Resentment is rife among scientists from the former East German republic. Many are still trying to come to terms with a judgment process which, in July, sentenced them to the dole queue or retraining. Even among those who were told they could keep their jobs, many still face an uncertain future.
The root of their problem extends back forty years to when Germany, then one of the world's leading scientific nations, was split up. In one of the two German states, scientists were given worldwide contacts and good funding, but were forced to compete for them. In the other, scientists received guaranteed salaries, little foreign contact, and the job of reinventing gadgets their government couldn't buy from abroad.
Now, a year after the East German republic disappeared, united Germany is trying to forge from these two halves a world-class scientific body. No one expected it to be easy. But some ...
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