In A Recent Article in Die Zeit a variety of contemporary German writers were invited to engage in an imaginative brainstorming on how Germany could possibly improve on its 1990 performance, should unification only take place now in 2010. While the question may seem quite frivolous, the answers proffered expose some of the intricacies and problems of the post-unification era, which is characterized neither simply by resentment and division nor by a homogeneous unified German identity, but rather by the dynamics of memory contests. Spanning a wide range of responses, from a playful “don’t annoy Christa Wolf,” or the suggestion of welcome money to entice die-hard “Wessis” (people from the west) to venture into the east, to more serious considerations that the constitution should be renegotiated, and that GDR dissidents should be included in the post-unification political order, the answers flag some of the mistakes and missed opportunities in post-1990 Germany.

The suggestions are by no means homogeneous and in some cases they are also completely unrealistic. However, by revisiting and reinterpreting the period of transition and imagining an alternative path they bring points of contention to the surface, highlighting the creative potential of imagination. Mapping out a different road for unified Germany, they suggest quick resolutions to post-unification questions of landownership in the east, to perceived West German cultural hegemony, as well as to the completely foreseeable financial problems caused by the introduction of the Deutschmark in the east and the burden of the solidarity pact on the west. Casting an unsentimental gaze backward to the heated and anxious debates of the early 1990s, which centered on whether the capital should, or indeed could, be moved from Bonn to Berlin, Jens Jessen proposed a radical solution that would save the new Republic time and money in the transitional phase this time around. Bonn should simply be forgotten.

In contrast to Jessen’s vision of a new Germany that is free of links to the old Federal Republic, which had Bonn as political capital, it seems clear that, from the vantage point of the present, the contemporary cultural scene has become increasingly preoccupied with the “old” Federal Republic, and with Bonn as a metaphor for this old political order.