shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
So, what if the German Democratic Republic existed up to today, and how could this be achieved in a way that isn't GDR-Wank or ASB?
It could happen if you just prevent reunification in 1990. That would require several things:
- A West German chancellor who is more reluctant towards reunification. That could be someone from the younger generation Social Democrats (like Oskar Lafontaine) or some reactionary CSU type who isn't keen on recognising the Oder-Neisse line as the definite German border with Poland.
- A stronger and more populist civil rights movement in the GDR. The earliest activists of the 1980s, who later formed the New Forum, were the ones who were most strongly opposed to quick reunification in 1989/90, which is why they fell out of favour with the wider public. So they'd just have to reach the majority of the people somehow. Which brings us to...
- The FRG as an alternative would have to be a less attractive model than in OTL. So: no "economic miracle" in the 1950s and no socially liberal reforms of the early 1970s. Possibly an even more extreme RAF terrorism, more ex-Nazis in the government and a declining economy with high unemployment rates.
West Germany decides reunification is not feasible until the mid 90s.
A socialist-liberal party with a neoliberal economic program wins the 1990 East German elections. It starts to sell East German state-owned companies, factories and collective farms to West German entrepreneurs, as a move to keep the country from crashing in debt. Instead of using the resulting money to fix the economy, the money is covertly distributed among Stasi agents who turned into mafioso hippies overnight and became high-raking cadres in the ruling party.
The living standards of East Germans start to fall. Shops are flooded by Western products, but they are too expensive to buy. People are sacked from factory jobs by their new, profit-oriented West German bosses.
They are free to travel to the West, but have no money to do it. Even a summer vacation in Hungary with the Trabbi is out of the question, gasoline is just too expensive for it.
Without the OTL post-unification Solidarity Tax, and the pre-1990 Soviet Aid, East Germany looks worse than ever. Buildings collapse, the streets are lined with beggars and the homeless.
Those that travel to West Germany and try to set up unofficial street-side markets to sell Chinese, Polish and Russian products, are routinely caught and punished by the West German police.
1993:
East Germans are sick of West German tourists who drink gallons of beer and vomit all over their streets, brake windows while partying wildly and pick up tons of prostitutes.
The average East German doesn't have the means to eat real meat regularily, just canned products, and soy-based salamis.
The leader of the party lives in a villa in Pankow and goes on vacations to Hawaii and Tahiti.
early 1994:
After a wide-scale demonstration against the ruling party, the Prime Minister smugly proclaims: "You can leave East Germany. Go! If you don't like it here, if you can't live here, then scram!"
This causes widespread outrage and a mini-revolution that leaves East Berlin trashed.
mid 1994:
New election. A self-proclaimed National Communist party wins the elections by a landslide, promising among other things to restore 1989 living standards and rid the country of "evil imperialist West Germans". It proclaims "We will never unify with them."
1995:
The like-minded Lukashenko wins the elections in Belarus. East Germany finds a new ally, and with it, a bridge to new economic connections with Russia.
2015:
The German Democratic Republic is an "island of Eurasianism" in the blue sea of Schengen countries. Living standards are similar to the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. The political landscape is relatively homogenous. Those that don't agree with the government's views already left for West Germany in the 90s.
Well, you could have Britain and France sustain the GDR against its own people out of irrational post-WWII Germanophobia, threaten to respond to reunification attempts with military invasion, etc.
Well, that wouldn't work too well, at least in the case of France...I think people there were more OK with German reunification, and Mitterrand wasn't as antagonistic as Thatcher was (he had a much better relationship with Kohl than Thatcher did, to say the least).
And it's been said that Thatcher's attitude towards German reunification led to her downfall from the Tory leadership...
That's a POD right there. Britain is a bigger ass about it, Mitterrand and Kohl team up to tell Britain to piss off, and as a result, Britain is permanently alienated from Europe?
Soviet Union has to survive and want the GDR to stay around. No way around that one.
And mind you, Brezhnev actually preferred Brandt to Honecker, which really scared the East Germans.