The rise and fall of the German Democratic Republic

Most of the public debate on reunited Germany has tended to focus on economic issues such as the collapse of East German industry, mass unemployment, career difficulties, and differences in wages and living standards. However, the author of this text argues that the main problem is not persisting economic differences but the internal cultural divide between East and West Germans, which is based upon different moral values in the two Germanies. He shows that the invisible wall that has replaced the previous, highly visible territorial division of the German nation is rooted in issues of the past - the Nazi past as well as the GDR past.