Merkel says Germans must keep working for democracy

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that Germans must keep working "every day" to safeguard democracy, as the country celebrated the 31st anniversary of the reunification of east and west.

In what is expected to be one of her last major speeches, the outgoing chancellor said that reunification happened "because there were people in East Germany who risked everything for their rights, their freedom and a different society."

Even today, Merkel said, the achievement of democracy should not be taken for granted.

"Democracy isn't simply there," she told an audience in the eastern city of Halle, warning of the disinformation and incitement observed in current public debates.

"Rather, we must work for it together, again and again, every day."

Merkel cited the killing of one of her party's regional politicians, the assault on Halle's synagogue, and the recent fatal shooting of a gas station clerk who asked someone to wear a mask as examples of radicalisation in German society.

More than three decades after reunification, there remains a political and economic divide between Germany's formerly communist east and the west.

The difference was illustrated in last month's national election, where the far-right Alternative for Germany party gained 16 constituencies in the east even as its overall share of the vote dropped across the country.

IMAGE: AP