Unemployment was not supposed to exist in the GDR. The right to work was enshrined in the constitution of the “workers and farmers” state, but in reality, many jobs were created and maintained artificially and work led neither to economic nor personal wealth. Things were and are not that different in the West. In both states, the realm of work allowed citizens to organize, protest and air their grievances. Guest workers (Gastarbeiter*innen) in the FRG and contract workers (Vertragsarbeiter*innen) in the GDR, were a constant projection for racist violence, complicating thus the notion of work.
@ dpa/picture alliance/ZB
Vietnamese Interns in front of VEB- Berlin Chemie, where they are about to train in 1971. Vietnamese workers were the largest group of workers from the socialist world in Eastern Germany.
@ picture alliance/dpa/Klaus Rose
Guest workers from Turkey finish their shifts at the Ford factory in Cologne, West Germany, 1979.
@ dpa/Ulrich Hässler
Young workers from Cuba and Mosambique in the VEB textile factory in Neugersdorf, 1979.
@ picture alliance / leicar6/Timeline Images
Work, learn and live like a Socialist: Activists attend a Labor Day march on May 1st 1960 in East Berlin.
What challenges did young people face in the 70ies and 80ies, the last generation of divided Germany? In the West, they faced the first real structural unemployment phase since the end of WWII. The destruction of the environment and a reheating of a Cold War itself led to a pessimistic outlook and coining of the term “Ellenbogengesellschaft” (ellbow society). Things were different in the East, where unemployment was unheard of, but the equal access to educational opportunities was limited.
The issue of guest workers in West Germany to mitigate labor shortages after WWII is well known, but who were East Germany's guest- or contract workers? Download interactive PDF
Nicole Reichenbach lives in Guatemala and is a student at a PASCH- school, a global network of schools with stellar German programs. In this video she discusses the meaning of work for society. In German with English subtitles.
