Anybody here celebrate German Unity Day?

Hallo, I just learned about 3. Oktober today. I didn't remember when the wall went down, only that it did and what was going on in my life at the time. So 3. Oktober was the official reunification day? Did anybody get off work for a long holiday today? How do you all feel, given that most of you are young and Germany's been reunified as long as you have been adults? Anybody get sentimental?

Oh, I guess everybody gets off work today? And it's a national holiday that Germans don't really want to celebrate, because they don't want to celebrate a thing that shouldn't have happened in the first place? What's the story, Morninglory?

Well, it's a holiday, no one* was working today (well, I was) and lots of munich people were at or near the fest/wiesn. I was here when the wall "fell" (and still have some of the chips I chipped off with a borrowed claw hammer on the friday after "the thursday"). The only things to get sentimental about are probably the lack of "solidaritätszuschlag" and when Bowie lived in Berlin and made it cool.

* in a standard office or shop or state job

Aha. People are still paying taxes for (former) East German development and still unhappy about it? When are taxes slated to end? As a non-resident of Germany, I can only think that it will be really cool to visit a place I would not have been able to go before reunification. I'd like to see the architectural and other differences.

Ah, Munich. Gotta be fun to have a perpetual party on your doorstep.

Are people ever happy about taxes?


Taxes are never slated to end


all of the former "east block" is cool, but the architecture is similar. The differences have faded.


Yeah, it's a tough life, but someone's got to do it

I assume that you are referring to a post which has been moved, because I don't understand what you mean by „ … because they don't want to celebrate a thing that shouldn't have happened in the first place“. Can you explain?

@DDBug. Good post! Sorry there are no architectural differences, but I guess the people who actually live there are pleased.

@Heathclyffe: I was reading articles about the day, and I read where Germans aren't interested in celebrating a split that happened because of the War or Wars, if you want to look back as far as the First. Therefore it was a split "that should never have been."

The Solidaritätszuschlag is. Runs out 2019, at long last. Of course they'll likely invent some replacement tax by then, and it will be twice as high or something.

when I first lived in Munich in '94, my boss was explaining the taxes to me and the solidarity tax he explained not in a positive way. Then I was talking to some of my german patients and they all said (remember this was '94) they wish the wall could go back up and 10 feet higher.
think the only people that celebrate anything about it is the Former East...

May people from the east I talk to actually wish they could go back. They went from having jobs and security to having nothing. They don't see that the old system was bankrupt.

Who celebrates what happened really? Not too many I suspect but what's done is done.

Still, genius to make the holiday when Oktoberfest is on and it's pretty well the only day in the year when you can go to Austria and find the shops open when they are shut in Germany.

I had just moved here when the wall fell - at least all of the students in the dorms were pretty pessemistic about the tax situation that day, but it didn't stop us from crowding 7 people into a little vw golf and heading to Berlin (along with millions of other people who had the same bright idea).

It's a day off work and as I'm usually on holiday at this time I can have a longer holiday using less vacation days.
Apart from politicians I'm not sure anyone "celebrates" it.

The wall went down in the night between Nov 9th and 10th 1989. This is the same date and time as the infamous "Reichskristallnacht" in 1938 - which is why they didnt choose this date as our national reunification day. Oct 3rd is more or less a random date, they established in the unification contract. It was first celebrated in 1990.

The wall fell on the night before my 17th birthday. I wasnt very interested in politics then, although I considered myself left and green. But this was mostly a gut reaction to the CSU ruled bavaria. Of course I had an opinion on the GDR and it wasnt a positive one. I had visited the border, seen the watchtowers, the guards, the wall, the deatch strip - there was no way anyone could have seen that and think this was a acceptable state of affairs. I had visited east germany (for one day while visiting Berlin on a school trip). I saw the rundown buildings, the ugly concrete architecture and the people, who looked especially grey compared to the citizens of West Berlin at that time. We also had a bunch of east german students visiting our school for a few days. They were a big disappointment for me. They seemed to be privileged kids of reliable communist party members and they were only interested in one thing: shopping

The only time my father ever called me an idiot was on the night the wall fell. We saw it on tv and I said something like "whatever, fuck em, we dont need them". Many of my friends reacted that way. Probably because something that we were used to our whole life, suddenly changed and meddled with our plans. A year later I rationalized my discomfort with the reunification, by saying it was disappointment that they were selling out their country for the DM, instead of trying something new and better.

I have to admit I still dont feel like celebrating. Oct 3rd will always be a day of confusion and mixed emotions for me.

