Germany’s Reunification Anniversary: An Elite Retreat from the People

How did the celebrations commemorating the 35th anniversary of German reunification become such a boring, shallow spectacle?

Thirty-five years ago, the world watched with fascination as East Germans took to the streets. Images of jubilant masses literally tearing down the Berlin Wall with hammers, storming the Brandenburg Gate, and mocking their former rulers showed how history is made. As Hegel famously felt the world spirit on horseback when Napoleon rode into Jena, those witnessing autumn 1989 felt the world spirit on a crumbling Berlin Wall.

Yet large parts of our elites—and certainly our current government—apparently wish to delegate these images to the memory hole. How else to explain last week’s celebration, characterized above all by one desperate attempt: to keep as far away from ordinary citizens—the people—as possible?

A bizarre ceremony

Commenting on the main celebration in Saarbrücken, Berliner Zeitung journalist Moritz Eichhorn describes a “bizarre ceremony with President Macron as guest of honor instead of voices from the East.” He’s right. This was not a celebration of German unity—certainly not honoring those who enforced it—but a gathering of embattled elites standing on their last legs.

The organizers seemed to believe that presenting Macron as the star guest would be a diplomatic coup and a sign of Franco-German friendship. In reality, however, it was an act of self-reassurance staged by an elite that views its own electorate as a problem. 

It’s a fitting irony that days after speaking in Germany, Macron’s government crumbled. But we needn’t look to France to see the trouble our elites face. When images of high-ranking German officials posing before the ceremony appeared in newspapers, it must have shocked critical minds: here stand representatives of a government that, after less than six months in office, is already more unpopular than any predecessor at the same stage.

Yet there was no humility from these leaders. No shame about the fact that the entire celebration resembled a safe space for elites. There was criticism, however—ironically also from former chancellor Angela Merkel, who was notably absent and questioned the decision to invite Macron while sidelining voices from the former East. But reducing this to East-West discrimination misses the point.

Though Germany’s divisions appeared larger than ever on a day designed to commemorate unity, these divisions are not geographical but political, cultural, and social—between those at the ‘bottom’ and those at the ‘top’; between those who support and identify with the establishment and the growing number of people who don’t. These people are now pushing back against elites they no longer trust. And they are right to do so. After all, it was the elites who made the very decisions that Germany is now struggling under—often in open defiance of public opinion, as seen most clearly in the case of mass migration or energy policies. 

And the backlash is growing, as reflected in the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD)—not only in the former East, but increasingly in the West as well, despite Merz’s attempts to lay the blame at the feet of populism (and therefore at the electorate itself). 

Sanitizing history

German reunification has clearly become an embarrassment for our elites in these populist times. Attempts to sanitize commemoration of the actual events go back a long way. From the beginning, there were efforts to present what happened as the work of a small, enlightened, progressive GDR elite—and not the masses. 

Since the refugee crisis and the AfD’s rise, this image of small groups of intellectuals as the driving force has been further cultivated. One example: a 2019 special edition by the Federal Agency for Civic Education presented the “New Forum“—an organization of GDR intellectuals, many of whom later joined the Green Party—as the driving force behind reunification. The featured photo shows a man at a desk; behind him a hand-painted banner reading, “We don’t care about the SED [Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, the ruling communist party]. Save the GDR” (a common position among some GDR left-wing intellectuals, seconded by their West German counterparts, who wanted reforms to the system but not the collapse of the Stalinist state).

This image is historical fiction. It was the masses—not a small group of green-leaning intellectuals—who brought the system down. They did so with utmost courage, knowing they might pay with their lives. (The East German government had tanks and ambulances ready, and Tiananmen Square served as a grim reminder of what to expect. Watch the original footage of people streaming onto Leipzig’s streets on October 9, 1989, shouting “We are the people” and “Freedom,” to glimpse the magnitude of events.)

Sadly, 35 years later, the cry “We are the people” is as threatening to many in power as it was to the old GDR nomenclature—so much so that it has fallen into disrepute. For years, mainstream representatives have complained that today’s populist movements dare adopt this cry. Germany’s establishment was dismayed when the AfD entered the 2022 election campaign with slogans like “We are the people.”

The ‘event managers’ responsible for this year’s celebration didn’t simply ‘forget’ that the people brought about historic change—they didn’t want to remember, nor did they want anyone else to. There was to be no positive allusion to anything smacking of populism, that dreaded phenomenon.

The result was a dull, utterly uninspiring event that even the mainstream press found hard not to criticize. “And where’s the momentum?” asked ARD Tagesschau (Germany’s public broadcaster). Germany needs change, the commentator wrote, but Merz is stuck, unable to lead his coalition—let alone take citizens on board.

Schoolmasterly and aloof

The disappointment was more palpable because some commentators had unwisely raised expectations: Merz, they announced, would deliver a rousing speech to rival the late German president Roman Herzog’s highly regarded 1997 address. At that time, Germany was also struggling with an unemployment rate of over 4 million people and was known as the “sick man of Europe”.

But not just our political representatives have changed—times have too. Herzog spoke for an elite that could still rely on public trust. Merz spoke for the elites, and effectively to them alone. When Herzog called Germany’s problems “home-grown” and warned against “pretending we have unlimited time for reform—whether taxes, pensions, health, education, even the euro,” people felt his sincerity. Merz also touched on pressing issues (such as untenable social security spending) but appeared schoolmasterly, stiff, and aloof—unable to inspire. A government that lacks trust and public support will never be able to implement the necessary changes to the economy. Without legitimacy, reform remains rhetoric.

Merz is indeed stuck. He has no language for reaching the public, so he clings to Macron as his closest proxy. But here’s a bold alternative: he could have invited Karol Nawrocki, the new Polish president. After all, it was Poland—with its Solidarity movement—that helped pave the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Nawrocki hails from Gdańsk, where it all began. Or he could have invited a speaker from Hungary—the country that dealt the GDR its death blow by opening its borders to hundreds of thousands of East German refugees.
But our elites—who view developments in Eastern Europe with as much unease as those in their own country—preferred not to take such risks. Their aim was to remain safely among themselves. And so they did.

Yet no matter what our elites would have us remember or forget, the events of 1989/1990 remain for us to learn from and reflect upon. They bear a great message of unity, not just for Germans (who, at least once in their history, successfully led the way toward positive change). They also bear a message of unity for Europe—not the unity of elites, but the unity of people who in 1989 struggled for freedom and democracy in so many countries and still do so today.