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East Germany’s ghost towns: youth moves west
Published: 06 March, 2010, 07:46
Edited: 15 March, 2010, 10:09
TAGS: EU, Europe, Regional development, Economy
Despite trillions of euros spent on reunification, unemployment in Eastern Germany is twice as high as in Western part of the country, and many communities are struggling to survive.
Since Germany re-united back in 1989, about 1.7 million fled the eastern part of the country, a disproportionate number of them young people, mostly women.
Ursula Wengler came to Hoyerswerda for love, following her husband in 1956.
“It was difficult after the war here, we hardly had enough for ourselves so we never had children. I regret that,” admitted Wengler.
She remembers that Haus Rosengaerten was a maternity ward but with a shrinking and aging population, it is now a nursing home.
This is symbolic not only of the challenges facing Hoyerswerda, but also most of former East Germany.
In its heyday, from the 1950s to the late 1980s, people flocked to this technology and mining town, which was a hub of industry in communist East Germany.
Fast-forward two decades, and Hoyerswerda’s population has halved since the reunification, to just 33,000.
For the town’s young people, home might be where the heart is, but what is missing is opportunity, so they are heading west.
Resident Anne Franka explained that “One has more of a future, more chances than here. That is why most of the young people have left. Hoyerswerda is slowly becoming a city for pensioners. There are so many older people.”
Reunification has done very little to revitalize Germany’s former east. In fact, once you are outside some of the major cities such as Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin, opportunities and populations are scarce. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1.7 million people have left to head west to look for a better way of life.
Few have returned, and since many of them have been young women, the birth rate is plummeting.
Despite getting $60 billion in state aid to revitalize hard-hit areas since 2006, unemployment in the former East Germany is double that of the western part of the country.
The huge investment has not solved most problems, even before the global economic crisis. Some say authorities failed to act quickly enough to stem population decline after reunification.
Dietmar Wolf, a Hoyerswerda official, admitted that “In 1996-1997 there was certainly a decrease in the population. But it really was not talked about. It was taboo. But in 1998 they noticed whole areas were not lived in anymore and that they had to seriously acknowledge it.”
Playing catch up, the federal, state, and local governments are pouring funds into Hoyerswerda and other eastern cities in Germany, hoping to revamp them. But this appears to be more than a money problem, as towns like Hoyerswerda fight to hold on to their young people and to improve the quality of life for those like Ursula who remain.
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It says in the article „Reunification has done very little to revitalize Germany’s former east.” Unfortunately, the reunification did a lot to wear out Germany’s former east. The western owners of various enterprises bought their potential eastern competitors for a song mostly in order to close them to get rid of them as competitors, hence a sudden unemployment, hence the huge migration. This is the explanation one can hear in from former East Germans, who are now residents of what is called “new federal states”.
Fremder, Your comments echo exactly what I have witnessed in former Eastern european countries. Basically these countries are exploited, in a natural process by commercial drivers. In Gremany, as Germany is quite rightly the granular unit of identity, optimisation takes place to secure the strongest profits within it. In many cases, as you say, this has resulted in a closeout of competing enterprises. But as I said this isn't just happening in Germany, it is happening across the EU. In the EU, the granular entity is fast becoming the EU. Therefore, just like in Germany, the EU players will maximise for geratest profits, this is a perfectly natural thing to happen, however, within it lies the exact analog of Germany. Stronger financial entities eat the weaker entities, this is good for optimisation, but has a devastating effect geographically as the weaker ones are invariably in the east. Countering this natural process, is a difficult task, becuase ownership and control quickly move to the stronger player. Which in eastern terms is invariably not the local player. Indeed this was the whole idea with regard to the West's mantra for opening up eastern economies. It was well known that when you open up a weak player, the strong player comes in for rich pickings. Now of course people will talk of natural correction, and it does occur in the end, but the reality is that the playing field is changed forever, due to the fact that real estate and financial control are forever wrested from the local player and moved to the more powerful player. So industry can(not certain) return, due to lower wage rates... but even when/if it does, it is more on the terms of an enetrprise whose commercial centre of gravity lays somwhere else. So the wage slavery service and assembly economies are born, because there is no local champions to fight the local regional cause, to create a balanced protfolio for a region. There are always good intentions, but never enough cash!