A former resident of East Germany, an architect by education, 22-year-old Stefanie Klimke moved away after learning that she could earn much more in the west. From the town of Hoyerswerda, Klimke moved to Silberstadt, not far from Stuttgart. "With the money I was offered in the east, I could never afford to buy a car or an apartment," she says. In Silberstadt, her salary is 1,200 euros. In Hoyerswerda, she would receive only 500. Her story is an illustration of a typical problem - brain drain - faced by the five new German states. The young, energetic, and educated are leaving.
A worker in the east earns much less than his western colleagues. The unemployment rate in the new states is 17.8%, compared to 8.1% in the west. According to the results of sociological surveys conducted by the government of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, 40% of those leaving are highly qualified specialists.
Manfred Stolpe, the federal government's transport minister, who is responsible for the reconstruction of the region and himself comes from the east, says that the young people's pursuit of a better life damages the economy of the former GDR states and splits families.
Klaus Friedrich, professor of social geography at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, is convinced that the situation will not improve until the economy of the eastern states begins to rise. He recommends bringing back at least some of those who have successfully established themselves in the west. Otherwise, according to the Saxon government's calculations, the population of Hoyerswerda itself will decrease by 40% by 2020.
Viktor Rykin, deputy head of the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia: "The migration problem is traditional for Germany. Take the postwar period. There was a constant influx of migrants - from the lands that went to Poland, about 10 million people resettled from the Sudetenland, and another three million Germans from the GDR joined them. In total, the Federal Republic of Germany received 13-15 million additional pairs of working hands. These people at some stage contributed to the birth of the German "economic miracle." Today, former eastern Germans are also primarily solving their economic problems. After all, entire industries, such as shipbuilding, were liquidated in the new states. Therefore, the problem of employment has become particularly acute. Hence the extremes: on the one hand, an outflow of population to the "rich" states, and on the other, the growth of right-wing, pro-Nazi sentiments in the east. It is in the former GDR that there are the most opponents of immigration from abroad: foreigners, as they believe there, deprive Germans of jobs. The alignment of east and west in economic development will have to happen anyway. But it will take another ten years."