Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the inner divide between East and West Germany is still, in many ways, unbridged. Despite new freedoms and the assimilation into the Western model, the social, mental and political maps of Germany show divisions that can be transposed exactly onto old maps from the Cold War era. Why?
The author Daniela Dahn says it’s time to come to terms not only with the legacy of communist East Germany but also the 30 years that have elapsed since. In her incisive analysis, some of those rifts developed as a result of reunification. Disputes have emerged on how to manage the integration of immigrants, on the role of the media and cultural industries and on a wider decline of values. Rather than carrying on as before, Dahn cogently argues that our approach should maximise reason and rationality instead of profits.
