For all its stolid reputation, Germany has become surprisingly flexible. But it needs to keep working at it.

Check out The Economists’ take on modern German economics and political culture.

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.

20 More?

To mark the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, SPIEGEL polled over 1,000 Germans who had grown up on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The disturbing conclusion is that, 18 years after the Wall came down, Germany remains as divided as ever.

Read Germany Still Divided