An open link to an interesitng historical article from the WSJ

[Dave Grubb]

I was part of the German rfeunification period--I lived it in the same way Germans lived it.

This is an interesting look back at the past 30 years (it is hard to imagine it has been that long).

I went into the former East Germany shortly after the wall came down--and it was a sobering place. The people almost universally looked sad--a smile was not a commodity, it was a rare treat. The appearance of the entire country stood as a striking contrast to Western Germany. In every town my eyes would burn from the pollution. The roads were a mixture of pre-WW II autobahns and one lane secondary roads. If no traffic was approaching you could drive on the single lane of paving---when opposing traffic came you shared the lane with the left side and put the right side off into the dirt.

Few building (including homes) were without broken windows and everything had a dirty brown coating to it from the pollution. Fields were not tilled into the corners, they were all rounded off--no one cared. The forests were untended, unlike Western Germany were they were almost manicured in contrast.

Few spoke English--their second language was Russian. Accommodations were sparse at best.

Over time I saw massive changes---there was a period were I had to wonder if tower cranes could bred! Even the smallest of towns had their own selection of cranes working on water treatment plants, power plants and new factories.

I worked closely with a West German company who bought an East German "company"---they were unprepared for the reality of it. The 40 years of "cultural conversion" had taken a toll. The traditional work ethic was gone--and trying to bring it back was very difficult. These people had never worked a full day in their lives because they would run out of supplies long before they ran out of day!

The years did see great progress in the infrastructure and the physical appearance of the country--and even some began to smile. One of my most memorable experiences for me was watching the restoration of Dresden's Frauenkirche (Church), a massive undertaking which began by picking up all the stones, which had been left were they lay after the end of the bombing, tagging them and taking them down to the bank of the Elbe River, separated into piles.

During the restoration I would go to Dresden even if I was only close---just to watch the rebirth of that church.

Anyway---not all has been a rebirth, some has not gone as hoped, and this article does well at describing that.