WHEN Helmut Kohl was buried on July 1st, Germans reflected approvingly on his legacy: the scars of the country’s east-west division are gradually healing. Yet as the country’s longitudinal split closes, a latitudinal one is growing.
Imagine that Germany were sundered once more, this time into north and south. The south would contain the Länder (states) of Saarland, the Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria from the former west, plus Thuringia and Saxony, the two southernmost states of the former east. South Germany’s border with north Germany would track what linguists call the Uerdingen line separating “high” and “low” dialects of German.
It would be an equal split. Each Germany would contain half of the population, five of the ten largest urban regions and similar proportions of the still-poorer easterners. Yet the new South Germany would have the better prospects of the two. For Germans in the southern states are...Continue reading
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