East Germany/Talk

Interesting. Over here in the USA they don't teach that Nazi functionaries got jobs in West Germany, and didn't in East Germany. Can someone elaborate? --Branden

It's true. Both the West and the Communists wanted to 'denazify' Germany, but the Communists were strongly intent on eliminating everyone associated with Nazism, while the West was more interested in 'rehabilitation'. The West soon decided that Communism was a bigger threat than a revival of Nazism; their main interest became getting West Germany powerful enough to withstand Communism, which meant giving the Nazis back their jobs. In Nazi Germany bureaucrats, businesspeople, academics, etc., had to support the Nazis if they were to get anywhere; thus many of the educated people still in Germany after the war had Nazi associations. Life in West Germany was much easier for ex-Nazis than it was in East Germany -- SJK.

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I took this out:

The forces within East Germany , who had prompted the criticisms and uprisings preceding the fall of the wall, were shoved aside by the majority fears of being left behind in the oncoming Warsaw Pact collapse. On October 3 1990, Gorbatchow and Reagan made a deal and Berlin was subsequently annexed and (re-)established as the national capital.

A few things are making my BS detector start ringing: The nebulous reference to "forces", Reagan was not president at the time, and the odd spelling of Gorbachev. What is this on about? -- Paul Drye

The first sentence is mine, the second is not. The first sentence referred to the leading activists within the GDR who criticized and organized for a significant change in government. These did not support the GDR disappearing into the Federal Republic. They wanted another GDR not none. They led all the significant protests in East Germany and only when large crowds started to join in was the cause subverted to being one for unification (which is falsely labeled reunification -- this Germany never existed before). -- StefanBrun?