Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) expects her successor to respect the special life stories of people in the former GDR.
She wishes "when someone from the old Federal Republic of Germany becomes Federal Chancellor that there is simply great interest in biographies from the former GDR," said Merkel on Thursday at her summer press conference in Berlin.
She referred to "the injuries, the feelings", the need for recognition in East Germany - this is something "that one should still take care of in order to understand the whole of Germany".
With regard to her own East German origins, the Chancellor said: "What I was able to bring in is a pretty good all-German knowledge."
For them, however, it is not decisive whether a chancellor comes from East or West Germany, said Merkel.
She did not lead any of her election campaigns "somehow with the proviso that if someone from the old federal states were to do it now, it would not be possible for the entire German unity".
pw / cne