The wall in the ballot box: The Berlin election of 1995

The Berlin election of October 1995 produced very different results in the eastern and western halves of the city, and although the end result was a continuation of the Grand Coalition, it was the PDS and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen who stole the limelight once the votes were counted. This article attempts to account for the performance of the parties in each half of the city and considers the political consequences for them. It concludes by considering what the election can tell us about the public mood in Berlin and about political trends in the Federal Republic in general. What emerges is a ‘wall in the ballot box’, a practical manifestation of die Mauer im Kopf which clearly continues to exist five years after the first all‐German election.