Following the end of the Second World War, Germany and its capital were divided between France, the UK and the USA in the west and the USSR in the east, and would remain divided until 1989. By October 1990, the two countries were reunited and politicians would put East and West back together again, marrying a totalitarian, atheist, communist system with a democratic, Christian, capitalist one.
How did this marriage affect the everyday life of ordinary Germans? How did combining two telephone systems, two postal services, hospitals, farm land, property, industry, railways and roads work? How were women's rights, welfare, pensions, trades unions, arts, rents and housing affected? There had been no warning of this marriage and no preparation for it - and no country had ever tried putting two completely opposite systems together before. This is the story of what happened, in the words of the people it happened to - the people's story of an incredible unification.
