet Union held sway. But it took both a realistic assessment of economic and political conditions and strong leadership to change these systems. An honest self-examination of the European Communist systems from their leadership began with the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1985. Despite the initial optimistic view that Gorbachev would be a reformer or, in the words of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, “someone we can do business with,” at least some of the West’s initial encounters were...