whataboutbob, you raise a very good point, namely that after reunification the East had to be integrated into Germany.  IHMO, this is the major reason for the current political and economical crisis in Germany.

First of all, our then-Chancellor Kohl decided to pay for the unification mostly by raising credit, a practice that has been hugely popular ever since.  Of course, the next generation will ultimately have to pay for that and we're already paying.

Secondly, while the rest of Europe went through some serious restructuring in the 90s the German government was asleep at the wheel, because the unification caused a boom in the economy.  There was a huge market of 16 million people to conquer, after all.