Up to 120,000 people celebrated German Unity Day in Erfurt over a long weekend.

All 16 federal states presented themselves at a public festival in the historic old town.

The state capital of Thuringia was the organizer of the festival this year, which traditionally takes place in the federal state that chairs the Bundesrat.

Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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This year is Thuringia, whose Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) positively emphasized the development of the past 32 years.

"Overall, the East has taken an incredibly good development process measured against hard criteria," said Ramelow on Monday at the ceremony for German unity in the theater in Erfurt.

Nevertheless, the East-West relationship is by no means free of tension, which has to do with injuries, disappointments and misunderstandings on both sides, which are too seldom taken into account.

Ramelow called for the major challenges of the time to be tackled not divided, but as one Germany, using the diversity offered by the people and countries of the Federal Republic.

At the same time, he firmly condemned Putin's war of aggression, which was "criminal, imperialist and unjustifiable, I stress: absolutely nothing," and declared that he would stand in solidarity with Ukraine.

On the occasion of the unification celebration, the Prime Ministers of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt warned that the successes of the reconstruction of the East could be lost due to the Russian war in the Ukraine.

Brandenburg's Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) told the Rheinische Post newspaper that many East Germans still remember the deindustrialization and mass unemployment of the 1990s.

The current situation is being viewed with great concern, many are afraid that everything they have painstakingly built up over three decades will break away.

Solidarity and community spirit are therefore more important than ever today, said Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU).

The Federal Government Commissioner for East Germany, Carsten Schneider (SPD), called on East Germans to become more involved in pan-German debates.

"We must not withdraw to ourselves in the East and rebuild our own little GDR," said Schneider in Erfurt.

The diversity of East German experiences is valuable for all of Germany.