October 3rd: The best thing for Unity Day is the election result in Berlin

Let's be honest: Who really cares about German Unity Day? As an event that people - despite all the difficulties - celebrate as a success of the growing together of East and West. As a date on which it is remembered that there was a peaceful revolution in the GDR. As a moment that perhaps allows something like pride in recent German history and possibly a positive look into the German-German future. Most people will say: I don't give a damn, I'm happy about the day off. And some will ask again and again why the unity holiday is celebrated on October 3rd of all days. The date has no historical connection whatsoever – neither in the East nor in the West.

October 3rd has long been more of a media event because politicians celebrate themselves on this day - whether they have reason to do so or not. The initial euphoria over German unity has given way to resignation and anger in recent years: in the east people are looking for the blooming landscapes, in the west they are annoyed by those who refuse to accept democracy between Rostock and Zittau.

Some want the wall back – in the east and in the west. That this will not happen should be clear even to those who scream loudest for it. It is also clear that the Federal Republic today is no longer what it was after reunification or even 20 years ago.

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This has less to do with East and West than with violent national and global changes. There is the rise of the AfD, which fits into the global rise of extreme right-wing movements - in Europe, South America, in the USA. There is the division in society, which many interpret as a result of the corona pandemic, but which is above all a result of decades of successful disintegration of democracies by globally active right-wing networks. And there are wars, crises, climate change that fuel economic insecurities and individual fears. Now also fueled by the man-made unbridledness of AI.

The answer to all of this cannot be: forward into the past. Nothing else would mean giving space to the Ostalgie that affects quite a few people today, even those who were born around the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anyone younger than 40 today has no idea what the GDR really was like. At best, those who are interested in GDR history know what it was like to have lived in the country - with all the restrictions on freedom, paternalism, reprisals and fears. Right-wing extremists like Björn Höcke and Ulrich Siegmund in the East know how to consciously use this ignorance (or repression) - with captivatingly good humor and simple devotional items like a Samson.

It doesn't help much to want to demystify this crappy moped and to dismantle the AfD's fascist propaganda when this is met with ignorance and the attitude: no matter what, the main thing is against the “elites”. A history lesson that focuses more heavily on the GDR would help. There are still enough contemporary witnesses who can explain the country in all its facets, from kindergartens and polyclinics, to the housing shortage and smelly Trabis, to the stasis prison and child abduction. Nevertheless, there needs to be an honest classification of the old FRG, which was more than Golf GTI, Eduscho coffee, RAF.

As I said, there will never be a raised wall again. Nevertheless, the famous wall appears more often in people's minds again. Unfortunately, the Ossi bashing has gone up a notch after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, in which the AfD became the strongest force.

What is often forgotten is that the AfD is not an Eastern phenomenon, but a pan-German phenomenon. The East is – and this is not praise – only avant-garde in this regard. If a big city manages to put the AfD in its place to some extent, as was the case in the recent House of Representatives election in Berlin, it is again not right. Because the capital could be ruled by the Left Party, Union-led countries are threatening to cut off the money. Aside from the fact that it's not that easy, the Berlin election result is the best thing that German unity has to offer right now: us together against the right.