Berlin - The chairman of Germany's coalition Social Democrats (SPD) Franz Muentefering said Germany had not done enough to incorporate East Germans, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in an interview published Sunday. "Everything suffers from the fact that we didn't really organise a reunification in 1989-90, but added East Germany to the Federal Republic. That has not been processed," Muentefering told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Muentefering, whose SPD is in a coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), said East Germans felt their life achievements weren't fully recognised.

"Many East Germans have the feeling that we haven't always treated them equally because of the East German system, which the vast majority are not to blame for," the SPD leader added.

Muentefering said criticism of the East German state must not be extended to the people who lived there.

"They tried to live as humanely as possible. Together, diligently, engaged, happy," the SPD leader said, adding that they have "a right to be proud of what they achieved under difficult circumstances."

In addition, Muentefering said East Germans felt scepticism towards the German Basic Law, which was never adapted for the enlarged country after unification.

"They say: 'Actually it was intended that there would be a collectively drawn up constitution... but you just slipped your Basic Law over us, rather than creating a joint constitution,'" Muentefering said of East German criticism.

"This needs to be addressed," the SPD leader added.

"It is important and helpful for Ossis and Wessis to talk openly about this," Muentefering said, referring colloquially to former inhabitants of East and West Germany.(dpa)