How Germany Is Still Divided Today

last week i made a video about how old borders still impact countries today focusing mostly on the old borders of the german and austro-hungarian empire in poland and romania and how the old imperial borders are still visible in local electoral results one of the other countries i mentioned about this topic and promised to further expand on was germany germany has been divided various times throughout history from the area occupied by the romans the semi-sovereign members of the holy roman empire or the member states of the german confederation but most of all there has been one key moment of division in germany which is also the most recent one and whose impact and effects are still visible today the division between east and west germany after german defeat in world war ii the former german reich was dismantled the allies had invaded from the west the soviet union from the east they met in the middle sort of and separate areas of occupation were established depending on where each side had invaded the west was initially divided between a british zone a french zone and a u.s control zone while the east was fully under soviet control with the exception of the capital of berlin which followed the same model of division as the entire country eventually the three western areas were joined creating the federal republic of germany while the east was established as the democratic republic of germany despite being influenced by the allies west germany was for all intents and purposes independent while east germany was heavily under the soviet union's sphere of influence and due to this reality the two countries developed in very different ways at very different speeds west germany experienced an economic wonder in 1955 later becoming the most wealthy european economy while east germany deteriorated as the soviets controlled its financial system with little success doing so they were different on everything politics economics religion education even sports the west's capital was inborn and the east was in east berlin a capital city divided by the iconic wall that fell in 1989 with germany reuniting in 1990 but while the country became whole again the divisions between the two sides are still immensely visible today even from space east and west berlin used different street lamps the east use yellow sodium lights different from the ones in the west today they're the same city but the old systems aren't electrically compatible and apparently haven't yet been replaced in full so you can tell the old border through the difference in the color of the lights and within berlin as well the two sides of the city support two different football clubs so in this video we're going to take a look at a few of those factors in which the division between east and west is still visible in germany attempting to understand why that is the case keep in mind a lot of this data is outdated most of the stats are from 2011 or 2014 but i believe most differences are still a reality today the first indicator we can compare is disposable income many of these are from a great washington post article about this topic in this map we can clearly see that regions in the west have much more disposable income than those in the east disposable income is essentially how much money you have left after paying taxes this has to do with two reasons first the different economic development we mentioned earlier from what i could search the industry in east germany wasn't that bad the problem is that it was mostly state owned along with the means of production and so oddly reunification itself is another reason after the fall of the berlin wall east communist factories and companies suddenly became privatized losing their former organization and also having to compete with their much more efficient western rivals capitalism came too fast many eastern german companies went bankrupt and some regions never recovered from the shock until today income levels are much lower in the east than in the west this is also visible when it comes to unemployment rates this research paper by authors john hall and uru ludwig state that east germany has a problem of persistent unemployment due to two factors first east germany was less industrialized and with unification demand for east german labor declined that's visible on this other map about the size of farms east german forms are much larger perhaps a sign of a more rural economy which is less and less prevalent in developed countries and two former eastern companies were privatized and when they were they moved their hq to the west therefore hiring more people in those regions this economic situation might be one of the consequences of the next stats that show a difference between east and west demographics the percentage of young people among total population is much higher in the west this might be because people understandably move to where there is economic opportunity and a possibility to have a good job and make a good salary but it's not just the younger population that think life is best in the west the gross average pensions are also higher in west german states population density itself in general is also more concentrated in the west likely for the same reasons the gdp per capita is clearly highest in the south and west and lower in the east with the capital city being an exception and the percentage of foreigners in east germany is also much lower perhaps for the same reason a lot of people moved to germany to work and find good jobs that aren't available in the countries they originally were from berlin is an exception here with a very large foreign community and another interesting statistic that i found on the washington post article about this is trash production the west apparently produces or at least did in this year much more trash than the east this could have a simple interpretation people in the west make more money therefore they consume more and because of this they produce more trash but it could also be something cultural although it's odd since the environmental concern is higher in the west perhaps it still has to do with agriculture and the fact that there are many more farms in the east perhaps more people still live off their land and therefore don't have the need to produce trash by buying many products also maybe having the possibility of composting in their farms but again this is just a guess from all the factors i could find about the differences between east and west east germany only had better results than the west in two of them the vaccination ratio of the flu the soviet union famously had a large immunization program throughout its sphere of influence slash puppet states and east germany was no exception and also child care the amount of people whose children get to have full-time child care up to 2 years old is much larger than in the west perhaps also a remnant of certain soviet social care policies not to mention the fact that housing is cheaper in the east as well as the general cost of living but considering that unemployment is bigger and salaries are lower it might end up being the same as the west and not necessarily an eastern advantage one other differentiating factor is religion germany is mainly divided in three main belief types if you will roman catholics protestants and non-religious the west is divided between catholics and protestants the south southwest is mostly catholic while the north is protestant this has to do with historical reasons prior to the cold war division but the east where these old historical differences were also visible is now almost entirely non-religious the reason why might be the fact that the soviet union did not promote religion and even was against it in some ways this is even visible in other religions this map shows us the distribution of muslim mosques throughout germany and there are almost none in the east this is also likely related to the fact that most immigrants are in the west as we saw earlier and the biggest immigrant community in those western states are turks while the most common in the east are polish but still then they would be catholic and they are mostly non-religious and these religious and cultural differences among other things like all of the social economic factors we just saw are perhaps the reason why electoral results also differ between east and west for instance the green party gets much better results in west germany fun fact the difference between the lamps of east and west berlin were apparently also to do with environmental concerns of the west even at the time while extremist parties get more votes in the east perhaps a consequence of the conservatism that was left after the soviet union and finally one other difference between east and west germany according to the article is apparently the usage or ownership of trailers it states that if you travel to a campground in germany you will easily distinguish between the two groups westerns and easterners east germans usually camp using tents while west germans have the habit of owning trailers or caravans two reasons could be the cause for this one tents are cheaper than trailers and two the article states that west germans were able to travel outside the country while east germans weren't this before unification and so it made sense for some to have a moving trailer while there was no point for the others to do so but again this is just what the article proposes there's no confirmation as to why this is actually a difference between the two sides so those are a few of the differences between east and west germany today and how the country is still divided in many factors and indicators in modern times despite the fact that they were reunited in 1940 over 32 years ago today those 45 or so years under very different regimes were enough to make mark the differences in politics economics cultural religion education pretty much everything were tremendous as we move on with time and new historical events take place they will likely take over the role of that which defines regional differences the differences themselves become lessened through time this graph shows us how life satisfaction rates have gotten closer since 1991 but many of them might be in reality domino effects from the same cold war division thanks so much for watching this video subscribe if you want and leave a comment below with your opinions and thoughts about this and whether or not there are any other factors in which germany is divided be it between east and west or some other way i will see you next time for more general knowledge

Channel: General Knowledge

Views: 1,489,830

Keywords: generalknowledge, funwithflags, countriesthatdon'texist

Id: lACOwqLjo1g

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022