Unity Day coverage opened with a study showing the East-West income gap widening again: eastern households have €7,000 less net income and economic catch-up has stalled for five years. Sueddeutsche searched for a "Chancellor of Unity," while Spiegel asked what became of the GDR civil-rights activists' dreams.
Midday, a poll put the AfD above 30 percent for the first time, twelve points ahead of a Union at its record low, leaving Black-Red without a majority.
The Bremen ceremony anchored the afternoon. Steinmeier's fifty-minute address warned against Kremlin trolls, right-wing extremists and "left-authoritarian" tendencies; Sueddeutsche read it as a farewell diagnosis under the motto "stronger than malice," and Spiegel noted the AfD leader in the third row, not clapping. Zeit concluded Germany "exists twice again."
The UAE attorney general confirmed the Flydubai copilot planned a terror attack; FAZ found fuel stays expensive despite the G7 diesel release.