German leaders mark 15th anniversary of reunification

German leaders are gathering to mark the 15th anniversary of the country’s reunification, an occasion that comes amid economic gloom and uncertainty over the future.

President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others were expected to attend a ceremony in Potsdam, outside Berlin.

But, with the formerly communist east still struggling to catch up with the affluence of the west, there is little sign of the euphoria that greeted the November 1989 fall of the Berlin wall and Germany’s reunification, less than a year later, on October 3, 1990.