[lbo-talk] Germans are divided, without a wall

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> The Hindu
> 
> Monday, Apr 04, 2005
> 
> Germans are divided, without a wall
> 
> By Peter Beaumont
> 
> The Berlin Wall is now a few fragmented relics, monuments and museums at
iconic points
> such as Checkpoint Charlie, but the divide it represented remains firmly
lodged in German
> minds.
>

I think the division goes well beyond the construction of the wall.  It is
the West/East thing that goes back to feudalism and the advent or urban
mercantilism.  In Western Europe, feudalism perished in the 13-14h century,
replaced by urban mercantilism and the urban/cosmopolitan culture associated
with it.  In Eastern Europe, feudalism with the associated dominance of
landed elites overseeing the "idiocy of the rural life" persisted in one
form or another until the 20th century.  The border between GDR and the
Federal Republic fell on the demarcation line separating the
urban/cosmopolitan West and the feudal/parochial East.

As Max Weber aptly observed in _The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
capitalism_ - this division is a deep cultural divide, not just a
demarcation line between states.

Wojtek