25 years isn't that long, really. My dad grew up in Berlin during and right after the war, my mom's family fed to the West after losing their factory and property in the East to the Russians and were denied education due to their bourgeois status. Their world view is still shaped by those events so how could 25 years wipe out the stark divisions between the two Germanies.
It's hard to describe what it was like traveling as a tourist to East Berlin. Stepping out of the S Bahn station into the East was like emerging into a movie set of the immediate post war era, it even seemed like being in a black and white movie. Trying to spend the 25 Marks they forced you to exchange into Ostmarks was nearly impossible, there was just nothing you wanted to buy there except for Russion literature, maybe.
It's hard to describe what it was like traveling as a tourist to East Berlin. Stepping out of the S Bahn station into the East was like emerging into a movie set of the immediate post war era, it even seemed like being in a black and white movie. Trying to spend the 25 Marks they forced you to exchange into Ostmarks was nearly impossible, there was just nothing you wanted to buy there except for Russion literature, maybe.