Who would have expected in 1990 that the girl from the GDR province would one day become Federal Chancellor – and possibly rule longer than all her predecessors? That she made it possible – despite and perhaps also because of her always pan-German agenda – to diffuse into everyday life throughout Germany with the appropriate majorities that she had known from her youth: the normality of working, materially independent women, for example, or nationwide day care centers and Daycare centers. With their departure a special chapter of the unification process comes to an end. She emancipated the East by showing that an East-socialized woman can rule Germany. What connects them with citizens between Rügen and the Thuringian Forest is that they have long been underestimated. Cerstin Gammelin spoke to politicians, citizens and scientists in East and West and designed a different view of the united country.