Kiran Klaus Patel & Ingo Schulze

With German unification, the former GDR also became part of the European unification process. While much has been written about the fall of the Wall, the interactions between German unity and European integration have received little attention to date. The controversial project of European monetary union, for example, had a decisive impact on German unity and the GDR economy had to adapt to the rules of the European Community.

What did these developments mean for the population? The historian Kiran Klaus Patel, one of the best experts on the European Union, and the multi-award-winning writer Ingo Schulze talk about this question as well as about what divides us and what we have in common, burdens and opportunities.

Kiran Klaus Patel is a historian and professor of 19th and 20th century European history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He is Scholar-in-Residence at the Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation and the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg.

Ingo Schulze is the author of numerous novels and short stories and has received national and international awards. He has been President of the German Academy for Language and Poetry since November 2023.

In the History Telling series