About 8 years ago!

I do not know of one single German soul who even celebrates this day. Apart from in true German fashion which means whinging about everything. The east about the horrible wessies who bought them out and the west about the pikey ossies who just swallow tax money for no return.

Well an anonymous neighbour put a copy of Bild Zeitung from 3.10.2008 in our letter box. First page says "WIR SIND EIN VOLK"... (read my other threads regarding our lovely neighbours... ) so is it an olive branch or a racist dig?

Respect, Freising! Thanks for your honest thoughts.

@featherlight. I'd take it as an olive branch. I"d react positively, but just don't expect the moment to last. The alcoholics have a useful saying though: Progress, not perfection. (I use alcoholics as useful shorthand for recovering alcoholics. I like a t-shirt I once read, "I'm a drunk, not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings.")

You have some nieghbours with some serious nationality problems.

Bild Zeitung is schwarz-rot-kotz nationalist bollocks shocker!

The original GDR demonstations has the the slogan "Wir sind das Volk" (we are the people) to protest against the stalinist government that supposedly rules in the name of the people, but obviously didn't.
This then changed to "Wir sind ein Volk" (we are one people) to push the unification of the 2 German states that is "celebrated" on 3rd October.

And that fit in of course with the increasing racist / xenophobic / nationalist agenda that came about after unification.
Cos if there is one German "Volk" you are either in it or not.

Depending on how much you want to fight with your neighbours, I'd leave the rag back on their doorstep.

The concept of Das Volk is simplistic and populist and also based heavily in the late 18 hundreds romantic reaction to the industrialisation. I'm suprised it is still used here after the general realisation that unification was a load of bollocks carried out by a generation of Germans who saw it as there polictical and moral duty, but paid for by a generation who seriously couldnt give a toss.

True, not many are celebrating, but many people are quietly thankful for this turn of history. In hindsight I find it amazing how the GDR, like the other satellite states in the middle of Europe, with their lack of democracy and personal freedom were expected to last (i.e. very few political experts foresaw the imminent fall of the wall).

People who wanted the wall to be rebuilt always made me angry, especially if they were West Germans who never set foot into East Germany, not even after the fall of the wall. My mom had family and friends in the GDR, so we could visit and got some insight into life at that time. I also find it kind of sad when one of the first things mentioned in the context of the 3rd Oct. is the solidarity supplement. It ignores the initiative developed by the East Germans who founded enterprises, refurbished houses etc., not all on tax money. Some regions are prosperous, some aren't, so not all efforts have led to success yet. Progress is a snail, as Günter Grass said.

I would have gone, too! I remember a few thoughts I had when the wall came down: In my own life, I was watching too much "Cheers," on television, and realizing that I needed to date, cause I was getting a crush on Sam/Ted Danson. And I was planning a trip to British Colombia. I hadn't been to Europe yet, and I thought maybe, maybe I should look into finding out what this "Europe" was all about. The pictures and the energy were amazing. I know I felt very far away from something that was huge, I thought, since I had seen footage of the Berlin Wall and people trying to escape.

It's not just that. Not all deprived areas in Germany are in the East, yet the "richer" West federal states are pretty much forced to transfer money to develop the "poorer" East at the cost of their own regional structural development. This constant giving is wrong. The same with the governmental rush to Berlin. Why? Why should the BND move from Neuperlach at a cost of ooddles of Euros in an age of instant communications? The idea of unification is bankrupt, because it is based on some deluded political idea that everybody would willingly secrifice themselves for this.

I for one think it´s awesome that Germany was re-unified and I wish some traditions would be started to celebrate this day nation-wide. Not everyone can go trudge around in the rain at Oktoberfest.

What about the much larger money transfer between richer and poorer Länder (Länderfinanzausgleich)? Besides, East Germans pay the solidarity supplement as well. Nevertheless, I agree that it is doubtful that the money really goes where it is needed.

I was with my German missis when the wall came down and remember well her reaction as one of shock and her immediate sumup that it was just going to cost everyone in the west a lot of money with no advantage.

Seems she was exactly right, I still no noone personally that ' celebrates ' reunification.

I was in Regensburg when the wall came down and remember it as a time of optimism about the future, which carried on into the (football) World Cup of the following year, which of course Germany won. By my return a few years later, there weren't many signs of that optimism left, although I probably was more out of touch with the locals at that point, too.

