The Berlin Wall had a 29-year history when it finally fell in November 1989 to scenes of unprecedented jubilation in the then divided city.

Now, close to 19 years later, it seems not all Berliners are happy about the Wall being confined to the dustbin of history.

Every ninth Berliner would prefer the barrier which used to divide and encircle the city was still in place, according to a recent survey carried out on behalf of Berlin's Free University (FU).

Professor Oskar Niedermayer, 56, a political scientist at the FU, says that of the 2,000 citizens in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg who participated in the survey this spring, 11 percent in West Berlin and 12 percent in East Berlin considered it would be better if the Wall was still in place.

While the outcome might be surprising, Niedermayer suggests it is hardly a sensation. Only in East Berlin is there a significant change of attitude, with 12 percent of those asked wishing the Berlin Wall was still there, against 7 percent in a 2004 poll.

Nationwide, such sentiment was even more strongly expressed four years ago when surveys by two of Germany's leading research institutes showed 19 percent to 21 percent in favor of the Berlin Wall.

Wessies and Ossies

While fewer people today dispute the causes of German unification, some "Wessis," as West Germans are sometimes called, and "Ossies" (East Germans) still harbor prejudices against people living in the other half of the country, though apparently much less so than in the 1990s.

Then, it was not uncommon for people in the East to feel the former German Democratic Republic had been conquered "colonial style" by West Germany after the Communist regime collapse in 1989-90.

Nowadays, only in fringe areas of Brandenburg are such sentiments occasionally expressed among small minorities, notes the survey. In the West, on the other hand, a cliche often heard is that people in eastern Germany indulge in too much "self-pity."

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