1 / 35

1990-94: Trusteeship agency shuts down most state-owned factories in the former GDR

Reunified Germany has NOT lapsed into strident nationalism, but it has wrestled with the consequences of reunification…. 1990-94: Trusteeship agency shuts down most state-owned factories in the former GDR 1998: Gerhard Schroeder defeats Kohl at the polls as unemployment in the East nears 20%

gerd
Download Presentation

1990-94: Trusteeship agency shuts down most state-owned factories in the former GDR

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Reunified Germany has NOT lapsed into strident nationalism, but it has wrestled with the consequences of reunification…. 1990-94: Trusteeship agency shuts down most state-owned factories in the former GDR 1998: Gerhard Schroeder defeats Kohl at the polls as unemployment in the East nears 20% 1999: Kohl disgraced as financial scandal envelops CDU 2004: After winning reelection, Schroeder tackles painful reforms of labor market (Hartz IV) 2005: After narrow election victory for CDU, Angela Merkel forms “Great Coalition” cabinet with SPD September 2009: SPD emerges from next election so weak that Merkel can form “small coalition” with FDP. November 2009: Authoritative study concludes the $1.9 trillion had been transferred from West to East since 1989.

  2. HELMUT KOHL’S TV ADDRESS, JULY 1, 1990(the day the Currency Union took effect) “To Germans in the GDR I can say: No one will be worse off then before, and many will be better off. Only the monetary, economic, and social union offers the chance, yes, even the guarantee, of improving living conditions rapidly and thoroughly. “Through our joint efforts, we will soon succeed in transforming Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia into blooming landscapes where it is worthwhile to live and work… “I ask our compatriots in the GDR: Seize the opportunity; do not let yourselves be put off by the difficulties of the transition. If you look confidently to the future, and if everyone lends a hand, you and we will make it together.”

  3. Good-bye Lenin! (Berlin, November 13, 1991)

  4. In April 1991 the German Constitutional Court rules against the heirs of those whose land was confiscated in 1945-49

  5. After an emotional debate, a small Bundestag majority voted on June 23, 1991, to make Berlin the capital again

  6. Construction in the government district of Berlin, 2000

  7. The Halle Branch of the Trusteeship Agency [Treuhand], which signed contracts to privatize 15,000 East German enterprises from 1990 to 1994

  8. “Steelworks City” in 1991 (built in 1950). This plant was modernized by an international combine, but only after laying off 9,700 of its 12,000 workers.

  9. “Blooming” industrial landscape in Saxony-Anhalt, 2004:This cement plant had been shut down for years, slated for demolition

  10. UNEMPLOYMENT RATES IN WEST AND EAST GERMANY

  11. Academics protest against unemployment in Berlin, Feb. 1991:“Yesterday: You had no chance if you were not in the Party”“Today: You have no chance if you’re unemployed”

  12. The Metalworkers’ Union demands the 35-hour week (North Rhine-Westphalia, January 1993): It rejected lower wage rates for the East in the name of “solidarity”.

  13. “THIS PLANT IS OCCUPIED”This sit-down strike by potash miners in Bischofferode, Thuringia, in April 1994 failed to prevent the mine’s closing

  14. NPD rally against Dual Citizenship, Magdeburg, 1999:Neo-nazi youth groups doubled in size after reunification

  15. A new “Solidarity Pact” is signed in Bonn, March 1993, to finance state and local government in the East.It required a painful income tax surcharge…

  16. “The New Middle:”Gerhard Schröder celebrates victory, September 1998 Born 1944, the son of a poor farmworker. Worked his way through university. 1978: Elected chair of Young Socialists 1990-98: Forged Red-Green coalition as P.M. of Lower Saxony

  17. Chancellor Schröder with Oskar Lafontaine, Joschka Fischer, & Otto Schily; five ministers were women Lafontaine resigned in 1999 to protest against Schröder’s “neo-liberalism”

  18. Schröder prepares for a guest role on the soap opera, Good Times, Bad Times

  19. Josef Prykiewicz, “At History’s Train Station” (1998):Every previous chancellor brings weighty baggage, but the new one only has a mirror…

  20. In November 1999, former CDU treasurer Walter Kiep was arrested for tax evasion; in December Helmut Kohl admitted that the CDU had gathered at least DM 2 million in illegal campaign contributions. The CDU suffered a fine of DM 40 million, and Kohl resigned as party chairman

  21. THE ROLE OF SPOUSES IN THE 2002 ELECTION CAMPAIGN Gerhard Schroeder: “I hear every day how important it is for women to be able to combine a career with child-rearing. At home.” The wife of the CSU chairman Edmund Stoiber was a full-time housewife…

  22. In 2004 Schröder became the first German leader invitedto celebrate the anniversary of the Normandy invasion:Here he lays a wreath at the grave of an unknown German soldier in Ranville War Cemetery, June 6, 2004

  23. Schröder appointed Volkswagen Personnel Director Peter Hartz in 2002 to develop plans to reform the labor market Hartz I & II (2003) created agencies to facilitate temporary and part-time jobs and help those on welfare find a job. Hartz IV (2004) created pressure on the unemployed by merging the welfare and unemployment insurance systems, with lower benefits.

  24. HARTZ IV= “Poverty Decreed by Law” (PDS, 2004) HARTZ IV= “Hunger wages and compulsory labor! We’ve had enough!”

  25. “Hartz IV is Anti-Social because only capital gets the money”(unemployment has dropped since 2005 to under 6%, but income inequality has grown)

  26. Gregor Gysi (here on the Harald Schmidt Show, 2001) forged “The Left” with SPD dissidents in 2005

  27. The unpretentious Ossi, Angela Merkel, rose to lead the CDU after its financial scandal (here in 2003)

  28. Merkel confers with Ukraine’s Prime Minister, February 2009

  29. THE FIRST CONTINGENT OF EAST GERMAN SOLDIERS IS SWORN INTO THE BUNDESWEHR, OCTOBER 1990 (only 11,000 of 89,000 made the cut, with no senior generals)

  30. The last Russian tanks are shipped out of Germany in 1994

  31. German troops in the NATO peacekeeping force for Bosnia (Sarajevo, December 1997) Bundeswehr deployments abroad: 1993-limited deployments in Somalia & Bosnia 1995-armed intervention in Bosnia 2001-Germany declares war on Afghanistan

  32. THE SCOPE OF BUNDESWEHR DEPLOYMENTS SINCE 1993

  33. GERMAN TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN have very strict rules of engagement…. Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained to NATO officers in February 2010: “The demilitarization of Europe—where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it—has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.”

  34. Both major parties (black & red lines) have suffereddecline since the 1970s

  35. REVIEW QUESTIONS FOR HISTORY 214 • Why have democratic institutions functioned so much more smoothly in the Federal Republic than in the Weimar Republic? • What are the most important lessons to be learned from the history of the Third Reich? Should the events of 1933-45 be considered an aberration in German history, or a symptom of deep-seated flaws in German society and/or culture? • In 1918 Germany had a hierarchical society, stratified by class and gender. To what extent have Germans made progress since then toward the ideal of equal opportunity for all?

More Related