Historian on the state of unity: “A representative to the East is no longer appropriate”

33 years after German unification, historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk draws a sobering conclusion in an interview. Where he accuses the Eastern Commissioner of “complete failure” and what he demands instead.

tagesschau.de: Mr. Kowalczuk, in the 1990s you were a member of the Enquete Commission on “Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity.” Have we completed this overcoming today?

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: On the contrary. We had a very simple idea of ​​how to overcome the SED dictatorship. For us, parliamentary democracy was something that more or less everyone strives for – and which is also more or less self-explanatory. We were very wrong about that. I as well.

Acceptance of German democracy is dwindling – not only in the East, but also in the West. This applies not only to the state, but also to democracy itself. The longing for authoritarian state structures is becoming ever stronger.

money is not everything

tagesschau.de: What went wrong?

Kowalczuk: It was not clear to those involved at the time that German unity should not only be understood as a fiscal and political process, but also as a cultural upheaval and a cultural redefinition. It was only from around 2019 that the Eastern debate moved away from saying: “We have invested over a trillion euros in the East, now shut up, you must be doing well!”

New debate participants such as the sociologist Steffen Mau or the literary scholar Dirk Oschmann were no longer actors of unity. They were born in ’67 or ’68, like me, and after 1990 they first took care of their own advancement before they intervened in the debate. I was an exception for a long time.

There are also journalists like Jana Hensel and Sabine Rennefanz and, most recently, the author Anne Raabe and the historian Katja Hoyer. These are different generations and sometimes completely opposite perspectives on the GDR and the transformation process. They are re-measuring the debate.

tagesschau.de: What role does the AfD play in this?

Kowalczuk: The fact that we are having this new debate is closely linked to the rise of the AfD, to the rise of racism in the middle of society and of right-wing extremism – especially in East Germany, but not only there.

But the AfD does nothing for the debate itself. When she talks about “Wende 2.0”, it is pure ideology.

tagesschau.de: Pensions in the East have been aligned with those in the West, and wages are also converging, albeit slowly. What impact does this have on the debate?

Kowalczuk: We’ve had the same finding for ten or 15 years: If you ask East Germans, “How are you personally?”, two thirds answer “good to very good.” If you ask the same East Germans, “How is East Germany doing?”, two thirds will say “bad”.

The financial and social conditions in which people live are important, but not everything. A job can be replaced materially. A social relationship, a cinema on your doorstep, a bus, a doctor you know, not.

“The East Commissioner acts helplessly”

tagesschau.de: The Federal Government’s Eastern Commissioner, Carsten Schneider, would probably say that too.

Kowalczuk: The East Commissioner acts helpless. Take its annual report from last year. This was a collection of essays. I don’t need an Eastern Commissioner for that, there is the Federal Agency for Civic Education for that. And to be honest: a representative for the East is no longer appropriate.

tagesschau.de: What do you mean?

Kowalczuk: The East is not the homogeneous space it was made into in 1990 – and which many Westerners still believe it to be today. The structural, socio-economic challenges that exist in North Rhine-Westphalia or Lower Saxony, for example, are much more similar to those in Brandenburg or Saxony-Anhalt than the conditions between Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. What we need is a representative for equal living conditions, as provided for in the Basic Law.

Failure at Future Center

tagesschau.de: The federal government wants to build a “Future Center for German Unity and European Transformation” in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. You were a member of a government commission from which the proposal came. Nevertheless, together with your commission colleague, the former civil rights activist Maria Nooke, you sharply criticized the Eastern Commissioner here too. Why?

Kowalczuk: To this day no one knows what is actually supposed to take place in this house. There is no public debate. A disaster! The future of the future center is up in the air. Now an architectural competition is to be announced, without anyone knowing why. The East Commissioner has failed completely.

tagesschau.de: What do you accuse him of?

Kowalczuk: Apparently they are afraid that the center could fall victim to budget cuts, and that is why they are first hammering in stakes with the architectural competition. But if you really want this project, then it can only be done through public debates. So far there has been a closed event in Halle. It is completely incomprehensible to me how this topic isn’t discussed every day in the marketplace, so to speak.

tagesschau.de: What would there be to discuss?

Kowalczuk: Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to make pilgrimages to Halle every year for the future center, preferably from all over Europe. I have to discuss: How do I even manage this? What, what is supposed to happen? What kind of art exhibitions do I need? Do I perhaps need my own theater or cinema? How do I get children and young people there?

And these debates can take place not only in Halle, but also in Nuremberg, Hamburg, Dresden, Rügen, and also in Gdansk and Paris. This should also be something integrative. I cannot leave the concept for the house to the architects and the ministerial bureaucracy.

Many people don’t acknowledge anger

tagesschau.de: Even a bestselling author like Dirk Oschmann sells “The East – a West German invention” According to their own statements, there are significantly more books in the East than in the West. How realistic are integrative debates in Germany as a whole?

Kowalczuk: There is nothing in the book that thousands of others have not said before. Oschmann says that too. But what is completely new is that a literature professor adopts such an unforgiving, angry, undifferentiated tone. Many read this as a manifesto.

But in Bayreuth, where I live, or in Stuttgart or Hamburg, even intellectuals shrug their shoulders at the name Oschmann. At universities in the West, many people do not take note of this tantrum.

tagesschau.de: So East Germans continue to discuss things primarily with East Germans. You can stop the debates there, right?

Kowalczuk: In the West there is a great disinterest in the East. If I had grown up in Saarbrücken, I would be more interested in Paris and Barcelona than in Dresden and Leipzig.

Easterners aren’t interested in Saarlouis and food either. They don’t have to. On the other hand, you can’t expect the world to revolve around you. We have to understand this lack of interest as a certain normality.

The interview was conducted by Thomas Vorreyer, tagesschau.de