Berlin.
Even in the federal authorities, East Germans are still outsiders. The Federal Government Commissioner for the East wants to change that.
For three decades, it has been a declared goal of politics to align the career opportunities and career prospects of East Germans with those of West Germans. More than 30 years after fall of the wall However, the federal government has to admit that citizens from the new federal states have remained outsiders even in the federal administration. East Germans are particularly underrepresented in the top management level of the federal authorities: Their share here is 6.8 percent. If the state of Berlin is excluded, the share even drops to 4.5 percent.
This was the result of an examination of more than 3,600 positions within the federal administration. “Over all management levels East Germans are not represented according to their share of the total population,” says a report by East German representative Carsten Schneider (SPD), who is advising the federal cabinet this Wednesday. The 21-page paper is available to our editorial team in advance.
East Germans are underrepresented at all management levels
In view of the figures, the Minister of State in the Chancellery is calling for the federal government to make a voluntary commitment, also when trying to achieve greater diversity in the future East German to have in view. “There must be sensitivity to the underrepresentation of East Germans in management positions at all hierarchical levels,” Schneider demands in the report.
The below-average representation of East Germans runs through all management levels federal administration. Only 8.7 percent of the department heads come from the eastern German federal states. If Berlin is excluded, it is only 2.7 percent – here the proportion of foreigners is even higher at 3.8 percent.
Almost 14 percent of managers were born in the East
In total, only 13.9 percent of all executives were born in the East, including Berlin. Without including the capital, the share is almost halved to 7.5 percent. For the statistics, Schneider had the origin of the managerial staff of 93 federal agencies to get a check up. These included the Federal Government, the Bundestag, the Office of the Federal President, the Bundesrat and the Federal Constitutional Court as well as all federal courts.
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The most recent study by the German Center for Integration and migration research. According to this, people are considered East German if they were born in the new federal states. Their share of the total population is between 18.9 percent (including the former West Berlin) and 21.5 percent (only East Berlin).
East Commissioner Schneider sees “a clear disadvantage” for East Germans
The Minister of State justified the birthplace system he had chosen with the simple one manageability. “We have opted for a practicable and clear solution, also to avoid blurring due to the population movement between East and West,” he told our editors. As the capital and formerly divided city, Berlin is a special case and is therefore reported separately.
From Schneider’s point of view, the figures collected for the first time show “a clear disadvantage” East German in the allocation of management positions in the federal administration. “As in other areas of society, it is a kind of unconscious discrimination against people from the East,” said the SPD member of the Bundestag.
Comment:Why there are so few East Germans in management positions
Even in East Germany, important positions are often not occupied by East Germans
According to the Eastern Commissioner, the top one is standing federal administration only representative of society as a whole. Even in East Germany there is no university rector of East German origin. Schneider also referred to the results published by the University of Leipzig in 2022, according to which the proportion in the German elite was only 3.5 percent. Even in eastern Germany, this proportion was only 26 percent.
In 2021, the federal government’s Poverty and Wealth Report found that only 13 percent of judges in the East were also born in East Germany. The situation was similar with management positions in the Science the end. In the East German economy, too, the proportion of East Germans in managerial positions was 33 percent.
Read here:Income: Wage gap between East and West continues to widen
After the fall of the Wall important positions were occupied by West Germans
The measures proposed by the East German representative to the cabinet also include a “holistic diversity strategy” for the federal administration. “The occupation of personnel selection committees” should also be reconsidered. In addition, East Germans must be encouraged to take on leadership positions.
“Especially for the older generations in the East there was little access to highly paid positions in the public service at federal and state level, since after the reunification it was mainly young people West Germans have filled these positions and still hold them to this day,” said Schneider. Even at the management levels in the state administrations, the doors remained closed after more than 32 years. “These doors must be pushed open with the necessary self-confidence, but also unlocked by the state governments.”
Many East Germans see themselves as second-class citizens
The Eastern Commissioner referred to surveys, according to which about two-thirds of people in the East feel like second-class Germans. Inequality in representation is one reason for this. “Better representation and the public visibility of East Germans in management positions, especially in the federal administration, can strengthen trust in democracy and increase acceptance even for difficult political decisions,” says Schneider’s report.
According to that Germany monitor In East Germany, only 39 percent still trust the democracy practiced in this country – and the trend is falling. In western Germany the figure is 59 percent.
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