system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What was the economic impact of German reunification?

If West was wealthy and East was poor, this seems like an interesting case study for the effects of large scale immigration of poor people to a rich country.
gpt
The general consensus among scholars is that unification was only successful precisely because it was *German* unification. Germany had a very strong economy, but unification put a lot of stress on both its budget and democratic institutions. Most people were expecting a relatively easy transition, but it turned out to be a rather perilous undertaking. Even though East Germany was considered the strongest of all the other Eastern European communist economies, it still lagged behind West Germany quite considerably. The East German economy was a 'planned' economy, and so the transition from a 'government dictated' to 'consumer' based economy was by no means an easy feat. 

Technology in East Germany was decades behind the West. The unified German government spent billions over the years updating and rebuilding communications networks. As well, the political/social culture was rather different in the two countries. Although they were both *German*, there were some pretty stark differences. Political expression was actively discouraged in the East and critics of the regime often faced harsh penalties. 

The result was that when the Wall came down, West Germany saw a massive influx of people from the East. There are 'two waves' of migration documented - but migration in general increased over the years since unification. The first occurred in 1989-1990 and the second occurred in 1997. 

In 1989-1990, nearly 600,000 East Germans migrated to the West (about 3.7% of the total population in the former GDR). This isn't surprising since wages in the West were on average 28% higher than in the East. Out-migration from East to West peaked in 2002 (50% higher than in 1994).