ABSTRACT
The German unification seemed a new corporate identity was needed to carry the financial burden and to overcome the psychological and cultural effects of separation. In the wake of unification the different identities of West and East Germans were exposed for the first time. Collective identity in East Germany was also shaped by a different attitude towards neighbouring countries and towards foreigners in general. One psychologist from Leipzig even argues that most East Germans were in a 'permanent state of latent or acute stress'. The argument that East Germany was 'colonised', put forward frequently by those who saw the demise of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a tremendous loss, is greatly exaggerated. While the West Germans of the 1950s and 1960s enjoyed the imports of popular culture from the West, first in the form of Glenn Miller, and later the Beatles, Russia had nothing of the sort to offer the GDR.
