East Germans in the elite: “Many of us are not out”

Researchers recommend vertical networking, a top banker talks about coming out as an East German, and the representative for the East talks about her mother. This is what you learn at a conference on East German careers.

Simona Stoytchkova Murman Publishing House

Elisabeth Kaiser is standing on a stage in Leipzig , talking about the years after reunification. She is 37, although she was two when the Wall fell. But she is also the Federal Government's new Commissioner for Eastern Europe . She comes from Gera, grew up in a prefabricated housing project; the 1990s were tough, "it was no different at home." The room is filled with academics, students, and a few journalists, almost all of whom also come from the East; it isn't particularly crowded. A discussion is about to begin for a few hours about why East Germans so rarely make it into the elite in Germany.

The hall has no windows, and you feel enclosed, just like you're in this debate, which isn't really a debate at all, but a monologue. The East has been talking to itself for years. Sometimes they raise their voices a little louder, and then the majority of the country looks up, disturbed, and demands a different tone.

A top job is guaranteed for East Germans

Yes, the 1990s. Yes, the parents who said, "You have completely different opportunities than we did back then," like Elisabeth Kaiser's mother. The Commissioner for Eastern Europe also recounts this. Kaiser has seized her opportunities, has risen through the ranks of the SPD and federal politics, and has just become a Minister of State. After all, the federal government continues to appoint a Commissioner for East German Self-Talk. A top position in Germany that is secure for East Germans.

Otherwise, things aren't going so well, as the study Kaiser is scheduled to present in Leipzig, the "Elite Monitor," once again demonstrates. In an initial statement, the Commissioner for Eastern Europe interpreted the results optimistically, because the researchers, who are monitoring the German elite in Leipzig, Jena, and Zittau/Görlitz, had detected a tiny increase. The proportion of East Germans in top jobs is 1.2 percentage points higher than six years ago! It now stands at 12.1 percent. The proportion of East Germans in the population is, depending on the method of counting, between 18 and 20 percent.

In the windowless hall in Leipzig, Elisabeth Kaiser says this is "sobering." At least, thanks to the study, they have it "black and white." Established structures cannot be changed "overnight." The researchers have calculated that it will take 42 years until East Germans are fairly represented in leadership positions if things continue as they have been since 2018. Kaiser, who was a toddler when the Wall fell, would then be almost 80. But perhaps her second child, born in a few weeks, would have a chance to advance in Germany. As an East German, you're supposed to remain confident. Elisabeth Kaiser says she wants to be "a strong voice for the East" in the next four years. She sounds a bit combative.

Dear East Germans, please don’t be so angry!

Then a woman from the Leipzig Forum for Contemporary History, the venue, steps up to the microphone and warns. The debate on the East has recently been conducted with too much anger. Anger is "unproductive," she says. "Anger can't change the imbalance." All of this should be discussed "calmly."

This is the Dirk Oschmann moment of the conference. Even if the name of the literary scholar, who lives here in Leipzig, isn't mentioned. His book consistently upsets people, partly because they recognize themselves in its depictions of the denigration of East Germans. It seems to upset people even more consistently that it's impossible that an East German wrote such a book, a polemic, undifferentiated, loud.

One could also argue that far too little anger is expressed in the East about the far too small share of power. After all, that's what top positions are all about. Anyone who runs a company, a theater, a government agency, a judge, a minister, or a union leader in Germany helps shape the country. One could also argue that neither being angry nor not being angry is worth it, and that one is fed up with the whole issue.

Lars Vogel, a political scientist from the University of Leipzig, takes the stage. He speaks with a confident Saxon accent, appears to be in a very good mood, and is one of the directors of the "Elite Monitor." He explains why the "catch-up-and-get-up theory" seems to have no truth. The theory states: East Germans will eventually land top jobs once they've overcome the dictatorship, received a pan-German education, and so on. Vogel says that in Germany, on average, people enter the top management level at the age of 48 or 49. Those who are 49 today were 13 when the Wall fell. "East Germans could already be there." There's also plenty of turnover in top jobs, and positions are constantly becoming vacant.

