TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/112789/11278900.037

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 12.1 KB | 236 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 39

A State, Not a Nation


East Germans may be Germans, but the psychological wall built
during four decades of separation complicates the reunification
question

By Karsten Prager/BERLIN


    Hope and resignation. Like oil and water, they do not mix
well, yet those are the conflicting emotions that course through
East Germany now that the Wall has come down. More of the former
perhaps than the latter, as this artificially created country
longs for a fresh start after 40 years of orthodox Communist
rule, as it yearns for free, multi-party elections and economic
rebirth.

    The shock of Nov. 9, the day an embattled East German
government allowed its people to cross their borders for at
least a glimpse of the outside world, has yet to wear off. Those
among the nearly 5 million people who, in little more than a
week, made the journey cannot quite believe they did, and the
faces of the thousands who pour through frontier crossings every
day are bright with expectation. In Berlin, East Germans huddle
over subway maps as they head into Western terra incognita, a
place most of them know only from television; at other
checkpoints their cars pile up for miles on end.

    When they return home, though, East Germans now face an
array of questions that seemed theoretical, if not downright
irrelevant, only weeks ago. Do they want to build the future
within the boundaries of the state as it presently exists? Would
they be better off if the whole country were, in effect, annexed
by Bonn? Could they hold their own in a partnership with West
Germany? And perhaps most important, what are they -- East
Germans or just Germans?

    The euphoria of the moment has not removed all the
reminders of how it was until very recently. On the route to
Friedrichstrasse, a main Berlin crossing point, the subway
train glides through two empty stations bricked up since 1961,
when the Wall rose. The platforms are bare, eerily lighted by
a few dusty neon tubes. East German border guards have learned
to replace their studied sullenness of old with the occasional
smile, but West Germans and others still must file through
cattle-chute-like passport control points, and are made to
exchange 25 deutsche marks ($13.50) for East German marks, at
the usurious rate of 1 to 1, one-tenth the black market quote,
for every day they spend in the German Democratic Republic. In
the evenings, the smell of coal smoke hangs over gray,
dilapidated cities -- as it did in the bitter days right after
World War II.

    What East Germans expect first of all from their new
leaders is an effort to build "real Socialism" and sweep away
the remnants of a corrupt and repressive regime. They want
closer relations with their West German brethren, a growing
together with the Federal Republic -- but not necessarily
reunification; they insist on being accepted as they are. And
finally, they demand economic reward, even though they know they
are not likely to catch up with the West any time soon.

    Still, the issue of identity nags: Is the G.D.R. a nation,
a state, part of a country yet to be unified? "For 40 years we
were just letters," says Christian Fuhrer, pastor of Leipzig's
Nikolai Church. "G-D-R. But not German. Not democratic. Just
letters. We are Germans, certainly. But our German history is
submerged: 1917 is when it begins for our students. The people
must develop an identity. Only then can we discuss
reunification."

    Most East Germans will respond to "What are you?" with
"German" -- despite the regime's persistent attempt to deny
history, stifle the concept of Germany and replace it with a
vague notion of "Socialist nationhood." The effort went to
ludicrous lengths: because the national anthem contains the
words German fatherland, only the melody is played; the anthem
is no longer sung. Not surprisingly, one of the demands of the
opposition calls for an anthem with words.

    Since the late '60s, West Germany has used the formula of
one nation-two states to describe a society divided by
differing political and social systems, but built on common
history, culture, language and family bonds. Though Bonn
recognizes G.D.R. passports, it says there is only one German
citizenship to which the people of both states are entitled. And
since the relationship between Bonn and East Berlin cannot be
compared with that between Bonn and, say, Paris, the West
Germans insisted long ago, over G.D.R. objections, that their
respective diplomatic missions were "representations," not
embassies. A West German diplomat who served in East Berlin
recalls hearing East Germans defying their government's line by
pleading, "We don't want you to treat us like foreigners."

    Today, the G.D.R. has abandoned the claim to separate
nationhood. "I am a German Communist. I live in a state that is
German, and I am of German nationality," says Max Schmidt, a
party theorist and director of the Institute for International
Politics and Economics in East Berlin. "To say that the G.D.R.
is a nation was a theoretical mistake. We are not two states
like any other two states. There is an ethnic component, and
that is a perspective we must respect."

    As long as the two-states concept it survives, it has
negative implications for reunification -- or perhaps better,
unification -- since hardly anyone inside or outside the two
Germanys wants to re-create the centralized polity that existed
between 1871 and 1945. The East Germans maintain that, as
Central Committee member Otto Reinhold puts it, their state
provides a necessary "antifascist" and "socialist" alternative.

    They are now bolstering their contention with a new, subtle
argument that directly plays to the concerns and fears of
Germany's neighbors, East and West. "In the past," says Schmidt,
"it was Germany that destroyed European stability. Since 1949
the two-state system has been essential to such stability, and
it is therefore in a justified security interest of others to
leave that equilibrium. There is fear, spoken or unspoken, not
so much of the Germans per se than of a reunified Germany that
would become an economic giant with ambitions and would thus
upset the balance. Look at the French, look at the Poles, look
even at the U.S., and see how they are reacting." Not to mention
the Soviets.

