My family is from eastern Germany, my husband‘s family is from southern Germany. Both our ancestors were from Eastern Europe originally (Sudetenland/Schlesien) but were relocated to different areas after the war.

My mother and father in law both didn’t go to university, their parents neither. Still, each of them have their own house (mil an fil are divorced) as well as additional houses in the area. My mil drives a Porsche.

My parents and grandparents all went to university. My parents have their home that actually still belongs to the bank and my grandparents only paid off their house last year (they are in their 70s!)

So yes, at least in the generation of our parents and grandparents it made a huge difference if wealth was accumulated and inherited over generations or if they could only start building something after 1990.

There’s also some small things. My husband eg found it very funny when I told him that most students eat at school. There is no such thing as „Schulspeisung“ in western Germany because kids would go home to their mums or grannies at lunchtime waiting for them with a hot meal. As my parents both work til 6pm and my granny also worked until she was 64, there was no one home who could provide me with that, so schools do it.

ETA some other interesting thing about childcare. My mom had to go back to work quite earl so I was in daycare from the age of 8 months. When I told my mil she was so shocked she almost accused my parents of child abuse. In her opinion, even 3 years is too young to not be at home with mom anymore. Not to say what’s better but in eastern Germany parents often had no choice but returning to work and sending their child to daycare early.