Skipper

Nineteen years ago today the Berlin Wall came crashing down, as the picture shows. I recall the euphoria in the west and the joy unconfined in Germany as the human lust for freedom found another dramatic expression. Yet now we find that what was joy then has curdled more than just a little. Unifying east and west Germany cost 1.3 trillion euros and there were many examples of resultant social unrest mainly reflecting western resentment against the pauper east.

Now, a Forsa Survey based on German from both east and west, has produced what I think are astonishing results; they suggest that many Germans would like to see that grim symbol of repression, the Berlin Wall, reconstructed. 73% from the east felt that socialism was a good idea poorly implemented with 90% saying they enjoyed better 'social protection' under the GDR. Most of the Germans interviewed said they would prefer to live in West Germany should the wall still be in place but no less than 36% of former east Germans said they would prefer to live in East Germany. Anyone who has seen that rivetingly grim German film on the Stasi, The Lives of Others, will find this very hard to understand.

One wonders how many Romanians still hanker after the benign political ministrations of Nicolae Ceausescu and his lovely wife or how many Poles yearn for the repressions of Gumulka or Gierek. I suppose one should not be so surprised when we learn that many Russians think Stalin was a good leader and regard Putin as the nearest contemporary substitute for him. Even more depressingly it seems that only 5% of relationships in Germany are between east and west Germans, suggesting that these survey results reflect an ongoing gulf between the former communist part of the country and its bigger western counterpart.