Berlin: A Decade of Union
"Today all that's left of the wall are a few decorated strips kept as reminders...but many here believe there is still a wall in people's minds. And for them, Berlin and Germany remain divided." Eric Campbell.
When the Berlin wall fell a decade ago, it was the symbol for the collapse of the cold war. As hundreds of thousands of East Germans flooded across the divide it was seen as the end of 40 years of Stalinist oppression and heralded the re-unification of Germany in freedom and democracy. A decade later, with Berlin again the capital, these dreams have yet to be realised. Moscow correspondent Eric Campbell finds the city still deeply divided, no longer physically but psychologically. There are few friends across the divide and many easterners see westerners as arrogant colonisers who came to steal the wealth and leave unemployment and poverty in their wake. Perhaps most surprising is the nostalgia many easterners feel for the old days. They talk of a return to an era where at least they had their own identity.
"There was a special feeling, it was like a big family"
The main beneficiaries of this new found nostalgia are the former communists. Now renamed the party of democratic socialists they took 40% of the vote in local elections last month and are riding the wave of economic and social discontent, now so prominent in East Berlin. As Eric predicts it will probably be decades before the wall is finally down.
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