Chancellor Angela Merkel admits she still hoards food 20 years after Iron Curtain fell

[WillieW]

Chancellor Angela Merkel admits she still hoards food 20 years after Iron Curtain fell
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:03 PM on 1st October 2010
Comments (27) Add to My Stories
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the urge to hoard food is 'ingrained' after her East German upbringing
She's the leader of Europe's richest country - but German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted that she still hoards food two decades after East and West Germany were reunited.
The 56-year-old, who grew up in the Communist east of the country, still does her laundry with an East German liquid detergent, prepares East German Soljanka soup - made with sausages and pickle juice - and can't fight the urge to stockpile at the supermarket.
'Sometimes I can't stop myself from buying things just because I see them - even when I don't really need them,' Merkel told magazine SuperIllu ahead of celebrations for the 20th anniversary of unification.

'This inclination to hoard is deeply ingrained in me, because in the past, in times of scarcity, you took what you could get,' Merkel said, referring to life under communism.

Germany was divided into communist East Germany and capitalist West Germany following the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. The eastern German Democratic Republic formally joined the western Federal Republic of Germany on Oct. 3, 1990, after months of peaceful protests brought down the East German system.

But while boundaries have blurred over time, many 'Ossis' and 'Wessis' - the nicknames for those born and raised in the east and west - still seem to stick to old mindsets and keep to themselves.
Ossis are considered more insular, cherishing the few East German products that have survived the unification - like Rotkaeppchen sparkling wine or Spreewald pickles - and taking holidays at their Russian-style dachas in the countryside.
It's 20 years since Germany was reunited - but in many ways East and West are still very different
West Germans, on the other hand, are seen as more outward-looking, gravitating toward new trends in music, art or literature.

Despite all the efforts to adjust the standard of living, East Germans are still underrepresented in many parts of society.
While Merkel is from the East, there are no Ossis in her Cabinet. Not a single football club from the East plays in the national Bundesliga league, and few former East Germans have made it to the higher ranks of big companies or the Army.
'It is probably going to take another two or three generations until we all will say again 'We are one people,'' said Doreen Kinzel, a 39-year-old East German who moved to the West right after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Old favourite: The German Chancellor said she still stockpiles East German Soljanka soup - made with sausages and pickle juice
'Nonetheless, we should not constantly talk about all the things that separate us - in the end we're all Germans.'
Merkel called the unification a 'stroke of luck' and said the ongoing reconstruction of East Germany has been a success.
'After the reunification there was a certain sense of foreignness, because daily life in the former East German states was completely turned inside out - everything from the shops to the bureaucracy to the working world,' Merkel said.
'I think it has been a tremendous feat on the part of East Germans since 1990, to adapt to everything changing.'
East Germany has benefitted from federal government funds, as well as 'solidarity taxes' from the population
In a poll conducted by Forsa Institute on Wednesday, 48 percent of Germans said easterners and westerners see themselves as one people again. Seven years ago, only 31 percent believed this.
Among the biggest problems that plague the former East now are unemployment and a constant decline in population - with many heading to the west to search for jobs. Unemployment in the former East Germany states stands at 11 percent compared with 6.2 percent in the former West.
Almost 1.1 million people - mostly women and young people - have moved from east to west since reunification, leaving behind an aging, childless population and stretches of empty neighborhoods that look like eerie ghost towns.
However, eastern unemployment has declined dramatically since the 18.7 percent registered in 2005.
The federal government has invested billions of euros into the five former eastern states - Brandenburg, Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia - and West German and East German taxpayers alike have been contributing through so-called solidarity taxes that flow to the East.
First levied in 1991, the tax has generated €187 billion ($254 billion) that has gone to improve roads, schools, utilities and other essentials in the former East. The 5.5 percent tax on everybody's income is scheduled to run through 2019.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1316822/German-Chancellor-Angela-Merkel-admits-hoards-food-decades-reunification.html?ITO=1490#ixzz11K8NtTdx

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. I'm just amazed that the leader of a huge rich country does her own shopping and cooking.

But I'm not surprised she's attached to old ways - the adjustment from scarcity to abundance is a very difficult one. Just think of the depression era children still alive who still cling to depression era ways.

[dsc]

3. yep my grandfather and grandmother both

were savers extraodinaire. My grandfather would reuse paper plates.

[monmouth]

5. My mother and her siblings were raised during the very hard years

of the depression and many habits stayed with her. Little things like using a tea bag, two, three times before throwing it out. Milk with cream at the top only used on Sunday, the cream at the top used for coffee as a treat after Mass. Bacon and eggs only on Sunday after Mass, and often bacon was the entree for many a middle-of-the-week meal. My parents were considered upper middle class during those days but they hung onto old habits dearly..

[Warpy]

7. If you've ever been hungry

and I don't mean going on a diet or anything voluntary, I mean no food in the house and no way to get any, you do buy more than you need and always keep things like whole grains and dry beans on hand just in case.

Also, knowing how to cook is probably the best way to deal with real poverty. It can make the difference between staying healthy and ending up with a lot of chronic, ugly problems.

My own parents were teenagers in the Depression. They didn't hoard food except for canned food on sale. They did feel deprived if they didn't eat meat three times a day, though.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Strangely, I stockpile food as well.

Rice, beans, soup mix, ramen, flour, sugar, etc....

[EFerrari]

4. My mom went hungry in the Depression and she saves every bit of food.

I'm always finding a piece of a biscuit or two spoonfuls or rice or part of an apple in her refrigerator. One of her sisters used to empty the baskets of crackers at restaurants even though she was wealthy. It wasn't cheapness, it was the ingrained habit of saving food.

[xchrom]

6. What an interesting personal revelation.

I find the lives of people who lived behind the iron curtain
Fascinating.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. A (former) East German guy stayed with me a couple years ago, who had been a kid when the wall fell,

and I asked what the biggest difference was that he noticed, as a child, after the wall came down and East Germany joined Germany.

He said "the toys became more colorful. They had been painted so drab under the communists."

I find that fascinating.

he said the toys (and most likely everything else) were better built, too.

But for him as a kid, it was the toys that became colorful that was the biggest change he noticed.

[xchrom]

11. I find that so revealing - and personal - and it's such a little thing. Nt

[dalaigh lllama]

8. We have some German friends who we've spoken to about this

They're about 60ish and are in West Germany. They told us the nickname for East Germany is "the dark states." Said there was a lot resentment at first about paying extra taxes for East Germany's benefit, but not so much anymore. Said the saddest thing to them was that, in their opinion, East Germans had lost the work ethic that is so intrinsically German.

[SOS]

9. Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism

An interesting article (and poll) related to the OP:

Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html