Analytical Study On The German 's Changes Of Cultural Identity After Reunification

After drastic changes in Eastern Europe,disintegration of Soviet Union,collapse of socialist camp,the Cold War pattern was broken.In 1990,the Democratic Republic of Germany was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany,Germany was split nearly half a century and once again achieved reunification,thus the whole country was happy to celebrate it.As economy between East and West is out-of-balance,unemployment rate of the youth in East Germany is higher than the West.The American cultural hegemony leads to the Americanization of Germany which is becoming more and more serious,and domestic identity construction faces many difficulties.Cultural identity,a spiritual basis of the German nation,embodies the full cohesion of a nation,or emotion of a group.As a result of depth of economic crisis,refugee crisis,more and more immigrants,Germany has gradually become a non-traditional immigrant countries and identity construction of immigrants is imminent.This thesis mainly focuses on the study of cultural identity after Germany reunification,which includes five parts: Introduction is to introduce the background and purpose of the thesis.Chapter One,according to Zheng Xiaoyun's theory of cultural identity,explains the meaning of cultural identity,describes respectively the people's cultural identity before and after reunification,analyses German's cultural identity before and after reunification and finds that it will change under different circumstances(embarrassed,helpless,despair,proud etc.)Chapter Two focuses on the reasons about cultural identity's changes of German people.Those reasons come from Germany and foreign countries.German cultural identity construction faces not only the historical memories,the rising German right-wing forces,the increasing immigration,and the neglect of domestic policy,but also American cultural hegemony.International terrorism and neo-Nazism impede the domestic identity construction.Chapter Three tries to elucidate Habermas' critical theory and facilitate some methods of critical theory: understanding-interpretation,discussing the measures in understanding and interpretation.Chapter Four is mainly to summarize above contents and make a prospect.At the same time,the author aims to point out that Chinese cultural identity can also learn from German experience and enhance national identity.