Rethinking Citizenship and Identity: ‘What it Means to be German’ since the Fall of the Wall

Twenty years after the Wall's collapse, East and West Germans have yet to achieve a sense of ‘inner unity’. To forge a common national identity not only among those citizens but also among Germans of migrant descent, policy-makers need to grasp the ways in which their respective identity trajectories have diverged over four decades. This article revisits western, eastern and ‘foreigner’ identities prior to 1989; it examines changing opportunity structures along three generational axes, resulting in different degrees of identification with the homeland since 1990. It then reviews efforts to redefine national belonging based on recent legislative reforms, pushing West Germans to give up their Leitkultur claims along new paths to citizenship. Finally, the article reflects on why the nation's first woman Chancellor, Angela Merkel, could successfully blaze a trail through perilous territory all previous leaders had feared to tread.