Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk and Bodo Ramelow: The New Wall

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk is one of the best experts in GDR history and has been one of the most distinguished and committed observers of the unification process for 35 years. The FAZ called him the “punk among German historians” (FAZ). Bodo Ramelow has been politically active in East Germany since 1990 and was Minister-President in Thuringia from 2014 to 2024. He now sits in the Bundestag for the Left Party. The two have sat down to ask about the reasons for the AfD's nationwide election victory in the new federal states. From different perspectives, the contemporary historian and the pragmatist arrive at a highly differentiated picture of the German-German present tense.

Much of what went wrong in the East after 1990 can be explained by omissions and mistakes in the unification process. Using numerous examples, Kowalczuk and Ramelow show how wrong the West Germans were often in their assessments and that a lot of porcelain was shattered as a result of their arrogant appearance. But the turning away from democracy and the rule of law by large sections of the population has much deeper causes. The questions about the future of our democracy are not focused on the East.

Anyone who wants to know how we can prevent the fire from spreading to the West in the near future should not miss this evening.

Photo: © Susanne Schleyer