Identity Conflicts and Search for Identity of the East Germans December 1990

Topics: Judgement on the unification contract; personal role in the German-German unification process; today's assessment of the expectations of unification; effects of currency, economic and social union on personal standard of living; national identity; understanding of native country; ties to state; significance of the formation of the new states; assessment of the development of the GDR; those responsible for the break-up of the GDR; things typical of the GDR; orientation of today's history instruction on FRG and/or GDR history; reasons for the problems in Eastern Germany (scale); desired regulations in the constitution; dealing with problems of daily life such as prices, tax law, competition principle, traffic density, product selection, mailbox advertising, loss of job, church taxes, personal financial expenditures, insurance questions and rent law; trust in the market economy, politicians, common sense, democracy, the principle of rule by law, solidarity of the citizens, trade unions, friends, family, one's own person; influx of foreigners; admission of politically persecuted; orientation on Eastern and Western Europe; relation of Germany to Sweden, USSR, USA, Poland, England, Czechoslovakia, France and China; place of residence; state.