Nationella identiteter i det återförenade Tyskland En studie om hur fyrtio års separation av den tyska nationen i BRD och DDR har påverkat den tyska identiteten

Sammanfattning: Abstract (magisteruppsats, 61-80p) This paper is concerned with the national sentiments in the Federal State of Germany, regarding the east- and west-German cleavages, since the unification of the country in 1990. The point of departure is the nationalistic theory crafted together by the scholar Anthony David Smith, which implies an ethno-symbolistic perspective on the dynamics of nations. The main question in the paper is to which extent you can consider the East- and West Germans to be a unity, considering the past and the forty-year-division. For this reason the author basically uses two different sources: scientific books and the German journal Der Spiegel. Founded on Smith's theory, the study contains a broad explanation for national identities in contemporary states, which ranges from pre-modern times, when the ethnic communities were created, to the national world of today. The discontinuity of the German case, represented by the separation 1949-90 of the German nation into two entirely different societies, makes it possible to draw conclusions about which factor that has the pivotal impact on national identities. The result turns out to be that the national historical core-values and symbols of the current German state and nation are more profound than the splitting national sentiments. Thus the German nation is likely to recover from its Cold War break-up. Keywords: German unification, A. D. Smith, Nation and nationalism, National identity, Der Spiegel