HISTORY AND CURRENT PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANY
567
The FRG also perpetuated snondemocratic traditions insofar as it
claimed to be the successor of the German nation, when demanding
reunification. While the Social Democrats were in power, these politics
were somewhat attenuated, when they promoted the acceptance of the
existence of two German states. These politics helped them obtain the
majority of the population's votes. But since 1989, the parliamentary left
has had to grapple with the reproach that what they had considered an
illusion, namely, the reunification of Germany, had become a social and
political reality. Today, the left is confronted with the question of
whether the political identity of its members, which almost always
viewed current political structures in a skeptical fashion and was anti–
nationalistic, had been deficient.
Deeply rooted attitudes and dispositions founded on unconscious
identifications and imaginings survived the process of exchanging political
power: the establishment of a constitutional state; economic and ideo–
logical integration of West Germany into the Western world; and trials
aimed at recivilizing German society. But there is a gap between the in–
stitutional outer world with democratic institutions and procedures, and
the psycho-social inner world of everyday life, family, and socialization.
This sphere was not affected by the decreed, almost administratively in–
duced, change of the political system after 1945.
The tremendous effort to deny and de-realize the National Socialist
past was expressed in a limited perception of the political as such, and in
an apolitical mentality and lack of political participation. An excessive
consumerism corresponded to this political apathy. These three aspects -
National Socialism as the last period all Germans shared; the anti-fascism
of the German Democratic Republic; and the de-realization of National
Socialism in the Federal Republic - have to be taken into account when
examining the political strategies of the German state, while coping with
the economic, social, and cultural exigencies emerging from the process
of unification. Because unification resulted from the internal decay and
disintegration of the GDR's socialist system, the Western world, espe–
cially the FRG, automatically assumed a position of superiority. But this
was not backed by political legitimation. However, the FRG is acting as
a political power and only reluctantly concedes to the citizens of the
former GDR the space to move from their political past to the present.
This factor intrudes into the behavior of
Wessis
towards
Ossis
in ev–
ery detail. And in that sense, the
Ossies'
feelings that they have been
"annexed" is not exaggerated. Moreover, these attitudes are not con–
ducive to political discourse, and thus political opinion in unified Ger–
many is drifting to the right.
