German-German history  An Ossi in a perfectly reunified country

Author Valerie Schönian, who was born in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in 1990 – just a few days before reunification – is only familiar with walls dividing the country from films. Nevertheless, she consciously identifies as East German and, in her writing, explores how different perspectives in the East and West can be seen as an asset. Particularly today, when social cohesion cannot be taken for granted.
 

I was born in the autumn of 1990, in Gardelegen, Saxony-Anhalt, which, for just a few days, still belonged to the German Democratic Republic. I grew up in Magdeburg. I’m therefore more or less the same age as reunified Germany. Walls dividing my country are something I’ve only ever known through films. For years, I rarely gave any thought to the fact that I come from East Germany or have an East German identity. The Germany I grew up in was simply a country consisting of 16 federal states. For me, “East” and “West” were merely compass directions. East German history was as distant as the Roman Empire – a thing of the past.

Ossi transformation

But this changed when I moved to Munich. It was 2014, the year Pegida started organising marches in Dresden. I joined a counter-demonstration in Munich, but I sensed a distinct difference between myself and the people around me. To me, the demonstrators in Dresden were primarily angry people. But the others in my crowd, it seemed, saw them first and foremost as East Germans. Old clichés – ones I thought were no longer around – were being dredged back up. One friend even admitted that Pegida’s rise had prompted her to revert to sinister clichés about those “damned Ossis, always whining, still feeling neglected”.

That marked the start of what I later referred to as my “Ossi transformation”. At first, it was a subconscious process fuelled mainly by a sense of defiance. I found myself slipping songs by East German bands, like Kling Klang by Keimzeit, onto house party playlists, and reaching for Rotkäppchen from the shelves of sparkling wines. The whole thing became more deliberate when I moved back to Berlin, where I had previously studied, and began engaging more deeply with East Germany. And the more I delved into its history, outlook and the East German experience, the more I realised how little they mattered in the broader national narrative – and the more I wanted to understand it all.

The rise of right-wing populism

But alongside my own desire for insight, another development was unfolding: the rise of right-wing populism in eastern Germany. In 2016, in my home state of Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD emerged as the second-strongest party for the first time.
The trend continues. Ten years later, in September 2026, the AfD became the strongest political force in Saxony-Anhalt, so strong, in fact, that it came close to winning an absolute majority in the state election. What I felt then was much the same as ten years ago: complete disbelief at the results, but also anger and fear. With the AfD, whose state branch has been confirmed right-wing extremist, now poised to form the next government in Saxony-Anhalt, I feel even more helpless than I did then. Sometimes, it’s not just the answers that elude me, it’s the questions, too.

But there is something else going on, and that’s what I want to focus on in this article. Not because it’s more important, but because it matters, too. I feel anger and frustration at how often East Germany is looked at and talked about in such sweeping generalisations. Things have improved in recent years, and there is the other part of eastern Germany that doesn’t vote for the AfD. We need to see that part, learn from it – and we need to protect democratic civil society in the face of a potential extreme right-wing government.

It’s also important to understand these developments and East Germany itself, so that we can find ways to push back against them.

Naturally, for me, trying to understand East Germany has always also been about understanding myself.
I remember talking about the 2016 election results with a West German man who was perhaps 30 years older than me. I tried to explain to him what I was only just beginning to understand myself: the false promises, the anger, the frustration, all the things that have gone wrong in the decades since German reunification. This man said that trying to link all of that to the election results was just “Ossi complaining”.

If I had to pinpoint the moment I became a true Ossi, it would be that one. This was when I realised that he and I had completely different perspectives. We had totally different views of the GDR era and post-reunification years. Not because one of us was dumb, ignorant or completely wrong, but because he was a Wessi and I’m an Ossi. Ever since that moment, I’ve consciously embraced my identity as an East German, and ever since then I have wanted to be one, too. I’ve come to claim the term “Ossi” as my own. Because it makes a possible perspective visible.

But it’s not just about linking everything to the GDR and the years after reunification. Clearly, those years have shaped eastern Germany into what it is today, but they now belong to the past. “The East”, however, did not simply cease to exist with the fall of the GDR. That’s why it’s still connected to me, even though I was only born in 1990.

I grew up with different assumptions about what was normal than my west German peers (a mother who worked), with different structures (no family wealth to inherit), in a different environment and with different associations. For example, for me, the sight of prefab concrete apartment blocks on the horizon evokes a sense of home and comfort. And naturally, I have a different relationship with East German history – because it’s my history. Just as the East German region is mine, too – with all its challenges (far-right structures and depopulation) and all its wonderful qualities (so much space). All of this shapes how I, how we post-reunification East German children, view life, politics and society.
But there’s something else that needs to be said: public discourse, political and economic power and the dominant historical narrative have all been shaped by West German perspectives. This has been the case since 1989, but more and more people are becoming aware of it today because we’re talking about it more openly.

I believe the East German perspective needs to be part of the broader national conversation - despite the election results and precisely because of them. East Germany also needs to find answers to the question of how to respond to current political developments. Not because these developments are happening exclusively in the East, but because they have advanced further there than in western Germany.  

I also believe we need to rethink how we understand unity. For a long time, we’ve held on to the idea that true German unity means no longer talking about the East and the West. I think we need to let go of that idea. Of course we can talk about the East and the West. Why shouldn’t we? For one thing, it’s only in recent years that we’ve begun to discuss these differences more openly. We talk about Bavarians and Swabians all the time without questioning whether they belong to German society as a whole. More importantly, discussing the East and West allows us to keep addressing the fact that we still do not meet on equal terms. It’s also essential if we want to understand the AfD’s electoral success and find responses that benefit the country as a whole. And finally, different experiences and perspectives are interesting and enriching in their own right. What we need, quite simply, is for society to internalise the idea that differences do not have to be divisive – and that applies far beyond the debate about East and West. If we do that, perhaps election results will eventually start to look different, too.

November 2026