Fitting East Germany into West Germany

While all post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe underwent significant political, social, and economic changes, the transformation of East Germany fundamentally differed from that of countries such as PolandPoland and HungaryHungary. Since East Germany joined West Germany, the West German model for social, economic, and political structures was introduced in the five East German states with little to no modification. The result was the destruction of East German structures regardless of their quality and their replacement with West German institutions. The transformations affected all aspects of public life from schooling to health care and work. The speed of this transformation also set the changes in East Germany apart from other post-Communist countries. While this transformation process took years and decades in other Eastern European countries, East Germany’s society and economy were subjected to what could be likened to shock therapy, which led to deindustrializationdeindustrialization, depopulation, and the devaluation of East German biographies.unemployment The East German transformation, lastly, differed from the transformation of other East European countries in the large-scale import of West German experts who took over leadership positions on every level of East German society.