HMM: An Unlikely Solution to Germany’s East-West Divide.

Regional disparities have propelled populists elsewhere in Europe: In Italy, the League party has built a huge bastion of support in the north, and in Sweden, the Sweden Democrats enjoy widespread backing in the deep south. In Germany, though, regionalism is magnified by the political, social, and economic consequences of living as separate countries for more than four decades. In the weeks after European Parliament elections in May, #WirimOsten, or “Us in the east,” exploded on Twitter as East Germans endeavored to explain their region and its people.

In Massen, Hildebrandt took a seat at the head of the table to make her case for a quota. “We can’t just pretend that east and west don’t exist, that it’s all the same now—it’s just not true,” she said, gesturing emphatically over a cup of steaming coffee. “Where the power, money, and influence are—that’s where East Germans are massively underrepresented.”

The gap between east and west has narrowed over the past 30 years, and Angela Merkel, the country’s chancellor and arguably the most powerful woman in the world, is an East German. Yet with three key state elections in the east this fall, the region’s political disaffection has sparked a growing discussion on both sides of the divide to understand why the fault lines appear to be deepening. The quota is part of that debate.

An easier solution — and I think I might only be half-kidding about this — would be to split the country back in two. Reunification hasn’t exactly worked out as well as had been hoped.