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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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121889
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12188900.043
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1990-09-19
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WORLD, Page 17Life in the Golden Ghetto
As the East German regime collapses before its anti-Communist
opponents, it is yielding up enough evidence of corruption to
provide yet another cause of bitter popular resentment against the
discredited hierarchy. The allegations of illegal nest feathering
have shocked and outraged ordinary citizens, party members and
nonmembers alike. Disgrace knows no limits for Erich Honecker, less
than two months ago the most powerful man in East Germany: last
week the former party chief and eight of his erstwhile top
lieutenants were formally charged by the state prosecutor's office
with "enriching themselves through abuse of office." Seven of the
ex-Politburo members were packed off to jail pending trial. Illness
spared the other two, including Honecker, from suffering the same
fate -- at least for the time being.
No evidence uncovered so far in East Germany indicates
plundering on a scale to rival world-class pillagers of national
treasuries like the Marcos family of the Philippines or the
Pahlavis of Iran. Honecker, along with other top party officials,
lived a decidedly bourgeois life inside the walled luxury compound
of Wandlitz, a few miles north of East Berlin. But last week it was
revealed that he also had a $1.2 million vacation villa on the tiny
island of Vilm in the Baltic Sea, previously thought to be an
uninhabited bird preserve. Some of the perks claimed by East
Germany's elite had a style reminiscent of ward pols in the U.S.
Several Politburo members, for example, held the presumably
undemanding post of "honorary member" of the Construction
Ministry's "academy," for an annual pop of about $10,000. Another
favorite ploy was to requisition scarce building materials for use
in the construction of homes for children and other relatives.
There has been one scandal that adds up to major marks. The
Politburo's once powerful economic czar, Guntar Mittag, and
Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, a shadowy financial dealer and
former state secretary for foreign trade, are suspected of helping
divert to Swiss bank accounts tens of millions of dollars' worth
of hard currency. The proceeds came from the illegal sale of arms,
artworks and other goods. The affair has become known as the Ko-Ko
scandal, after the office of Kommerzielle Koordination, through
which the funds were funneled. Last week Schalck-Golodkowski
surfaced in West Berlin, offering to return some of the funds and
promising to fight any attempt by East Germany to have him
extradited. Crimes involving hard currency are especially offensive
to ordinary East Germans, who blame its scarcity for much of their
economic hardship over the years.
Politicians are not the only ones who are paying for their
lives of privilege. Members of East Germany's formidable athletic
machine, acosseted elite who have access to automobiles and posh
apartments not available to most East Germans, have come in for
sharp criticism. But it is the abuses by the Bonzen, or party
bigwigs, that especially rankle. The East German populace was not
happy with the country's meager living standards over the years,
and finally it judged them to be intolerable. But ordinary folk
remain stunned that the leaders of a party ostensibly formed to
champion the cause of workers and peasants could secretly assume
a life-style closer to that of wealthy capitalists. Says Hans
Berger, a rank-and-file East Berlin party member: "We did not
expect this of Communists and their creed of equality."