What it takes to get to the top

Raj Kollmorgen, a sociologist at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, didn't collect figures for the "Elite Monitor" but conducted long, academic interviews with people who, despite their Eastern backgrounds, have risen to the top. From this, he deduced what is helpful: the right field of study, a prestigious university, which in most cases means one in the West, and early integration into "networks of power" where one learns how to do things, how to speak, and where one acquires "cultural capital."

You have to master "self-representation," self-promotion. All of this can lead to being "approached and asked questions."

This is how the real top jobs are awarded. Advertisements are usually nonexistent, or only fake. It's disadvantageous for East Germans that all the centers of power are located in the West, says Kollmorgen. Companies, for example, where it's best to meet the right people as an intern. East Germans also exhibit greater risk aversion, focusing on jobs that offer security, "which is still passed on from their parents today."

In the discussion that follows, one learns that one should be careful when networking: Vertical networks, in which people from higher levels also participate, are preferable to horizontal ones. One should go to the right foreign country, which, as you might guess, is Western countries. Raj Kollmorgen warns against moralizing bosses who prefer to hire people who resemble them; this is true in all societies. And this excludes not only East Germans, but everyone who is not a West German academic. The question is how to resolve this.

The discussion then continues for an hour, focusing on the lack of representation of women in the Bundestag and the job prospects of people with a migrant background in the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. Two researchers present studies. The audience learns about the term "people vulnerable to racism."

A general from the West, a top banker from the East

Evening is falling. The hall continues to empty. You can smell the rain outside in Leipzig. But it's worth staying. There's a panel discussion coming up with four people who have made careers in four different fields.

One comes from the West; in his case, there's no other way. Wolfgang Ohl is a Major General in the Air Force. He's asked to explain why zero percent of the Bundeswehr's top talent comes from the East. That's the worst figure in the "Elite Monitor." Ohl says he counted the top talent differently and arrived at 1.3 percent.

That's not much, but it's easy to explain. In the Bundeswehr, anyone who wants to reach the top has to climb step by step, training by training; everyone follows the same path. Therefore, the Chiefs of Staff were all born between 1960 and 1965 and joined the Bundeswehr between 1980 and 1985. The earliest age to become a general is 48. There are now four generals who were born in the East.

Ohl is asked whether more should be done to support East Germans. "No," he says, "they're coming."

Simona Stoytchkova, born in Bulgaria and raised on Fischerinsel in East Berlin, a child of prefabricated housing like the East German Commissioner, talks about her "coming out." She worked as a banker in London and Frankfurt am Main, and served on the executive floor of an international financial firm. And only then did she reveal that she was from the East. "Many of us aren't out," she says. She has even written a book herself, "Those from the East," and now wants to help other East Germans and people from working-class families find their way to the top.

She appeals to the conscience of the researchers in the room. Universities have a responsibility; they should connect students with companies, with mentors, with role models, especially in the East. "I'm invited very often by universities," she says, "exclusively in the West."

Journalist Cornelius Pollmer says that for a long time, he only had one East German boss. As a student intern in a car repair shop. Now he heads the office of "Zeit im Osten" (The Time in the East), and an East German holds a management position at the Hamburg publishing house. Regarding the lack of East Germans in the elite, he says, there is no "problem of understanding"; there is also little prospect of anything changing.

Gesine Grande, the only East German university president and head of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, is asked to answer the question that no debate about the East should be without: whether it's not enough. She says: "There is no debate about the East at the universities."

The mood on stage is more cheerful than it sounds. The East German monologue can also be conducted calmly. University President Grande says the older she gets, the more the topic concerns her. She doesn't care if others think we should stop talking about it. Journalist Pollmer advises not to get upset if you, as a token East German, find yourself somewhere, but simply to use your "East Ticket." Former top banker Stoytchkova says: "I wish I had come out much earlier." Bundeswehr General Ohl listens and looks a bit surprised.