Some West Germans want Berlin Wall back

Fifteen years after the Berlin Wall fell, 24% of West Germans surveyed said they wanted it back, according to a poll published today.

Asked “would it be better if the wall between East and West still stood?” some 12% of Easterners agreed, according to results from the Forsa poll reported in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

The paper did not say how many people were glad the wall was gone.

People in Berlin – who had to live in a divided city after the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 by the communist authorities in the East to keep people from fleeing to the West – were less likely to wish for its return. Only 11% in former West Berlin and 8% in former East Berlin agreed.

Germany has poured some €1.5 trillion into rebuilding the east, after the collapse of communist East Germany led to reunification in 1990. The east still lags economically, however, and is often blamed for Germany’s bloated budget deficits and lagging growth.

Stereotypes and resentment persist on both sides of the former divide, with some westerners regarding easterners as backward and inclined to self-pity, while easterners sometimes look at westerners as bossy know-it-alls.

Some of those stereotypes came through in the poll, with 58% of West Berliners agreeing that “east Germans are inclined to pity themselves” and 47% of East Berliners agreeing that “west Germans conquered the former East Germany in colonial style”.

The report said 2,000 people in Berlin and the surrounding Brandenburg region were polled, as well as an unspecified number of people across all of Germany.