Get this… with GDR’s central planning, you had this system where say a municipality would be tasked with building housing units, and the central government would provide funding support. This was not a “loan” in any sense of the word. It’s just how central planning works. State enterprises and co-ops were a part of this too.
So the West German government came in just said “these are loans now” and told the various enterprises and municipalities they owed that money back. The skeleton GDR government at the time agreed if the interest rate was kept at 0.5%. The West German government agreed but then promptly jacked up the interest rate to 10%, all while the new “debtors” had no ability to pay.
Reading about the annexation of the GDR is fascinating. Growing up, I had heard propaganda about how “rotten” the GDR economy was and it was just so bad and inefficient that unification has been difficult - that it was communism to blame for the economic woes of the former East Germans. So surprise, turns out it was bullshit. Despite some problems (what economy doesn’t have some problems), the GDR economy was actually pretty good, but it was murdered by the West.
Another unrelated fact about the former GDR… there were so many academic and research institutions closed down and educators purged (illegally I might add) that over one million people in the former GDR with a college degree were left unemployed in the wake of unification - about HALF of the entire population with a degree!
Just to reinforce your point, a survey cited in de la Motte’s book that was done in 1998 that asked the following of former GDR citizens: “from your personal standpoint, to what extent do you associate life in the GDR with the following aspects?” These were the positive responses:
Negative associations were:
I don’t think these results disagree with your point at all about people being fed up with the Stasi, just that that feeling is likely rolled up into those responses re: the SED and censorship. And I have seen more than one survey that shows support for socialism in 1989-90 well over 80%.
It was a horror show worthy of a Saw movie. The section on how unification went for the East German people is the longest section of the book - probably too long to post here, but maybe I could do it in sections. It’s just one act of violence after the other, whether it’s the Treuhand stripping the assets of the GDR for pennies on the dollar, the common currency destroying exports overnight, the fucking feudal Junkers being able to buy their ancestral land for 40% of the value, or West Germans who left the GDR in the first years and were allowed to claim land and residence FOR FREE. On this last one, like ONE HALF of people in the GDR faced losing their homes or significantly higher rents due to people in the West filing claims that they were the real owners of the house. Despite the fact that these people were already compensated by the FRG! Now, 60% of these claims were eventually thrown out, but that means half the residents of the GDR lived in fear of losing their homes, places some of them had lived in and improved for decades, only to be kicked out. And still like a fifth saw their residences handed over to West Germans who did nothing other than fill out some paperwork and were then given it.