Does history repeat itself?
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The East is in a poor state because The West illegally annexed it, threw away their welfare state, outlawed the communist party, and gave all of its industry to exploitative West German companies. Indicators of quality of life plummeted after the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall. The West also trashed East Germany's liberating policies towards women and LGBTQ+ people. East Germans that were older have nostalgia for the better times. Patronizing and ignorant liberals, rather than understand the truth in their experiences, have invented a fantasy called Ostolgie to explain this away, doing their best to pretend that this is just old people being silly rather than remembering tangibly better experiences.
This fictionalization is a necessary part of anticommunist thinking: no aspects of "the enemy" can ever be good or beneficial for anyone. All seemingly good things done by that enemy must either be attributed to a "brainwashed" population or a devious plot to appear better than they really are for propaganda purposes. It is important to recognize that these patterns of thought are not usually effectively exported and are instead intended for a domestic audience to make sure they don't actually understand and sympathize with the designated enemy.
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The East is in a poor state because The West illegally annexed it
Wut? Germany was one country until the Soviet Union occupied half of it. Re-uniting the occupied territories with the rest of the country is literally the opposite of an illegal annexation.
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Wut? Germany was a singular country until the Soviet Union occupied half of it.
This is a non-sequitor, it does not change whether West Germany illegally annexed East Germany, which it did. Germany included parts of what are now Poland prior to the Nazis' invasions. Would you also write off Germany illegally annexing them as a righteous revanchism?
Re-uniting the occupied territories with the rest of the country is literally the opposite of an illegal annexation.
You should learn your basic history before trying to lecture others. Germany was cut down and the remaining pieces split into regions governed by 4 countries (France, UK, USA, USSR). With the rise of the US the first 3 of course rapidly became de facto one region and the legal mumbo jumbo followed to create West Germany.
West Germany was created from this as an "independent" country, still under the thumb of the US, excluding East Germany. The USSR proposed full reintegration of Germany as a neutral country, but the US had already committed to a policy of isolation, preferring their NATO-pushing givernors of West Germany.
Regarding illegal annexation of East Germany, it was done against the consent of the people who lived there and against their own supposed legal framework.
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Thalmann and the communists were going with accelerationism and straight up wanted Hitler to win, so they blocked every coalition they could.
That’s… not how the situation unfolded.
To further understand the position taken by the KPD against the SPD, Ernst Thälmann’s 1932 speech “The SPD and NSDAP are Twins” reveals how the KPD leadership envisioned its struggle against fascism in all forms. Thälmann’s incendiary speech declared that “joint negotiations between the KPD and the SPD… there are none! There will be none!”¹³
This was not to say that the KPD did not recognize the [Fascist] threat, as Thälmann articulated that “KPD strategy directs the main blow against social democracy, without thereby weakening the struggle against […] fascism; [KPD] strategy creates the very preconditions of an effective opposition to […] fascism precisely in its direction of the main blow against social democracy.”¹⁴
It is imperative to recognize, though, that the KPD only advocated the blow against the SPD leadership. As Thälmann argued, The KPD’s policy envisioned, the creation of a “revolutionary United Front policy… [that mobilized the masses from below through] the systematic, patient and comradely persuasion of the Social Democratic, Christian and even National Socialist workers to forsake their traitorous leaders.”¹⁵
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Poland being part of germany and east germany are very different things. There is a much larger gap between poland being part of germany than east germany being part of united germany. Also, the GDR literally agreed to the unification contract so it's not an annexation.
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Poland being part of germany and east germany are very different things.
Not based on what parent said. Their simplistic rationale was that it was somehow legal and fine because it used to be part of Germany before WWII. That applies equally to both.
There is a much larger gap between poland being part of germany than east germany being part of united germany.
Only about 35 years or so. East and West were split from the end of WWII to 1990. You seem to be exaggerating and drawing an arbitrary line.
So anyways, by your logic you think it would have been legal and good for Germany to annex the parts it lost to Poland so long as it did so before 1990? Are you sure you've thought this through?
Also, the GDR literally agreed to the unification contract so it's not an annexation.
Incorrect. There were two process options:
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Carry out the creation of a new nation via negotiations between states and the draftinh of a new constitution.
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Absorb states into West Germany if their populations produce a majority vote in favor.
They "chose" the latter and then didn't do the vote. They did the usual annexer thing and just fudged some bullshit to claim that the GDR government following its first Western-style (and massively Western influenced via cash and NGOs) counted since it was a ruling coalition and therefore represented the majority. Again, this is just inventing some bullshit to get what they wanted. This is somewhat like voting for a pro-Brexit party that says they want to start the process of Brexit and then, lo and behold, they are forcing an immediate and unfavorable Brexit that you would not have supported and against the law of both the EU and the UK. Only the result is that instead of breaking treaties, you no longer have a country or basically any of your laws, you are simply annexed. So you cross your fingers and hope the Western propaganda is true and your previous state's was false (spoiler: it was the opposite).
Now, generally speaking, I am not a "but the rules say otherwise!" nerd. But liberals do think of themselves this way and their propaganda tells them that everything they do against the authoritarian commies is actually for democracy and the rule of law. So when they see a basic fact like this, they either go into denial mode based on vibes, twist themselves into a pretzel (like the official legal logic), or acknowledge the reality and start to question their assumptions.
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How was it an illegal annexation if the rulers of the country signed a contract that was literally about uniting with western germany. How was that illegal, it was literally done in the usual bureocratic manner it has to be done. If the population of the country did not agree to it the rulers should have done a vote or something similar but they did not.
