Four years ago, Birgit M?ller, a social anthropologist based in Paris, published her book Disenchantment with Market Economics - East Germans and Western Capitalism.
With a title that was pretty much self-explanatory, readers were not surprised to find that she posited that while Western managers regarded the expansion of their businesses towards Eastern Europe following reunification as a civilising mission, East German employees reacted with complex strategies of individual adaptation and resistance.
Today, M?ller's tome almost ranks as ancient history as eastern and western Germany, with only a slender hint of the former divide, forge a new identity on the stage of international business and commerce.
Everyone remembers the Trabant - rickety, smoky contraptions with a two-stroke engine and a superstructure that was the butt of numerous jokes. Today, they are collectors' items and museum pieces, almost a headstone on the East Germany of yesteryear, put off the road by European Union regulations and far superior technologies. The Trabant's demise was inevitable.
Taking another example, many observers thought international financial services provider Allianz was headed for trouble when it bought into the state insurer of the former East Germany. Allianz took over the offices, employees and customers of Deutsche Versicherungs and promptly had to embark on a massive campaign of training and bringing operations up to date. Computers were introduced and business methods were streamlined. Employees gradually got used to no longer being a state monopoly but a powerful private enterprise operating in a private market. Today, Allianz is recognised as one of the most respected financial services providers in Germany, and it is well known for its sponsorship of sporting events such as Formula One and the Paralympics.
From concentrating on salving the east-west divide, Germany has started to cast its eyes to broader commercial horizons.
As the largest economy in Europe, and one of the largest in the world measured by gross domestic product, it has a significant influence around the world, especially in developing countries.