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You are here: Home News Community News Germans happy with unification 20 years after wall fell
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08/11/2009Germans happy with unification 20 years after wall fell

Only eight percent of easterners and 12 percent of westerners think the unification of West and East Germany in 1990 was a bad decision, two surveys show.

Berlin -- Twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell, 86 percent of Germans think unification was a good thing, although many in the ex-communist east think that society is now less fair, polls showed Thursday.

Only eight percent of easterners and 12 percent of westerners think the unification of West and East Germany in 1990 was a bad decision, the surveys by German public television channels ZDF and ARD showed.

But with the demise of communism taking away some of the old certainties such as a steady job, nearly two-thirds of "Ossis" ("Easterners") think capitalism has made society less just. Only 21 percent feel the opposite.

And with vast amounts of taxpayers' money invested in the east since 1990, 60 percent of "Wessis" ("Westerners") think that people in the east have been the main beneficiaries of the past 19 years.

Around 100,000 revellers are expected at the official Berlin Wall celebrations on Monday, with Chancellor Angela Merkel due to host a gathering of world leaders past and present.

AFP/Expatica



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