Speaking very broadly and skipping over centuries of pre-national history, while the German nation as a singular political entity was relatively young (1871) , its people had experienced incredible societal changes as a (more or less) singular cultural-political entity for well over a half century before being torn asunder by occupation at the end of the Second World War (1945). While the occupation split Germany into two political camps (capitalist and communist) , both sides appealed to nationalist sensibilities by presenting themselves as the legitimate inheritors of the First and Second Reich’s legacies and as unrelated to the Third Reich including their (adapted to avoid revanchism) territorial claims to legitimate control of the German heartland. See the BRD and DDR’s anthems for artistic examples of these Ideas, as well as the terms used by the regimes to describe one another. “Sogenannten DDR” or “so-called German Democratic Republic” was a favorite of West German Media, while the propaganda arms of the GDR pumped out continuous propaganda portraying capitalist West Germans as the inheritors of Germany’s Nazi legacy.

These discourses would be toiled over from the founding of both nations in the mid century until reunification at the turn of the millennium. It would be quite helpful to know what era of occupation/disunification you’re speaking of in order to provide more precise context into the prevailing discourses of the day, as they changed immensely throughout the course of the Cold War.

Sources for the above are the general knowledge gathered during writing a thesis on Soviet imperialism within the early Warsaw Pact (1945-1961) with a focus on East Germany as a zone of particular imperial Interest, as scant quoted knowledge was included in my blurb due to the general nature of OP’s question. I have a small library of reference texts left over from my thesis which I’d be happy to refer to after further clarification from OP as to what era! I am more than happy to edit all of the above as is needed to pass muster, so please let me know if any modifications are required to fulfill the subreddit requirements!