Fifteen years ago the two Germanys were reunited after 40 years of official separation. While the world rejoiced at the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germans in particular proclaimed the joys of their reunited national family. The words of Willy Brandt, mayor of Berlin when the Wall was built in 1961, became the motto of Germans on both sides of the border: “What belongs together is growing together.”

Today, many Germans feel quite differently. Former East and West Germans have not become simply Germans. The honeymoon is long over, and the wedding couple now regard each other with suspicion and resentment. The popular expression is that the Wall still exists in people’s heads. Even a visitor to the city can tell East from West Germans because many people identify themselves that way, either directly or by making uncharitable remarks about the other side.

The insults take specific form. “Wessis” are arrogant, greedy showoffs. “Ossis” are lazy, narrow-minded and ungrateful. Neither side thinks that the other deserves them.

The most obvious failure of the reunification is economic. After 1989, many Eastern factories were closed and Western investors bought up cheap Eastern real estate. Eastern museums, universities, hospitals and businesses were put in the hands of Western professionals, while their Eastern counterparts were fired or sent into early retirement.

Since then, more than 1 trillion euros have been invested in the six Eastern states. Despite this massive economic assistance, unemployment there remains around 20 percent, including in the city of Berlin. In the 10 western states, unemployment averages less than 10 percent. In terms of the number of long-term unemployed or the job outlook for young people, these numbers indicate a wide gap in the social health of the two German halves.

Resentment of the other side has grown to such alarming proportions that many Germans say they wish for a reappearance of the Wall. In a survey earlier this year, 24 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans said that they would like to have the Wall back. I don’t think that these responses should be understood literally. But they indicate the level of dissatisfaction with the other side. The higher proportion of Westerners’ responses is connected with their assessment of how things have changed over the past 15 years. Only 20 percent of those in the West said that they were personally better off since unification, compared to 24 percent who said they were worse off. Eastern Germans were much clearer about the benefits of unification: 57 percent said they were personally better off, only 14 percent said they were worse off.

One experience with two middle-aged female friends shows how differences penetrate daily life. The Western friend enjoyed a play she had just attended. The one-woman show dealt with the difficulties of living with men, their chauvinism and the general discrimination against women. When we asked our Eastern friend about the play, she said she had walked out at intermission. The piece did not mean anything to her because she had grown up in a society where women and men worked side by side, where household duties had to be shared and where feminism, as a critique of masculine behavior, seemed like a foreign ideology.

The result is very different electoral behavior. According to recent polls, the more economically satisfied West Germans would give half of their votes to the conservative Christian Democrats. The Social Democrats would get about one-quarter, the ecological Greens 10 percent and the libertarian Free Democrats about 7 percent. In the East, the party constellation is quite different. The Party of Democratic Socialism, the descendant of the East German Communist Party, gets 10 percent of the vote. The Social Democrats still get about one-quarter, the Greens and Free Democrats slightly less than in the West. Big losers in the East are the Christian Democrats, although it is still the largest party with about 40 percent. Other winners are the far-right parties, who would get about 5 percent. So the Eastern political spectrum is much wider, with far left and right both gaining votes from the economic frustrations of the unemployed. If they alone could decide, the Eastern voters would create an unstable coalition government of left-liberal parties.

Most interesting to me is to see how the conflicting opinions about these two societies reflect on my understanding of America. The West Germans repeat ideas that have long been a staple of political discourse throughout the Western democracies: Communist planned economies were inefficient; people in Communist states did not learn to work hard; the differences in freedom of expression and action were enormous. Nothing I have heard or seen makes me doubt these ideas.

But the East Germans offer important insights, too. Workaholic Westerners earn a flood of goods, but not necessarily happiness. Capitalism pits people against each other, emphasizing competition rather than cooperation. The freedoms that Westerners trumpet are not absolute: dissidents in democracies are also persecuted, racial discrimination still exists, women continue to be subordinated. Talking to former East Germans makes one thing very clear: The educational system that Westerners dismissed as ideological brain-washing produced people just as smart, knowledgeable, critical and interesting as ours.

I would not want to live behind any Wall, or in any state that does not guarantee my freedoms. But the critical view of East Germans is useful to sharpen our understanding of our own society, to see how we overlook our own problems and what we have left to accomplish.

Steve Hochstadt lives in Lewiston and teaches history at Bates College. He is temporarily teaching in Germany and can be reached at [email protected].