    East Germany is taking the argument a step further by
staking its future not only on internal renewal but also on a
special relationship with West Germany that is embedded in the
wider European scheme. In other words, once military forces
begin to be reduced and the blocs shrink, East Germany should
be considered a "Middle European" country, conceivably with
special economic ties to states like West Germany, Poland and
Czechoslovakia. "If we don't take part in the constructive
development of Europe," says Reinhold, "then events will roll
over us."

    That is a far cry from the party wisdom of the past 40
years, as it is a shock to hear party leaders, who have suddenly
seen the light, talk casually of the need to shed the Socialist
Unity Party, East Germany's Communists, of its constitutionally
enshrined role as the "leading party" and, even more daring, to
remove Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology. "You can't impose
that on the people," says a well-placed cadre. "You cannot
constitutionally order that sort of thing."

    Strangely enough, certainly in Western eyes, the concept of
the G.D.R. as a state finds an echo among a population that by
any measure is fed up with its leadership, angered by the hubris
of a Communist Party that considered itself the state, cheated
by an economy that, though the best performing in the East bloc,
left the country "only those goods that nobody else in the world
wants," as an East Berlin grocer puts it. A snap poll by a West
Berlin research institute of 1,000 East Germans who flooded
through the Wall after Nov. 9 found that nearly four out of five
wanted two democratic German states with open borders. Another
survey, by a London firm, counted 48% against and 38% in favor
of reunification. Since then, nearly 5 million East Germans have
gone visiting, but only 15,000 decided to stay out. Finally,
none of the massive demonstrations of recent weeks capitalized
on the theme of reunification. During the 28-year existence of
the Wall, a psychological barrier seems to have risen as well.

    The standard explanation for the loyalty of so many G.D.R.
citizens is expressed by Jens Reich, one of the founders of the
opposition group New Forum: "The ideals of Socialism prevail
here." Historical roots certainly exist: German Social Democracy
found its early expression in parts of the country that are now
East Germany, and years of Communist rule have left a deep
imprint. "A rhythm of life has developed," says Frank Schutze
of the Potsdam Institute for International Relations. "People
have got used to a collective existence in which their lives and
their jobs are protected by a safety net with a finer mesh than
in the West. There is a certain pride in its Socialist
ingredients." Education is free, as is health care. Job security
is assured.

    Unsaid is that the system barely creaks along. East Germans
may enjoy the highest standard of living in the East bloc, but
that is not the comparison they make. Their yardstick is West
Germany, whose wealth they used to ogle on television and can
now touch but generally not acquire. Health care may not cost
anything, but it is neither thorough nor prompt, a situation
made more painful by the departure of young doctors in this
year's mass exodus. Education is criticized for its narrow,
blinkered and intolerant outlook. Job security is a laudable
concept, but there is little choice. A young East Berliner who
wanted to become a commercial fisherman wound up being trained
as a toolmaker. "But everyone gets a job," he says
sarcastically.

    The only people who have come off well in the past four
decades are the so-called upper ten thousand (the party and
bureaucracy establishment) and those with "vitamin B" -- as in
Beziehungen, or connections, in East German parlance. "They must
all go," says a retired clerk in East Berlin. "All these
criminals should be held accountable."

    Perhaps the most cogent explanation for G.D.R. loyalty is
that the existing state insulates the people against the shock
of the outside world. "We look at the West, and it's a
fairyland," says an East Berlin housewife. "Our attitudes are
different. We grew up more modest. We missed out on a lot, but
we make do. Over there it's all money, money, money. We don't
have it." There is the touch of an inferiority complex as well,
and given widespread West German complaints about new burdens,
it is perhaps justified. "Maybe it's best not to unify the
country," says an East Berlin pensioner. "The West would
probably treat us as second-class citizens, like migrant
workers."

    Reunification is not on the current agenda -- not on East
Berlin's nor on Bonn's. Certainly not reunification as
old-fashioned nationalists still imagine it: a kind of
anschluss of the G.D.R. by West Germany. "We did not throw off
the Soviets to become a colony of the West," says Peter Grimm,
a dissident writer.

    A straightforward yes or no to reunification is too simple
in so complex a constellation. NATO and the Warsaw Pact will
have to shed their military dimensions. The European Community
will have to define its attitudes toward Eastern Europe. The two
Germanys will want to expand the web of existing agreements
between them, an interweaving of interests that neither can
unravel without harming itself. In years to come, perhaps a
German confederation within an expanded European Community may
emerge, but in an age of new perceptions, it may not matter what
it is called.

    In the meantime, with its borders open to the West, the
G.D.R.'s sense of self and of self-confidence may actually be
strengthened, but only if democratization and liberalization
move apace, if the Communist dictatorship is dismantled, and if
the people can partake of the freedoms enjoyed by their
countrymen on the other side.