For many years the German people liked to consider themselves America's closest allies on the European continent. Since the late 1940s, when former foes joined ranks against further Russian expansion, the Germans could be counted as one of the more solid rocks in the Western defense system. Within decades of a devasting war they not only surprised the world with a strong economy, but they took pride in developing a model democratic society. Even most East Germans (unofficially, of course) used to look to the young Federal Republic as an example and testing ground for the future of the entire country, although the East German state tried desperately to promote a model of its own. The general feeling was—and to some extent still is— that the Eastern model did not work, while the Western one did.