What's the German for "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"?

I raise the question because of a small item at the ever-interesting Zero Hedge site.  The heading to the piece explains all: "30 Years After The Berlin Wall Came Down, East And West Germany Are Still Divided".  In effect, the writer suggests that despite the hope and cheers, East Germany remains a second-class, basket-case when compared to the prosperous West Germany.  Part of the reason, he suggests, is that entrepreneurs simply failed to, er, 'Go East, young man, go East!'  Of course, to begin with, they attracted many Easterners to the prosperous west but for a variety of reasons many of them did not take to 'capitalism, red in tooth and claw' and so many of them returned to their 'Homeland'.  The final irony is that the birth of the extreme Right-wing party, AfD, has attracted enormous support in the East.

HOODATHUNKIT?

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

A Stunning tribute to Britain's war dead:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10316895/poppy-drop-ww2-plane-dakota-spitfires-kent/

[Loz]

Same gene pool and start conditions, and then a 30 year experiment under different cultures - one Libertarian the other Authoritarian - and bring them back together again to see what's what: The culture of authoritarianism seems to linger like a fart in an elevator on those exposed to it.

Shows those white, bright, Teutonic genes don't produce the people "matter" guaranteed to fit the Liberty and Democracy "form", eh Malcolm?

Those Jerry honkies are just as capable of making a cock-and-bollocks of it as any spear-chucker straight out of Africa (Go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect £200 ... Ed).

SoD

[Whitewall]

The ancestors of these current Germans settled in many places in the 13 American colonies. One group of them went by the name Moravians. These Germans settled in Bethlehem, Pa and the other right beside where I grew up in North Carolina. This was during the mid 1700s. Later they were joined by more Germans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many of their German names were Anglicized by English census takers, English courts and other authorities. Still, these Germans took to English based common law and customs and became productive citizens in short order. Among those immigrants, the reasons for leaving Europe varied but once in America they matched those from the British Isles step for step and still do.

The necessary ingredients are deep within the German make up. Germany post WW1 brought some changes to European Germans but not to American Germans.

[Whitewall]

Back then, in reference to German newcomers, an American could be the 'German left alone'. Over here, they earned it.