Love the former East Germany, lived there for a while, but it’s still deprived even after the federal state pumping loads of money into it. I suspect West Germany’s crumbling infrastructure is in part caused by the burden of absorbing East Germany.

But it’s not an independent country, so it’s hidden in these figures. Germany’s had to shoulder that burden on its own.

Cost trillions. West Germany shouldered that burden, but West German companies also profited from it. Eg. not as if there were private East German companies to build motorways to western standards.