My missus assures me that many people celebrate the day, that it isn't just a load of politicians ingratiating themselves and the church trying to get in on one of the few non-religious holidays. I've yet to see any evidence to the contrary, though. Everyone seems to just treat it as another holiday - even Bayern 3 were expecting people to be heading off to Garda in search of better weather, hardly a resounding endorsement of the day. TV was showing lots of 18 year-olds born on 3rd October, and predictably reunification means little to most of them.

Then again, we English don't take much pride in our national day either - it isn't even a holiday.

It's the hypocrisy of it that gets me. Politicians having a good old rant about the GDR while Schäuble brings in Stasi 2,0.
TV repeating the same old guff about "Liebe kennt keine Grenzen" and couples being united across the inner-German border,
while scores if not hundreds die every week trying to enter the EU.

Gideon's comment was right on the money.
It was an act carried out by those who believed it was destiny or had at least short term gains.
And they left people to pick up the bill who really were't that bothered.

I was six years old in 1989, to me it is unimaginable not to have a reunified Germany. What was supposed to happen to East Germany? They are Germans just like us, just the unlucky ones that got the USSR, not the US, UK, or France as occupying force.

As for celebrating it, I doubt any private people celebrate it, but many are glad the reunification happened.

I think unification was inveitable Mariposa, it is the bullshit and the lies and the self-interest that surrounded it that make me puke.

At least one good thing came out of the reunification and Kohls lies about the "blühende Landschaften": SPD didnt win the election in 1990 and we didnt have to endure a "Bundeskanzler Oskar Lafontaine".

I was a bit older than that (10) and went to the DDR in 1989 and 1990, and thought that it was just like Yugoslavia. You know, one of those Second-World-States that was "a bit more western". That they spoke German over there? Just coincidental. Besides, they were Prussians.

I think they should build the bloody thing back up.Since its come down there was a significant rise in criminality and not to mention child abuse.Also there is the question of unemployment too

That's the Chancellor with a criminal record for illegal and corrupt political financing isn't ?
Who provided the money, western tax payers like you and me.

"Democracy" my arse.

Come on, every chancellor has had his skeletons in the closet. Well, or every politician in general.

Alle in einen sack und Knüppel drüber!
Sure, plenty of politicians have skeletons in their closest.

But Kohl DELIBERTELY lied to the Germans in the east that they would have "blühenden Landschaften" and he thus DELIBERATELY lied to western taxpayers
what the Anscluss of the GDR was going to cost them.

Against the advice of senior advisers he introduced a pension reform that bankrupted the German pension fund and ended the prospect of us having a decent state pension.
Against the advice of senior advisers he introduced a currency reform that instantly bankrupted the GDR economy, the remnants of which he flogged off for peanuts to the mates that were....erm funding his party with suitcases of cash so he could swing elections.

This was a really interesting thread. I particularly liked Freising's account. As one who only moved here recently (but was older than 17 when the Wall came down), I find it it fascinating to hear the different mythopoeic versions of the fall of the wall and the meaning of reunification. Thanks to all, very enlightening.

Did anyone actually believe him? Apart from the sheep that is.


The same senior advisor who claimed "nur eins ist sicher: die Rente" in 1986?

Unfortunately, the sheep are usually in the majority.

This must have been the only time in my life that I actually agreed with Oskar Lafontaine, unfortunately, this time, for a change, he was right!

It's my birthday, so I always celebrate on that day... nothing to do with unity though.

Was working on 03/10 this year...last year I visited a flea-market close to Berlin-Ostbahnhof. Bought some DDR memorabilia - could have even bought a nice portrait of Lenin if I'd wanted to.

To a large extent I sympathise/empathise with (former) DDR citizens. It wasn't re-unification, it was colonisation. As the UK abandoned its reasonable and fair social system to embrace Thatcherism and "Free-Marketism" (and look where that's got us, with the greedy corporate filth bringing us all to the edge of the abyss), so DDR citizens swallowed Kohl's lies hook, line and sinker.

Pity that saner, cautious voices such as Jens Reich of "Neues Forum" weren't listened to - let's build our OWN structures in East Germany before unifying with the West - and unify as equal partners.

Lenin would have puked his guts at the DDR.
Stalinism was a reversal of what the Russian Revolution was about.

Sehr geehrter Genosse MönchenStadt,

Your negative comments regarding Real Existing Socialism in die DDR - unser sozialistischen Vaterland - have been duly noted. Abteilung IIA/XYZ of the MfS has been informed.

Mit sozialistischen Grüß,

Keefy (Informelle Mitarbeiter)

Vorwärts unter dem Banner von Marx, Engels und Lenin! And have a nice day

LOL!