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Notes -
Berlin is relatively poor after all - something I think surprised a lot of people who assume by default that it's the national center of wealth generation akin to London, Paris, Madrid etc.
Indeed it seems Berlin is only slightly richer than Germany overall, which I didn't know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_per_capita
I wonder if the partition had something to do with that, Berlin had to prop-up East Berlin after reunification and even before it there was a certain instability about West Berlin being deep in enemy territory that probably heavily discouraged investment. Just guessing.
I think it is more that Frankfurt is the commercial capital of Germany, whereas London and Paris are the commercial capitals as well as the political capitals. Rome is poorer than you expect (about 15% richer than Italy as a whole, but below the northern Italian average) for the same reason - Milan is the commercial capital. Greater DC (the District itself is notoriously dirt poor) being as rich as it is (about 20% above the US average) is the unusual thing by international standards.
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Almost certainly. And that it's in the poorer, ex-communist eastern half of the country.
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