Old habits die hard: German Chancellor Angela Merkel admits she still hoards food 20 years after Iro

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Old habits die hard: German Chancellor Angela Merkel admits she still hoards food 20 years after Iron Curtain fell

 

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 4:03 PM on 1st October 2010

 

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the urge to hoard food is 'ingrained' after her East German upbringing

 

She's the leader of Europe's richest country - but German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted that she still hoards food two decades after East and West Germany were reunited.

The 56-year-old, who grew up in the Communist east of the country, still does her laundry with an East German liquid detergent, prepares East German Soljanka soup - made with sausages and pickle juice - and can't fight the urge to stockpile at the supermarket.

'Sometimes I can't stop myself from buying things just because I see them - even when I don't really need them,' Merkel told magazine SuperIllu ahead of celebrations for the 20th anniversary of unification.

'This inclination to hoard is deeply ingrained in me, because in the past, in times of scarcity, you took what you could get,' Merkel said, referring to life under communism.

Germany was divided into communist East Germany and capitalist West Germany following the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The eastern German Democratic Republic formally joined the western Federal Republic of Germany on Oct. 3, 1990, after months of peaceful protests brought down the East German system.

But while boundaries have blurred over time, many 'Ossis' and 'Wessis' - the nicknames for those born and raised in the east and west - still seem to stick to old mindsets and keep to themselves.

Ossis are considered more insular, cherishing the few East German products that have survived the unification - like Rotkaeppchen sparkling wine or Spreewald pickles - and taking holidays at their Russian-style dachas in the countryside.

 

It's 20 years since Germany was reunited - but in many ways East and West are still very different

 

West Germans, on the other hand, are seen as more outward-looking, gravitating toward new trends in music, art or literature.

Despite all the efforts to adjust the standard of living, East Germans are still underrepresented in many parts of society.

While Merkel is from the East, there are no Ossis in her Cabinet. Not a single football club from the East plays in the national Bundesliga league, and few former East Germans have made it to the higher ranks of big companies or the Army.

'It is probably going to take another two or three generations until we all will say again 'We are one people,'' said Doreen Kinzel, a 39-year-old East German who moved to the West right after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

Old favourite: The German Chancellor said she still stockpiles East German Soljanka soup - made with sausages and pickle juice

 

'Nonetheless, we should not constantly talk about all the things that separate us - in the end we're all Germans.'

Merkel called the unification a 'stroke of luck' and said the ongoing reconstruction of East Germany has been a success.

'After the reunification there was a certain sense of foreignness, because daily life in the former East German states was completely turned inside out - everything from the shops to the bureaucracy to the working world,' Merkel said.

'I think it has been a tremendous feat on the part of East Germans since 1990, to adapt to everything changing.'

 

 

East Germany has benefitted from federal government funds, as well as 'solidarity taxes' from the population

 

In a poll conducted by Forsa Institute on Wednesday, 48 percent of Germans said easterners and westerners see themselves as one people again. Seven years ago, only 31 percent believed this.

 

Among the biggest problems that plague the former East now are unemployment and a constant decline in population - with many heading to the west to search for jobs. Unemployment in the former East Germany states stands at 11 percent compared with 6.2 percent in the former West.

Almost 1.1 million people - mostly women and young people - have moved from east to west since reunification, leaving behind an aging, childless population and stretches of empty neighborhoods that look like eerie ghost towns.

However, eastern unemployment has declined dramatically since the 18.7 percent registered in 2005.

The federal government has invested billions of euros into the five former eastern states - Brandenburg, Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia - and West German and East German taxpayers alike have been contributing through so-called solidarity taxes that flow to the East.

First levied in 1991, the tax has generated €187 billion ($254 billion) that has gone to improve roads, schools, utilities and other essentials in the former East. The 5.5 percent tax on everybody's income is scheduled to run through 2019.

 

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1316822/German-Chancellor-Angela-Merkel-admits-hoards-food-decades-reunification.html#ixzz118MEPM1U

[Gitta Rensolo]

The federal government has invested billions of euros into the five former eastern states - Brandenburg, Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia - and West German and East German taxpayers alike have been contributing through so-called solidarity taxes that flow to the East.

First levied in 1991, the tax has generated €187 billion ($254 billion) that has gone to improve roads, schools, utilities and other essentials in the former East. The 5.5 percent tax on everybody's income is scheduled to run through 2019.

 

 

yes....and sometimes you get the impression that they've been neglecting roads and schools and stuff in the west instead...

 

well, it's really interesting to see the differences between me (west-Germany) and some friends I have whose parents were brought up in east-Germany...

[busybeeburns]

I'm off to Tesco's to stockpile on cup-a-soups, just in case!