Survey: Germans versed in GDR

Fifty-one percent of respondents living in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and 54 percent of those in the one-time west said they had no interest in additional information about the decades of partition and repression, according to a survey by the research institute Infratest dimap. Overall, 38 percent of the 1,015 people surveyed said they did have an interest in learning more about this aspect of German history.

Eighty-one percent of respondents seemed to feel that their schooling, political education or other research had covered the history of the GDR well enough. However, just 13 percent of respondents living in the former east called themselves well-versed in that history - and just 7 percent of those in the west.

Sixty percent of respondents said that Germans should focus more on the future. About 45 percent said that study of the GDR had too little to do with the modern day. Among eastern Germans, that number rose to 59 per cent.

Thirty-three percent of respondents said the reforms of the former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev had proved the primary cause of the end of the GDR. Another 22 percent attributed the collapse to East Germany's deteriorating economy. Only 10 percent credited opposition groups with bringing down the regime.

Though nearly 70 percent of respondents rightfully recognized November 9 as that of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 17 percent confused the date with some other event in the fateful fall of 1989, and 13 percent weren't sure of the historical significance.

mkg/nm (AFP, dpa, epd)