East Germany Becoming a Retro Utopia 15 Years On
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The yellowing linoleum and faded  wallpaper in the former prison of the East German secret police  would be ultra hip in any German bar.
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In the flush of German reunification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared that the former East German states would be transformed into "blossoming landscapes, where it will be worth living and working." Germany ...
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While growing up on "the wrong side" of the wall  in Soviet-controlled East Berlin,    Wolfgang Thierse  was shushed into absolute silence when his father strained to listen to jammed broadcasts of parliamentary debates in West Germany. Thierse dreamed one day of directing such discussions himself.
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BERLIN (Der Spiegel Magazine) -- Seventeen years after German reunification, little remains of the optimism which marked the heady days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The "blooming landscapes" which then Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised in 1990 have conspicuously failed to materialize, and the former East Germany is still lagging behind the west in terms of economic development. The minister responsible for developing eastern Germany has warned that the region may need up to 20 years before it reaches the level of the west. The main problems are long-term unemployment and right-wing extremism, he says. "The gap is closing, but it is closing far too slowly," Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, who is responsible for the development of the former East Germany, said Wednesday as he presented an annual report on the progress of the eastern states. It could take up to another 20 years before the quality of life in eastern and western Germany is the same, he said.
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Fifteen years ago they were heroes, ignoring the secret police to march defiantly through the grim streets of East Germany with banners that said: "We are the people - Listen to us." The East German workers ...
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Subdued observations were held in Berlin Tuesday to mark the 15th anniversary of the tearing down of the Cold War-era Berlin Wall.
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The life expectancy of people in the states of former communist East Germany has risen since reunification and is now comparable to that of their counterparts in the west, a new study said.
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Germany has commemorated the country&#39;s 1990 unification as debate raged about continued east-west divisions, the financial cost of the process and whether the federal state even has a future.
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East Germans gave a strong boost to far-right groups and the former communists in two state elections, punishing the countryâs biggest mainstream parties for the regionâs high unemployment and cuts in social programs.
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HAMBURG -- They closed the cinema and then the disco. The tractors grew scarce and the men grew moody. Claudia Mantzsch's east German hometown seemed to shrink. She wanted to stay but was laid off two weeks after getting her first job. Her boss offered some advice: Flee this place, or become a nurse for the elderly.
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BERLIN  - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder paid tribute to east Germans on Monday for bringing down the Berlin Wall 15 years ago, saying the entire country should be proud of their peaceful overthrow of communist rule.
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The Berlin Wall fell 15 years ago but an  "Iron Curtain" still divides the city as far love and romance  are concerned.
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Germany marks the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with fond memories of that day's joyous celebrations and somber ceremonies in honor of those killed in a desperate dash for freedom.
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Nov. 9 marked the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but for one generation of East Germans the date was less an occasion to get out the champagne than to ponder the vagaries of their new national ...
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THE VELVET Generation, the young students and activists who demonstrated in Slovakia's squares in 1989, are now in their mid-thirties, and they have learned a thing or two about revolution.
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A documentary tracking how German unification affected the lives of nine East German women who took part in a beauty pageant just before the Berlin Wall fell offers a glimpse into 19 years of upheaval.
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TONY EASTLEY: Almost 60 years after the end of the Second World War, tensions between Britain and Germany have resurfaced, this time revived by a planned visit to Germany by the Queen.