IB History Post-cold War Developments in One European Country Key Definitions

German for "wall in the head": the persistent psychological and cultural divide between former East and West Germans after reunification, seen in different voting patterns, trust levels, and self-identification decades after the physical Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Nostalgia for aspects of everyday life in the former East Germany (GDR), such as products, television, community, and job security, that grew after reunification. It usually reflected a sense of lost status and community rather than support for the Stasi or one-party rule.

The West German trust agency that took control of roughly 8,500 East German state enterprises after reunification (1990-1994) and privatised, restructured, or closed them. It was one of the largest privatisation programmes in modern history and became a lightning rod for eastern resentment over job losses and the sale of assets to western investors.

The 1990 treaty between the two German states and the four wartime Allied powers (USA, USSR, Britain, France) that confirmed unified Germany's full sovereignty, its existing borders, and its continued NATO membership, formally ending the postwar occupation arrangements.