BERLIN - Germany on Saturday celebrates 25 years since its reunification, putting the country in the spotlight just as it faces a record influx of migrants and a global cheating scam at iconic carmaker Volkswagen.
A photo taken early November 11, 1989 of West Berliners watching East German border guards demolishing a section of the Berlin Wall to open a new crossing point between East and West Berlin
The silver anniversary of the day communist east Germany and the capitalist west reunited as one country comes with Europe's top economy standing at a crossroads.
This year, the annual party will be held in the business capital Frankfurt. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck, both of whom grew up under communism, will attend ceremonies with the resonant motto "Overcoming Borders".
Merkel, who will mark 10 years in power in November, is grappling with a record influx of refugees and migrants fleeing war and hardship, whose numbers are expected to hit one million this year.
Buoyed by a robust economy and job market, voters have largely backed her policy of extending help.
Volunteers have greeted thousands of refugees and migrants with open arms and mountains of donated essentials in moving scenes Merkel has said made her "proud of this country".
However as the numbers have grown, Merkel's popularity has shown signs of slipping as she comes under fire at home and abroad for her acceptance of the burden on Europe.
In a speech in the eastern city of Halle Thursday, Merkel urged Germans to recapture some of the can-do spirit that gripped the country in the heady months between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the remarriage of east and west.
"Even when a goal seems too ambitious, a task too big, a conflict almost intractable, we don't need to be discouraged. We can work on what is possible," Merkel said.
"That is something we can learn from our German history."
- Catch-22 -
Historian Paul Nolte said Merkel had her finger on the pulse of a nation that had grown up in the last quarter-century and felt capable of taking on new responsibilities -- as long as she did not push it too far.
"There may be setbacks, naysayers or people who express fears," said Nolte of Berlin's Free University, pointing to the foothold gained by populist anti-migrant movements in eastern regions.
"But there is a large liberal middle class in Germany, particularly in the west, which is doing relatively well economically, for whom this 'we can do it' feeling resonates."
Critics are resisting Berlin's bid for the mantle of European leadership however, with Hungary's hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban even accusing Merkel of "moral imperialism".
Historian Andreas Roedder noted that fears of Germany's rise, so prevalent at reunification, represented a kind of Catch-22.
"Germany is expected to show leadership but when it does, it is seen as domination," he wrote in a recently published book.
The anniversary also coincides with revelations about widespread pollution test cheating at Volkswagen, a global champion virtually synonymous with the 'Made in Germany' brand, that have shaken the country's self-image of righteous success.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the stern face of Germany during the eurozone debt crisis and one of the architects of reunification, diagnosed "greed" at the root of the scandal.
"Everyone wants to be the biggest," he said. "It's the lust for fame, for recognition."
Many have also criticised the chummy ties between politicians and the auto industry, with one in seven Germans relying on the sector for their jobs.
- Enduring divisions -
On October 3, 1990, just under a year after the Berlin Wall was pulled down in a bloodless revolution, the reunification treaty bringing the two halves of the country together came into effect amid joyful scenes.
Ever since, this date has been a public holiday to mark Germany's national day.
Yet divisions persist.
Sixty-six percent of Germans say reunification was the right decision.
But 71 percent of westerners and 83 percent of easterners said "major differences" endure between the two halves, opinion research firm YouGov said.
Unemployment remains higher in the eastern states than in the west, but the spread has shrunk to nine percent versus six percent.
Social differences abound too, with far more eastern children born out of wedlock.
The anniversary festivities will carry on throughout the weekend in Frankfurt, with pop bands, fireworks and an art installation on the Main River illuminating 25 bridges.
And Berlin will stage a street party at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity.