Now, a new survey confirms what many in both the East and West of the country have long suspected: Germany still isn't truly unified, at least when it comes to the worldviews of its citizens. Only half the country agrees that Germans are a "mostly unified people," and skepticism of German unity is especially prevalent in the states that once constituted the communist German Democratic Republic.

Even as younger generations appear more optimistic about unity — 65 percent of German youths 14 to 21 said they felt that the country had mostly grown together — attitudes are changing slowly, if at all. The percentage of people who agreed in the latest survey that Germans are mostly unified remained the same as it was 7 years ago.

The survey comes as divisions between western Germany and the formerly communist East are starting to crystallize more clearly again, reversing a decade in which reunification was mostly celebrated as a success. Die Welt am Sonntag, a center-right German newspaper, led its front page Sunday with the headline: “We have to talk about the East (but really). The results of the election show: We have sugarcoated the problems.”

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That provocative assertion appears to be shared across the political spectrum in many parts of western Germany. Eastern Germany still lags behind the western parts of the country in terms of its economic performance and unemployment rates, despite continuous financial assistance since reunification. Germany's leading companies remain concentrated in the West; the East's productivity is still more than 30 percent lower than in western states; and growth in the former GDR has slowed significantly in recent years.

At an election-night protest in Berlin against the AfD, many protesters — the demonstrators were predominantly left-wing — blamed the rise of the far right on a lack of political education, saying that Germans who grew up under an authoritarian system may lack experience with principles of democracy — a common yet unproven argument.

“What might help would be more social equality and investments into education,” said 28-year old Lydia Braun, a university graduate and protester who attended the demonstration.