Berlin, October 3rd, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – In 1990, less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification took place. The East Germans had staged a non-violent, peaceful revolution with this goal in mind, meaning they really wanted unity. In West Germany, some had doubts at first, especially on the left side of the political spectrum, but most didn’t. The late Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the late Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the late American President George Herbert Walker Bush made it happen.
Today, 36 years later, Germans have gotten used to being part of the same country again. One people, one country, right? But differences remain. In Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania, two federal states located in the area of the former GDR, an extremist right-wing party just won state elections, for the first time since the Nazi era. This is an East German phenomenon, a very problematic one, and one that seems to be spilling over to the western part as well. In Germany as a whole, the AfD is the strongest party right now, according to the most recent polls.
The singer and songwriter Wolf Biermann was expatriated from the communist GDR on November 16th, 1976, while touring West Germany, because his lyrics posed a danger to the repressive regime in East Berlin. Two years ago, in an interview with the “Zeit” weekly, he commented on the rise of the AfD, but also of left-wing extremists in the eastern German states: “Those who were too cowardly under the dictatorship are now rebelling against democracy without any risk. They whine for the comforts of the dictatorship, while the hardships of democracy are alien to them.” He does have a point. On November 15th, Biermann turns 90.
Income Growth
Obvious differences remain in other ways as well. Nine out of ten respondents said so in a recent poll about reunification and German unity. Some of those differences can be proven in numbers. Last year, the average gross income in Germany’s western states was 4,961 Euro, but only 4,121 Euro in eastern states. As German-language media pointed out accurately, these numbers alone do not give us a complete picture. We have to add the fact that, in the west, the income per person has doubled since 1991, while in the east, it quadrupled, meaning Germany is on the right track in this regard.
Another difference: In the western part of Germany, 142.5 billion Euro were bequeathed or gifted to people last year. In the east, that number stood at 8 billion. This extreme difference has to do with the fact that western Germans had many decades to build assets, while Germans from the eastern part hardly had this chance in communism, before the reunification.
A third difference: While the number of inhabitants in the area of former West Germany increases, it decreases in the eastern states. Since 1990, far more people moved from east to west than the other way around. More than half, 57 percent, of the people who left the eastern states for the west were women. In some areas, this led to the smallest share of women, compared to men, in all of Europe.
Satisfaction with Democracy
Yet another difference is the way Germans in east and west look at democracy. According to a major poll in 2025, 76 percent of respondents in Germany’s western states said they were very satisfied with the idea of democracy. In the east, only 65 percent said so. When asked about the way democracy in the Federal Republic works from their perspective, 62 percent of all westerners said they were very or somewhat satisfied, while only 51 percent of easterners said so.
Thirty-six years after the reunification, Germany has not yet become as united as it should be. Also, extremist ideas and voting patterns endanger this country’s democracy and freedom. This issue appears in the eastern states a lot more, but is not limited to them.
Happy Unity Day to all.
