By Donata von Hardenberg
Little is left of the once infamous wall that divided Berlin and Germany [GALLO/GETTY]
Two decades after the Berlin Wall was toppled, few people remember the exact spot where it once stood; not much is left of one of the most infamous barriers in the world.
But if 13 per cent of Germans had their way, the wall that split the country for 28 years during the Cold War would be resurrected.
“I have nothing better to be proud of than the German reunification,” Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor at the time the wall fell, said 20 years later.
However, a recent poll by Resuma GmbH, a German research firm, revealed that 34 per cent of West Germans do not share his enthusiasm and say they did not benefit from reunification. Thirteen per cent of East Germans felt the same way.
Sixteen per cent of those from the West – compared to 10 per cent from the East – said they would prefer to live in a divided Germany.
‘Blooming landscapes’
One year after the wall came down, East Germany (the former GDR) became part of the Federal Republic of Germany.
German unity meant the transplantation of West Germany’s legal, administrative and economic infrastructure to the former East.
The free market economy replaced the East’s centrally planned economy, state owned enterprises were privatised, and, in 1990, the Deutsche Mark became the currency for all Germans.
Kohl promised ‘blooming landscapes’ to the former East and citizens on both sides were euphoric.
But the shapers of this newly re-united Germany failed to address the mental barriers that divided East from West, believing that money alone would close the gap.
Hope and optimism soon gave way to disillusionment as the collapse of the socialist planned economy saw millions lose their jobs.
Stark divisions
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