As Angela Merkel prepares to join celebrations marking 60 years since Saarland voted to become a part of Germany, The Local looks at what has changed for this tiny western border state over the decades - and how Germany's "little reunification" came about.
Germany on Saturday celebrated 25 years since its joyful reunification, with its leaders urging the nation to muster the same strength and solidarity to face a record refugee influx.
German reunification has been an expensive 25-year project that hasn't always gone according to plan. Jörg Luyken asks if things would have been better if the two states never united.
Saturday October 3rd marks 25 years since Germany officially reunited into one country at the end of the Cold War. As millions prepare to celebrate the big anniversary, The Local brings you a run-down of where the major celebrations are taking place to ring in the Day of German Unity.
Ex-communist east Germany has made major strides toward equality with the west in the 25 years since national reunification but its economy is far weaker and its population shrank dramatically, a report published Tuesday showed.
After the Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1989, East and West Germany still had a long way to go before they could become one nation. But in August 1990, the date was finally set for the birth of reunified Germany.
A lack of women in the East, more wealth in the West, and lingering bitterness - a report published on Wednesday exposed the stark differences that still exist between East and West Germany 25 years after reunification.
The eastern German economy is still struggling to catch up with the west, 25 years after unification, largely because of a lack of large companies in the region, the economy ministry said on Thursday.
The Green-Red coalition government in North Rhein-Westphalia is urging the federal government not to do away with the solidarity surcharge on income taxes in 2020, and instead funnel more of the money into the books of the western states, it was reported on Monday.
Two expats who walked the Mauerweg - the 160-kilometre trail that runs the length of the former Berlin Wall - have written a book about forgotten aspects of its past and present.
Three in four East Germans say life has improved since reuniting with the Federal Republic, but say their former state had greater gender equality and a better education system.
Visitors to google.de were greeted with a sombre image of candles on a cobbled street on Thursday in place of the usual colourful logo, as the US search giant commemorated the 'Monday demonstration' in Leipzig 25 years ago.
Germany has a new story about income inequality after years of simplistic thinking about a rich West and poor East. A study released on Monday shows the wealth divide is more between city and country than East and West.
Wednesday marked the 53rd anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. Yet fewer than a third of Germans under 30 can name the exact date when Germany and the capital were divided in two, a survey showed.
Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Germany's support on Wednesday during a visit by South Korea's president for efforts to unify the Korean peninsular, saying its own reunification gave it a "duty" to help others.
Germany has come a long way in the 23 years since reunification, yet deep-seated differences between the east and west still remain. On German Unity Day we ask how united is the country really?
An American professor has found that Thursday's October 3rd national holiday is a palindrome - it reads the same backwards as it does forwards. Germans will have to wait another thousand years before this happens again.
New figures on how much Germany's 16 federal states give or receive from a fund meant to narrow fiscal gaps between them could encourage main contributors Bavaria and Hesse to mount a legal challenge, it emerged on Tuesday.
Twenty-two years after Germany was reunified, more than one in five from the former west have never visited the former communist east, a poll revealed on the eve of Wednesday's unification day celebrations.
Many of the millions of east Germans who flocked to the west of the country to take jobs when the country was reunified are now returning home, a study published on Thursday showed.
South Korea is betting that closer cooperation with Germany can help it solve problems related to the country’s eventual reunification with North Korea.
Twenty-one years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many workers in the former East German states are earning one-third less than their peers in the former West, according to a Tuesday media report.
