Jena, Germany  - The small city of Jena enjoys a reputation as something of a boom town with a solid economic base and a comfortable lifestyle that has helped turn it into east Germany's most affluent metropolis.

But on a scale of affluence among all German towns drawn up by one research group Jena finds itself occupying the rather lowly 249th rung.

Indeed, east Germans go the polls on September 27 with the "flourishing landscapes" that were promised at unified Germany's first election in 1990 only now starting to show signs of taking shape.

"There has been enormous progress in terms of productivity and competitiveness (in east Germany)" said Klaus Zimmermann, chief of the German Institute for Economic Research.

But 20 years after the dramatic breaching of the Berlin Wall, a deep political and economic divide remains between the two sides of the nation.

A study conducted last year by the Bielefeld Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence found that two out three of living in the east feel themselves second class citizens in the unified German state.

Early disenchantment in the east with unification helped the former Communist party of the DDR morph into a new hard left political party Die Linke(The Left) that has now been part of coalition governments in several eastern states.

Die Linke also has representatives to the national parliament in Berlin, and helps govern the capital city in a municipal coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).

Despite visceral dislike by much of western Germany's political establishment, the often populist Left party is now edging towards helping to form state governments in the west and possibly at some point triggering a realignment on the nation's political left.

Also reflecting the frustration over the perceived failures of unification, extremist right wing parties have also enjoyed more consistent support in the eastern part of the country.

Last month the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) managed again to secure seats in parliament in an election in the relatively prosperous eastern state of Saxony.

The strength of the Left party in particular has in particular helped to undercut support for Germany's major parties in the east.

While the Left Party has drawn level with the Social Democrats in some polls, support for Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats is less solid than in the western part of the nation.

Certainly there has been a rebound in industry in the eastern part of the nation after the region's economy hit its lowest point in 1992 as it battled to lay aside decades of a Marxist command-style economic system.

Tourism has been growing along east Germany's Baltic Sea coastline and a recent raft of high-profile investments in the region by leading companies such as car makers Porsche and BMW and chipmaker Infineon are starting to pay off.

Left largely derelict by the East Germany's communist rulers, towns across the region and a network of historic houses have been refurbished to their former glory with the richer western part of the nation subsidizing the east to the tune of about 100 billion euros (144 billion dollars) a year.

Ordinary Germans still pay a small supplementary "solidarity" tax toward unification out of their salaries and paypackets. There is no opt-out, even for foreign workers.

At the same time, research institutions and renewable energy companies, notably solar power groups, have been mushrooming across the east, partly drawn to the region by its modern infrastructure and lower labour costs.

Last month unemployment in the east stood at a still hefty 12.8 per cent, with a total of 1.082 million out of work. But a decade ago unemployment in the east hovered around a staggering 20 per cent.

"The east does not have the same product line up of the west," said Karl-Heinz Paque from the University of Magdeburg.

The real concern is that cash transfers from the west will have to continue to the east for another two decades or more to help underpin the economic transformation of the former communist half of the nation and to head off an industrial wasteland taking hold in the region. (dpa)