[Noseshine]

  proposed a slower approach rather than an
  immediate reunification

And that was out of the question. I too would have left the GDR immediately if that would have happened, and pretty much everybody I know too.

It's not true, that's all. We voted for reunification because we wanted it, that's all. A clean fast cut was the right way to go instead of continuing to muddle through. It was impossible to do a "smoother" transition - not unless the BRD would have disallowed people to move there and would have forced us to remain!

[more_original]

> And that was out of the question. I too would have left the GDR immediately if that would have happened, and pretty much everybody I know too.

So what? Depopulation happened anyway due to unemployment. I'm not convinced that substantially more people would have left if reunification had been planned for 1995, for example.

[Noseshine]

There would have been no difference in outcome if it had been "planned" for 1995 - so no reason not to do it right away. Do you really believe anything would have been better for the East German industry? It was nothing but junk, yes even what was supposed to be the best factories.

Except for a minority in East Germany there was no reason for a delay. The difficult and hard adaptation was inevitable! The GDR was a complete wreck.