title: On German Identity
abstract: Germany's reunification or unification—as the Germans prefer to call it—took place at a time when, following eight years of sound economic growth, the Federal Republic of Germany seemed able to bear the anticipated financial burden. The West German identity could be described as markedly democratic and open, an intertwining of identities: local, German, European, predemocratic, democratic, and postmodern. The East German revolution, as the founding element of German unity and of a single German 