When I was in college, I became fast friends with a German exchange student. The wall came down while he was over here, and his girlfriend was keeping him informed about events back home. She was telling him from the start that the East Germans were posing a problem. West Germans thought at the time that the easterners had been so deprived financially and educationally that they were rather brutish and intolerant of others. It seems now that there might be more to it than that.

From articles I've read since the reunification of Germany, it seems that a lot of the country's social problems are rooted in east/west conflict. Germans in the east appear to have more prejudices about people different from them and are far more conservative politically than the westerners. From an American point of view, it looks as if German political differences between west and east can be compared to American differences between the North and the South. If that is indeed the case, I hope that the views of those in western Germany carry the day.

Thanks for linking to the site, by the way. I saw several articles on the site that are interesting to me and I've bookmarked it.

Last edited Mon Jan 26, 2015, 10:06 PM - Edit history (2)

Some Western Germans had called the people living in what was East Germany, Barely Germanized Slavs and that was BEFORE German Unification of the 1860s.

Western Germany is based on the Rhine River and its Tributaries (i.e the Ruhr Valley and its rivers as while as the Rhine River itself) and to the Weser to a lesser degree:

The Rhine River Basin:



http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/eu24.htm

The Weser, the river between the Rhine and Elbe:



http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/eu34.html


Southern Germany is directed more at the Danube:



http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/eu2.html



East Germany was based on the Elbe, not the Rhine, the Weser or the Danube, through Hamburg is at the month of the Elbe, it is more Western than the people up river:



http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/eu10.html

The last great River Basin for Germany is the Oder, now mostly in Poland, through the river itself is the border between Poland and Germany:



http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/eu22.html

Now, by 900 AD, the Slavs had come to dominate the Elbe Basin, Germans tend to be in the Danube and Rhine basins or drainage area. Then the Germans moved East taking over from the Slavs in what was East Germany (With the Sorbs being the only admitted slavs within Brandenburg and what would be East Germany). How, much interbreeding is unknown, how many Sorbs and other slavs decided to speak German and call themselves German is unknown (Nationality was less important then family, clan and Religion). Thus how German are the Germans of the Elbe and Oder basin is unknown.

On the other hand there are difference between people from the three drainage basins of Germany. How much is this traceable to the German Move East of the 900-1400 period is unknown, how much of this is Germanification under the later Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire is unknown and unknowable and how much is from the existence of East Germany from the 1950s to the 1990s is unknown and unknowable,. Rivers were the major "Highways" of Europe prior to the Railroads and thus people and their cultures tend to follow rivers.

Just a comment that the East-West divide in Germany is older then East Germany, but the creation of East Germany and its existence may have increased those differences.

All European Water basins:

http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/flash_europe.html

World Water Basins:

http://multimedia.wri.org/watersheds_2003/index.html

and 'how German' the east Germans really are is HIGHLY significant here...

The 'Pegada' demonstration ('against Americanisation', an ironic allusion to the movement 'against Islamisation') mentioned in the OP took place in Erfurt, Thüringen. Erfurt is located right in the middle of Germany, not in the Elbe Basin (as if this would make any difference). Erfurt is a very old German city, its most widely known inhabitant was Martin Luther. A few miles east is Weimar, where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived most of his life. There is no region in Germany that is more German. No 'barely Germanized Slavs' far and wide (as if this would make any difference whatsoever).

The participants and speakers at this relatively small demonstration (ca. 1000) came from all over Germany: Berlin, Munich, Dortmund, also from Austria, one speaker is a French immigrant. They see themselves as a new peace movement which has formed itself over the last year relatively spontaneously in response to the dangerous developments in Ukraine. First in Berlin, then in many other German cities they held 'Mahnwachen' (peace vigils), weekly public gatherings where everyone was encouraged to speak and share his or her concerns and opinions. Up to 10000 participants were counted at some of these gatherings in Berlin, but elsewhere mostly a few hundred.

They have been viciously and unfairly attacked by the media as being dangerous populists and fascists, which the nitwit who authored the story in the OP must have picked up somewhere to mindlessly repeat it. Whatever the merits of this allegation, however, this movement is something entirely different from the demonstrations in Dresden and Leipzig 'against Islamisation'. With those, one might argue that the east-west friction may indeed play a role. Not because of the Elbe Basin, but rather because of the Tal der Ahnungslosen:

is mostly archeological in nature, perhaps slight differences in the statistical distribution of Haplogroups mean something. In discussions about the sovereignty of nation states today they mean nothing.

Nation-States are legal entities that exist independent of any other legal entities. US States are "Nation-States" in that they are legal entities whose existence is based on their own laws and are independent of the Federal Government. The Federal Government itself is a "State" in that its existence is a product of the people of the US, even through the same people also form themselves into the 50 States. A Confederation or a Federation (variation of the same word, both indicating the existence of two sets of "States", one at what we in the US call the State level and another at the Federal Level. They are both independent of each other AND interacting with each other. Neither can destroy the other or reset the terms of the Federation or the membership in the Federation or even the balance between the Federation and the members of the federation.

