SINCE the unification of West Germany and East Germany in 1990, with the Berlin Wall ceasing to function as a political barrier when the East's hard-line communist leadership was forced out of power in October 1989 during the call for democracy that swept throughout eastern Europe, much has changed in the country's economic and industrial landscape and everything else.

The East and West reuniting as one united Germany (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) as a sovereign state transpired between November 1989 and March 15, 1998. Oct. 3, 1990 was the day when the Unification Treaty entered into force dissolving the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) and integrating its then-recently reestablished federal states into the Federal Republic of Germany (FGR or West Germany).