I was in West Germany during and after reunification. It definitely turned out to be much more difficult and expensive than most people expected. Considering that East Germany was much wealthier than North Korea I expect building them up will be even more difficult. Some people will benefit greatly but overall it will probably a massive expense for South Korea without any benefit for most citizens.

An end to the looming spectre of war seems like a gigantic benefit to the citizenry.

Sure. But there is a also a big price to pay by regular citizens. From West Germany it didn't feel like a triumph or something worth celebrating.

NK rare earth minerals are fuel for the tech industry in SK. Probably worth 6-10 trillions USD [0]. Well enough to pay any bill.

[0] https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/ljkelly/201...

But NKers moving to SK is akin to refugees since the culture shock could be huge. SK may end up having another brexit.

Germany is now an economic powerhouse. The unification paid off big long term.

It was a powerhouse before. From my memory the mood in the West got worse. There were tax raises and a lot of uncertainty when it became clear that it wasn't as easy as initially planned to get the East going economically. There was a substantial number of people on both sides who wanted the wall back.

I am not saying the reunification wasn't worth it but it was much more difficult than people may think.

For what it's worth, the West German government did honor East German marks 1-to-1, even though there was a gigantic disparity in value of both currencies. That alone was an enormous cost of the unification.

A lot of people thought that was a huge mistake. After the wall fell there was also a democratic East Germany for 2 years (?). I think a lot of people would have been OK with keeping them separate for a while but chancellor Kohl wanted to put his name on history and forced the reunification.

That (about Germany) is only partially true. Sure, the whole german state made the reunification financially possible but most of the state owned stuff (economic land & buildings etc) ended up being owned by the Bund and not the federal states. Most of it was (and still is) privatized while the federal states, citites and people having not much money which lead to many (somewhat richer) people from the west being able to buy cheap property, land and some profitable companies.

So to sum my points up: I could totally be in the South Koreans interest to reunify in order to buy cheap property in the north (and at the same time a very good reason for North Koreans to not want it, even though they would gain an immediate financial benefit through it).

Most property owned by private people before the GDR was founded was repatriated to the former owners, which was a messy process and as can be seen in Berlin, took up to now (goes for houses, gardens, fields, small shops etc.) This was further complicated because Jewish property also needed to be repatriated - with most owners murdered - as it wasn't given back by the GDR after the Nazis confiscated it.

Public land in the GDR is now owned by the German state.

"some profitable companies"

Most companies were transfered to an institution ("Treuhandanstalt") founded by the GDR. Most of these folded, because people in the GDR stopped buying former-GDR products and bought from West companies as soon as the Mark was introduced with a stupid 1:1 exchange rate instead of the real 1:7 (but it got the chancellor reelected). Additionally all export markets in Eastern Europe broke down. Imagine a company losing ALL it's customers and in the need to find new ones while still having thousands of employees. I'm not sure many companies today would survive this.

With an 1:1 exchange rate no company was profitable, most due to not enough machines working and too many people (many machines were run down in the 80s and couldn't be repaired). Funny story from former left-terrorist (RAF) members who fled to the GDR and when working in companies there (VEB) thought "this never works" because the whole company owned one xerox.

I don't think NK has a lot of functional companies though, with most people being farmers, so this should be mood.

do you have jabber or something i could talk to you on?

Reunification is probably off any conceivable timeline for now, but opening up immigration would be nearly as big a shock. As you mention, the economic disparity is massive - probably the starkest of any neighboring countries in the world. It could give rise to an even more complicated and acrimonious immigration debate than exists in the US or EU today.

If I was to design a reunification strategy, I'd probably start with limited emigration/immigration into and out of the country. Open up trade as much as possible (except for defense). Start allowing the people of the North to build up capital, and have a reason for staying. When the country is more stable, then I'd open up immigration more widely.

I'd also ensure basic human rights are currently being addressed. I don't have a solution for past violations, that's a tough issue.

Basically, I'd go with the China model.

SK and NK could do it differently. Germany didn't have to subsidize the East so much.

Also, German unification was a huge burden on all of Europe, not just Western Germany.