What becomes of Berlin in a surviving multi-party East Germany

Hello all, I'm curious what exactly would happen to Berlin if a democratic East Germany was to survive? obviously it wouldn't remain devided, or atleast the Physical barrier would be removed. Would it remain the capital for both WG and EG? Or would one the two select a new location?
 

MSZ

Banned
The "annexation" of East Berlin by the DDR was never internationally recognized and might become a problem after the fall of communism - technically, it was a soviet occupation zone, so if an East German state survives, it would either have to get both western and Russian concent for annexation. Which, in my opinion it would actually receive - the West wouldn't be happy about the Soviets (later Russians) remaining present in Germany, and the Russians themselves did withdraw. So East Berlin becoming legaly part of East Germany is in my opinion granted.

West Berlin on the other hand wasn't part of either DDR or FRG, nor was it the capital of West Germany (that was Bonn). Nevertheless, four option are present:

a) stay with the status quo and keep West Berlin an occupied zone;
b) Have it annexed by East Germany;
c) Have it annexed by West Germany as an enclave;
d) become independent as the Free City of Berlin.

Given how strong reunification sentiment was at the time, I think option c) is the most likely, as that would be what the inhabitants of the city would most likely want, and there are little powers in the world which would want, or even could prevent that. Cooperatio between East and West Germany would most likely be strong enough that even its enclave status wouldn't be a problem for its development.
 

MSZ

Banned
Hows this for a wacko idea. Freistadt Berlin becomes a capital of the eu, ec,eec whatever it was then.

I did once toy with the idea that if for some reason Korean re-unification occured before the fall of the wall, but after the South Korean economic boom had occured, the problems involved with annexing post-communist, underdeveloped areas would be something that would reduce the pro-unification sentiment in Germany into something like "Re-unification - Yes, but only after some time". This might actually prevent the anschluss of East Germany, leaving it as an independent state (some people even say that would be a better option long-term).

So the question of what to do with West Berlin comes up. The inhabitants don't want to be part of East Germany. West Germany doesn't want to take it. Keeping the status quo once the wall has fallen isn't a popular idea either. So the city declaring itself an independent entity, or a microstate is a solution. It acepts immigrants from all over Europe, making it a "sallad bowl" of different nationalities, it's "Germanness" being reduced in the eyes of the world, making it acceptable as a "neutral ground" for EU institutions, like OTL Brussels. And of course start a thousand times as many conspiracy theories involoving "who really runs the EU" and protest. against the "Berlin dictate"
 
Hello all, I'm curious what exactly would happen to Berlin if a democratic East Germany was to survive? obviously it wouldn't remain devided, or atleast the Physical barrier would be removed. Would it remain the capital for both WG and EG? Or would one the two select a new location?

I'm thinking that EG won't survive as an independent, democratic state long term. There's a reason they build the Berlin Wall back in the 60s and kept the border sealed tight: People were getting out to get better lives for themselves and their families in WG.
That'll happen in this scenario also, and if EG backs away from totalitarianism, there isn't much it can do about it. It'll take many, many years for EG to achieve WG-levels of living standards - too many to prevent a "mass exodus" now that the posibility presents itself.

In short: I'm thinking that in the long-term, the question isn't really relevant, as EG either collapses, or a referendum unites the two Germanies anyway.

It might just be my newbie-ness talking, but I'm pretty sure I'm not drunk :)
 

MSZ

Banned
I'm thinking that EG won't survive as an independent, democratic state long term. There's a reason they build the Berlin Wall back in the 60s and kept the border sealed tight: People were getting out to get better lives for themselves and their families in WG.
That'll happen in this scenario also, and if EG backs away from totalitarianism, there isn't much it can do about it. It'll take many, many years for EG to achieve WG-levels of living standards - too many to prevent a "mass exodus" now that the posibility presents itself.

In short: I'm thinking that in the long-term, the question isn't really relevant, as EG either collapses, or a referendum unites the two Germanies anyway.

It might just be my newbie-ness talking, but I'm pretty sure I'm not drunk :)

I guess it's up to me to welcome you to the board :).

Reunification sentiment was certainly strong in both Germanies OTL, and the flight of Germans from the East to West too - it goes on today as well truth be told, and has been going on for at least two centuries. But such depopulatation doesn't automaticaly mean a country has to give up its independence - in the case of East Germans they either wanted to, or was content with it. You have mass exoduses from, for example, the Baltic States to the UK or Mexico to the USA nowadays, but that doesn't mean those countries want to join the UK or USA - the German situation was somewhat special.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-14/local/me-1741_1_east-german

The LA Times might not be the best source of information, but does give the impression that there were actually people in East Germany who didn't want to leave even if they could, prefering to reform their state.
 

ingemann

Banned
I'm thinking that EG won't survive as an independent, democratic state long term. There's a reason they build the Berlin Wall back in the 60s and kept the border sealed tight: People were getting out to get better lives for themselves and their families in WG.
That'll happen in this scenario also, and if EG backs away from totalitarianism, there isn't much it can do about it. It'll take many, many years for EG to achieve WG-levels of living standards - too many to prevent a "mass exodus" now that the posibility presents itself.

In short: I'm thinking that in the long-term, the question isn't really relevant, as EG either collapses, or a referendum unites the two Germanies anyway.

It might just be my newbie-ness talking, but I'm pretty sure I'm not drunk :)

They don't need WG-level of living standards, even today EG have a living standard closer to Slovenia than to Bremen, and it hasn't lead to the entire population migrate to WG. But they still as long as WG's ling standards are higher than EG's we will see migration from east to west. What wee need are a birth rate in the east high enough to replace the losses to migration. Maybe if the early DDR decide that to be equal to the west, it need a higher population, and start policies to increase the birthrate (it's not impossible, Denmark and Romania both succeed in increasing their birthrate through government policy). If that succeed the loss of some of population to the west won't be felt as hard and the emigration can be somewhat ignored.

In fact if we look at the loss, around 3 millions emigrated to FRG until the Wall was build, even a moderate population growth (2,5 child per woman) would have been more than able to replace that loss.
 
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