The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago. But an invisible barrier still divides Germany

Jubilant crowds stormed the concrete blockade dividing the East and the West on November 9, 1989, just minutes after the Communist German Democratic Republic announced that travel restrictions would be lifted for East Germans. The propaganda and fear were replaced with a sense of freedom and unity.

According to some surveys, he added, as many as half of east Germans still feel like"second-class citizens." Schmieding said that while east German cities are approaching those of the West in terms of living standards,"the big exception to that is that the top, the big companies, the high income, is missing in the East."

The East is smaller in terms of area and, even more prominently, population. Excluding Berlin, 12.5 million people live in the former East, while more than 66 million reside in the West. Eastern men didn't adjust as well. Today, two thirds of East-West relationships are between a woman from the East and a man from the West.

"You might not like the teachers because they were ideologues ... but at least there was somebody to take care of your very, very young kid," Schmieding said. But when the Wall came down, the East was eager do everything in the Western way, even education. Bastian Betthäuser, a research fellow at the University of Oxford, said this led to the education system in the East becoming more unequal. Those at the top would still do well, but more kids are at risk of being left behind.

Politically, Germany is still very divided. Voters in the former Communist states are much more likely to vote for the far-right AfD. Mau said this is partly down to past trauma. Life was tough for many east Germans after the reunification, as the society around them transformed at a lightning speed.

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