WORLD, Page 39A State, Not a NationEast Germans may be Germans, but the psychological wall builtduring four decades of separation complicates the reunificationquestionBy 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
