Since the German reunification German prosperity has declined compared to pre-unification West German levels, and the German unemployment rate reached record levels: 12.6% (according to national definition) as of March 2, 2005,[4] the highest rate since World War II. The failure of the German model to maintain standards of high performance has led experts to speculate about its demise, despite having been adopted successfully in other countries' corporations since its peak. Others see the relative decline as an unavoidable consequence of integrating the much less advanced GDR economy and 17 million new citizens, which necessitated a transfer of over 1.3 trillion Euros from west to east as of 2009.