Alternate East Germany

The Local

It recently came up in German news that the chancellor of West Germany from 1949-1963 proposed a deal to swap West Berlin for the state of Thuringia and a few other border territories with East Germany. This brings up an interesting alternate history scenario.

Symbolically, the biggest difference would have been the lack of the Berlin Wall. Depending on the timing of the proposal, the Berlin Wall would have either never existed, or been unceremoniously removed soon after its construction.

The integration of Thuringia into West Germany would have gone much more smoothly than full reunification as the population being integrated would have been much smaller relative to the overall size of West Germany. While already by the 1960's East Germany was much poorer than West Germany, it probably wouldn't have been as economically painful for Thuringia as it industries wouldn't have been as out-dated as they were during the 1990's. Also, During the 1960's West Germany was at the height of its economic recovery and the integration of Thuringia would have brought in much welcomed additional labor, land for industrial expansion, and a new consumer market.

More in the dark though are the events of 1989. The disintegration of the Communist Bloc didn't start in East Germany. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans were already escaping through the open border in Hungary, so that may have still happened. It was these events in Hungary that eventually led to East Germany opening its borders, but the process would have gone much slower had it not been for a misunderstanding as to when this would take place and the immediate flood of people at East and West Berlin border crossings. People would instead have to go out to the largely unpopulated East-West German border to cross. While many thousands probably would, it wouldn't have had the same psychological effect that the collapse of the Berlin Wall brought.

Reunification would probably be inevitability with the collapse of the Communist Bloc. It is difficult to say if it would have gone more smoothly though. In terms of population, not much would have been different, the population of West Berlin was not much different than Thuringia. The main difference probably would have been that West Germany would have already had experience with integrating new states.

In the end, the major difference it would make today would be that Thuringia would be much better off, but Berlin would be in a much worse position. Even now, Berlin is a surprisingly poor city, but was at least an oasis of development within East Germany during the 1990's. Instead, Berlin would have been much like all other East German cities in the 1990's and its population would have dropped significantly.