Charles W. King

In addition to fewer and fewer South Koreans with direct connections to the North another major reason exists for the low support for reunification among younger South Koreans: the lesson of German reunification. Officially reunified in 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany is a major driver of economic and political progress in the European Union, and possesses increasing influence on the world stage. That Germany was unified at all can be considered a great success. In the early 1990s there was resistance to German reunification in the United Kingdom, France, and Russia for precisely the same reason as why Germany was divided and occupied in 1945. European leaders were concerned that a unified Germany would once again attempt to dominate Europe. It was at American insistence that Germany was reunified and remained a member of N.A.T.O.. Since then Germany has proved to be a staunch proponent of the European project.

The significant success of German reunification—particularly on the international stage—does not mean that it has been without its issues. There remain significant differences between East and West Germany within the unified German state. In 2009 German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that, “The process of German unity has not ended yet.” This is due in large part to the continuing economic discrepancies between the East and West. According to a report by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development in 2015, twenty one of the five hundred richest Germans live in the East, and only one of the twenty most prosperous cities is located in the former East Germany. None of the thirty largest firms on the German stock exchange are located in the East. Productivity, wages and savings are lower and fewer goods from the East are nationally or internationally significant brands. Perhaps most telling: the only two teams in the top tier of German football located in the former East Germany are Hertha BSC Berlin and RB Leipzig. The former was located in West Berlin during division, and the latter was founded in 2009 and was promoted to the Bundesliga in 2016.

While the former East Germany has grown economically since reunification in 1990, it has not yet reached the prosperity of the West. As a consequence of this the federal government of Germany continues to subsidize the east in many ways. Peer Stienbrück, the German Finance Minister from 2005 to 2009, was quoted in a 2011 interview saying, "Over a period of 20 years, German reunification has cost 2 trillion euros, or an average of 100 billion euros a year.” In the past decade is has become clear that this largess has been at the cost of other federal spending; Germany desperately needs infrastructure spending and the German military is woefully under-trained, under-equipped, and under-staffed.

The benefits and costs of German reunification are increasingly clear as we reach its thirtieth anniversary. Historians, economists, social scientists, and political scientists are producing academic studies of the project. These studies and examinations provide a glimpse into what the problems and costs of Korean reunification might look like, and every indication is that Korean reunification would be significantly more complex and costly. For this reason as well, young South Koreans are increasingly skeptical of their elders’ desire for unification with the North. As older South Koreans pass and younger ones gain political power it will become increasingly more difficult to turn armistice into unity.