Lacky's retreat and East Germans in the Media

East German singer and songwriter Reinhard "Lacky" Lakomy will give his last concert for an adult audience on Monday. In an article released by the MDR he criticized the low level of sophistication of current German popular culture and comedy. He furthermore criticizes that Radio and TV stations keep blocking artists and that this especially affects East German artists. Lakomy is one of the most creative artists of the former GDR not only writing for adult audiences but also creating music for children (many East Germans remember Schlapps and Schlumbo, Mimmellit or the Traumzauberbaum) and musicals as well as film music. And while he will retire from concerts for adults he will keep on writing music for children.

Now I have never been a fan of Lacky's music, even though I remember his song "Heute bin ich allein" very well. But something in his criticism strikes me: I miss East German musicians in the German music scene. Culture and Mass media are just two more areas where East Germans are under-represented according to the Potsdam elite study from 1995. This study has found that in mass media out of 281 surveyed respondents only 33 (11.8% ) were East Germans. In culture the representation e was only slightly higher (out of 101 surveyed people 13 were East Germans = 12.9%).

I myself am having a weekend of East German music playing my list of East German songs, including the new arrangements from OSTENde. I enjoy the poetry of the lyrics and the musicality of the songs . And I am wondering why aren't they more successful? I am wondering why people like Dirk Michaelis (who impressed me tremendously with his vocal ability) and IC Falkenberg (whose recent work Agony + Ekstase is lyrically superb) aren't more successful if they rank (in my opinion) at least in the same class as Groenemeyer, Pur and Xavier Naidoo. Are they too critical? Are text's like Michaelis' "Gott in not" and Falkenberg's "Osten 3.1" too tough for the German radio audience? Are their messages too complicated for easy listening TV or radio? Would a ratio for German music in radio help those artists to get more exposure?
I do not have answers to these questions, the only thing I know for sure is I'd love to see more quality in German culture and I'd especially would love to see more of the East German artists in German media.

"Und wenn ich durch die Wände sah,
da waren Blumen im Gras.
Doch wenn ich nur einen Schritt gemacht,
stiess ich schon gegen Glas."
(Glastraum/ City)

The Rhine Valley

Coming back from Birmingham/ England this is what I saw when we were approaching Frankfurt Airport.

East Germans in Political Parties

Please note that the data are scattered here, they are coming from different sources and from different years, but may be able to show a trend about East Germans' participation in Political Parties. If we are thinking adequate representation of East Germans in political institutions, then we need to note that parties are in control of selecting the people they assign the positions.
The data I gathered show that East Germans participation in German parties are below their share in population, party membership is mainly West German (exept for the PDS of course).

Out of 693 894 members of the SPD approximately 30 000 are East Germans (4%)
Within the FDP (liberals) 12409 members out of 67000 are coming from the East (18%).
The greens that are now an alliance of the West German Green party and the Buendnis 90 movement for Civil rights from East Germany have approximately 3000 members from East Germany. Since there are 48 600 members in total the share for East Germans is 6%. There are no reliable numbers for East Germans in the CDU/CSU. The only note that can be made is that the CDU lost 54.4% of its members in the East since 1990. The CDU was the only party that had a direct East German counterpart prior to the reunification. Most of the members of the East German CDU have left the CDU since. It should not come as a surprise that the majority of the PDS comes from East Germany (94%) as the PDS is the successor party of the Social unity Party (SED) and has established itself as an East German people's party, spanning a diverse group of the East German population.

Surprises? Well first, the representation of East Germans in the Liberal Party comes a bit as a surprise, as it almost mirrors the share of East Germans within the population of Germany. This comes even further as a surprise, because the Liberals are pretty unpopular in East Germany, only being represented in 3 of the 5 state parliaments.

The question that arises out of the data is what is adequate representation of East Germans then in elite positions? Should it be descriptive of their share within the party? Or descriptive of the share within the population?