 German reunification explained in two minutes. The year is 1987. Martha lives in West Berlin. Her brother Ronnie in East Berlin. When he wants to visit his sister, he needs a lot of paperwork and waits months for permission or rejection. Even though they live in the same city. Fortunately, such stories are a thing of the past thanks to the German reunification in 1990, which is celebrated on October 3rd. But why was the country separated anyway? After World War II, they allied Victor's Great Britain, France, USA, and the Soviet Union divided Germany and particularly Berlin into four occupation zones. Soon, the different ideologies Western capitalism versus Eastern socialism led to tensions. The Western zones were joined into Federal Republic of Germany while the Soviet zone became a separate state known as the German Democratic Republic. But Democratic was a misleading label. The single-party dictatorship and poor living conditions forced many people to leave East Germany. To stop the massive emigration, the Eastern government closed the border to the West and built the Berlin Wall. While Western economy and living standards were growing, the Eastern ones decreased. Wide dissatisfaction led to more and more public protests. Finally, in 1989, the Soviet bloc had to give up its ideology and opened up to the West. Happily, people from East Berlin streamed over the torn-down Wall and Germany became reunified. Decades later, the economy in the Eastern Federal States is still weaker than in the Western ones despite subsidies. Thus, high unemployment rates force younger generations to move West. Fortunately, this last imbalance looks like it's slowly progressing. And that's German reunification.