This came up when the US Supreme Court ruled on the DOMA case. The US Supreme Court ruled that Marriage is a power reserved to the States and the Federal Government has no power to regulate marriage. What is marriage, who can marry, is a power reserved to the States. The Federal Government attempt to use its power to spend money and tax could NOT be used to set those powers reserved to the states. Thus a federation is a State, but so are its member states, how the power is shared is determined by the terms of the Federation, but the people created BOTH the Federation and the State.

Germany is a Federation. Germany is also a "State" in that its existence is independent of the states that make up the German Federation.

On the other hand culture is NOT a legal entity, it is something that exists. Culture is how people interact with each other. Different states can have one culture, or many cultures. Federations are known to have many cultures, often divided on their member state basis. i.e. each states of a Federation may have its own Culture or several cultures, and a culture may go over several states (and even over several Nation-States). A culture is sometimes something hard to define. For example in the US we, at times, have one culture, but also several cultures. We drive on the right, we eat with a knife and fork, we go to McDonalds etc.

On the other hand the US has several cultures. New England and its Clam Chowder, the South with its Grits, New York and is nightlife. The mid west with its tendency to heavy industry AND agriculture (which sometimes act as two cultures in the Mid-west, one urban and industrial, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago to Minneapolis, the other Rural and Agricultural from Western Pennsylvania, to Columbus Ohio, Indianapolis, Springfield Illinois and into Iowa, St Paul Minnesota the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska). The West, which at times include Texas, but at other times not. Texas, which is sometimes in the West and sometimes in the South. California (Sometimes through in with Oregon and Washington as the "Left Coast", but at other times divided itself between Southern California and Northern California).

One of the problems with culture is it is hard to define but we are all members of a culture (and some times several Cultures). The Ohio Valley is sometimes considered in the Rural Midwest, the Urban Midwest and at other other times the South.

Germany is a Federation like the US, but its State lines actually reflect historical differences, unlike the State lines in the US which tended to be drawn by people who knew nothing about the area they were drawing a line in, but wanted to sell the land to farmers (In Colonial Days, done in London, post American Revolution done in DC under the terms set forth in the Northwest Territory act of 1785). Thus US State lines rarely reflect cultural differences (the two biggest exception to this rule is Louisanna and its French Heritage AND Utah and its Mormon Heritage).

On the other hand, people tended to settle down along means of transportation and prior to the Railroad that was rivers. The Tidewater Culture of the American Atlantic Coast Maryland and south, the Lower Mississippi River and its free flow of water. The Ohio and Upper Mississippi and the use of Locks and Dams to keep the river flowing all year round (and the heritage that before such locks and dams, these rivers were non-usable for part of the year). Northern California followed the local Rivers till the Southern Pacific opened up Southern California in the 1880s.

Germany was older then the US and has a longer history of using rivers before the Railroad and thus those rivers often produce different cultures for they brought people together and separated them from people who were near other rivers.

The South and its long history of Slavery, then segregation, has a culture that is different from the rest of the US. That culture has been changed by the end of segregation but that long history of racism still echos. Thus to say the differences between what had been the state of Brandenburg (and later Prussia) from the Rhine is a recent development indicates someone who does not accept that Culture can last for centuries without to much changes AND societies can reverse and return to an older culture if that older Culture is still in their collective Memory (this is what happen in the American South with segregation after the 1890s, slavery could not be reintroduced, but all the other aspects of the Slave society, i.e. Whites were better than African Americans, could be reintroduced and were.

My comment on DNA was directed at the fact the people living in what had been East Germany have more "Slavic blood" in them then people in what had been West Germany, This show not only Blood decent BUT that Cultural aspects also were preserved, and the cultural aspects are more important than any DNA. This cultural difference, exists and some of the differences between what had been East Germany and West Germany may be explained by this Cultural difference. That is all I was saying for this cultural difference predates re-unification and even predates unification of the 1860s. What happened in East Germany, like the return of racism through segregation in the American South, could be a product to this long term Germanification of that people of Slavic descent in what used to be East Germany AND how much of a failure such Germanification was (Like Reconstruction was a failure when it came to changing the American South 1865-1877).

But history tends to repeat itself after the collective memory turns over every 80 or so years. You can see it other areas too. like Robber Baron cycles like we're in now.

but it rhymes.

"PEGADA/ENDGAME" is diametrically opposed to PEG I DA.

If some unnamed "it" believes they are a "toxic brew" of "conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis and violent hooligans" they can watch some 2 hours video of the march and speeches to try and find them:

To buttress his Truther arguments, the Social Democrat Müeller (sic) links to a letter by the right-wing Pegida organizer and conspiracy theorist Ken Jebsen.