Actually, it fits better into another group I pointed to in this diary, a nation whose closed trade systems after successful industrialisation has led to underinvestment.
Especially when we talk about the state apparatus, the two parts of Germany developed in two quite different directions. (The different directions within economic policy are so obvious I am not going to extrapolate on them.)
Those differences in attitudes and preconceptions is probably part of why East German developments in many areas have gone so slow. And one of the reasons why Linkspartei rose from the ashes of the SED to become a genuine leftist power block within the BRD in the last few years.
I might try to flesh out these avenues of thought when I finally get around to writing a diary on my thesis on the reconstruction of Germany after the war.
Yes, any two countries that merge will have a lot of frictional aspects. That is what made "Goodbye Lenin" such an interesting story line. And not just culturally, it seems like a lot of movement of peoples also. ------------------------------ Rutherfordian RDRutherford
To imply that job security, an ok living standard and free education and health care is not benefits for the population is a bit of a stretch. DDR was a repressive communist dictatorship, but the East German people were better off (especially materially) than the majority of the people in the world today.
But no matter what one might feel about the specific case of the DDR, it is nevertheless outside of the scope of what I was talking about in my diary. That part of Germany has been industrialised since the Bismarck era.
