Why are East Germans unhappy?

Today Germany celebrates the German Unity Day. On this day, the Unification Agreement of August 31, 1990, entered into force, and the GDR ceased to exist as a state, while West Berlin was no longer independent political territory with a special status.

Professor of the MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Boris Zaritsky spoke about differences that exist between West and East Germany: “From the point of view of material well-being, over 70% [of East Germans] believe that their lives have become economically better. But 52-53% feel psychological discomfort due to the fact that they are considered second rate Germans, political institutions don't function like they want them to would like. Their values are different from what is accepted in West Germany, and attitude towards Russia is also very different."

Two years ago, after the Bundestag elections, Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) formed third largest parliamentary faction. Commenting on successes of the AfD, Boris Zaritsky noted: “The rise of this party took place against the background of migration issues. But in the eastern territories, migration didn't affect people that much.  Left parties get more votes, right parties get more votes, and prestige and electoral results of the two main parties — the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats — are dropping catastrophically. "This worries Germany’s political elite, and experts say that East Germany will continue to be behind political trends for the next 10 years."

One of the reasons for this is "deliberate cleansing of industrial landscape of East Germany", and now there are no large enterprises and headquarters of large companies. "Experts have different points of view on this matter. A significant part of them says that during the adaptation of eastern lands, certain economic errors were made. And now there are a lot of problems related to that, so there's strong regional stratification of Germany. It's noted by many that all of this is a serious problem that existed for a long time, and which is used in political games of the left and the right," Zaritsky said.