Ossi and Wessi (German pronunciation: [ˈɔsiː] – "easterner"; German pronunciation: [ˈvɛsiː] – "westerner") are the informal names that people in Germany call former citizens of East Germany and West Germany before re-unification (1945–1990).^[1][2] These names represent the lingering differences between the two pre-reunification cultures, and Germany's popular culture includes many Ossi-Wessi-jokes and clichés.^[3] While some people in Germany may consider these names insulting, others regard them as part of the German culture.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,116 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Ossi und Wessi]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Ossi und Wessi}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

There is also the name Besserwessi (besser meaning "better") which is a pun on Besserwisser ("know-it-all") and thus indicates a Wessi who feels superior to Ossis. Some former East Germans feel that former West Germans do not respect their culture and that East Germans were assimilated into West German culture, rather than the two cultures being united as equals.^[13] These people are sometimes called Jammerossis (jammer meaning complaining).This term was named German Word of the Year in 1991.^[14] Politically speaking, in the German Reunification East Germany was indeed incorporated into West Germany under existing West German law. This solution was taken in order to legally avoid the necessity of creating a new constitution as demanded by the West German "Grundgesetz".^{[citation needed]}

• New states of Germany
• East-German jokes