A country divided: Five key takeaways from the German election

2. The divisions between east and west appear to be growing, not diminishing, 35 years after reunification. One look at the electoral map shows a Germany still divided. Map The ex-communist eastern states appear as a sea of blue representing direct mandates for the hard-right AfD, while the former West Germany is awash in CDU/CSU black dotted with flecks of red for the SPD and green for the ecologist Greens. In eastern states such as Saxony and Brandenburg, the AfD was able to strongly improve on its 2021 result to capture about one-third of the vote, with boosts of nearly...