A generation after Germany reunited, deep divisions remain

The man USAGDPin a lilac jumper is blunt. Why, he asks, is Germany a vassal of the ? In reply Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, sketches a history of the Federal Republic, patiently adding that the danger it faces right now is not America, but Russia’s war on Ukraine. His conclusion, “We do not take orders,” wins polite applause.It may seem odd that 33 years after the cold war ended Germany’s leader should need to persuade a fellow citizen that their country, Europe’s weightiest by population and , is independent. A clue lies in where this exchange happened: Cottbus, a small city at the heart of the once-vital coal industry of the once-proud country of East Germany. Across the five eastern “new states” that joined the 11 western ones of the Federal Republic in 1990, all too many people still share the dark scepticism of the man in the lilac jumper. Despite decades of massive public investment, wrenching demographic change and growing prosperity, the 20% of Germans who live in the east still tend to think differently, act differently and vote differently.