STERN survey
The mood for German unity has changed
On October 3, 1990, reunification was celebrated in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin. However, the nation has not yet grown together.
© Günter Schneider / Imago Images
34 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, what divides them prevails for Germans in East and West. In 2019, a majority said that people from both parts of the country had now grown together as one people. The assessment of one age group is particularly negative.
According to a Forsa survey, on the 33rd anniversary of German unification on October 3rd, there will be… star a dramatic finding: East and West are moving apart again. 60 percent of Germans today say that what divides them outweighs the differences. Only 37 percent believe that the people in the East have now largely grown together as one people. 3 percent do not comment. In 2019, the balance was still positive: At that time, a majority of 51 percent saw a growing together and only a minority of 45 percent saw the dominance of the dividing party. For the past 20 years, Forsa has asked the same question again and again. The last time the assessments were as negative as today was in 2008.
The mood for unity is particularly bad in East Germany: for 75 percent, 34 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the divisive aspects predominate. Only 21 percent in the new federal states see the nation growing together. Striking: Although the federal government reported completion of the adjustment of the pension value in the summer, Germans who are 60 years of age and older draw a particularly negative balance: 69 percent of them say that the dividing factors outweigh the differences.
The only group of voters whose majority sees unity positively are the supporters of the FDP: 48 percent of them see the country growing together, 46 percent see the differences dominating. Among the party supporters, those of the SPD are the most skeptical: 71 percent of them see a predominance of those who divide. Willy Brandt coined the phrase: “Now what belongs together is growing together.”
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for RTL Group Germany on September 21st and 22nd, 2023. Database: 1003 respondents. Statistical margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points