The Choice for East Germany
SHANOR, DONALD R.
AS THE EXODUS CONTINUES The Choice for East Germany By Donald R. Shanor As the mass demonstrations and the opposition groups that finally brought down Erich Honecker now direct their...
...Significantly, though, they have close ties with the men and women outside the Party hierarchy who find the restrictions imposed on them increasingly unbearable in the age of glasnost...
...The economy has been gravely damaged...
...This was probably the main reason Gorbachev intervened, after many months of inaction...
...The Soviet chief came to East Berlin on October 6 ostensibly to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic (GDR...
...Honecker was becoming a liability in Soviet relations with the West," the diplomat asserted...
...They fast became disadvantages, however, when he began to be denounced in public f or the part he played in carrying out Honecker's policies...
...In June, after China's aged leadership massacred democracy demonstrators and East Germany's aged leadership went out of its way to approve the bloodbath, the opposition movement again took to the streets, and again police broke up the demonstrations...
...But it came of age in the hot spring that preceded the mass flight of GDR citizens...
...They found miscountings as high as 17 per cent to get the 98.85 per cent officially reported for the government list...
...The response was a wave of arrests...
...Anyone who stands out or does not behave as expected faces the consequences...
...Perhaps some momentum for the reform being sought at the grass roots will finally be provided by an as yet relatively silent third element of the East German drama—the intellectuals within the Communist Party...
...So the election law that has kept the Communists in power for four decades must be revised to permit truly independent candidates...
...They also galvanized the GDR's loosely organized opposition movement...
...Yet with just two Party chiefs in its first 40 years, Honecker and Walter Ulbricht, the GDR is a good example of how difficult Communist systems find it to change their top leaders...
...Even that counterfeit total was the lowest ever for the regime...
...As for the loss of face, the same West German diplomat believes it was an important factor when Gorbachev, in contrast to the usual protocol of friendship visits, met alone with Honecker for an hour after his arrival...
...Onlythenwerethey joined by other high GDR officials...
...Nonviolent persons face their governments as critical citizens, ready for dialogue, not criminal elements...
...It is not clear whether Gorbachev approved of the 52-year-old Krenz as the new head of state...
...Made up mostly of younger and lower-ranking leaders who recognize the need for restructuring, they have until now been powerless to bring this about...
...Whatever team finds itself at the head of government may therefore allow itself to be persuaded, perhaps by the intellectuals in Party councils, perhaps by Soviet colleagues, that the opposition's platform—dialogue, justice, democracy—isn't such a bad alternative after all...
...The man most of ten mentioned is Dresden Party Secretary Hans Modrow, who is known for both his praise of perestroika and his readiness to meet with opposition groups...
...Democracy, it said, is being held back by "bureaucracy, centralism, insufficient control of power, and the lack of openness...
...In any case, the crucial fact confronting East Germany is that it is in danger of becoming permanently crippled by the migration Westward of its best and brightest young people...
...The peace groups and others then pressed the electoral reform issue by sending poll watchers to monitor the May 7 balloting...
...So far, the changes from Honecker's years of rule have come from above...
...Theirmembers, who want to stayintheGDR, may be able to offer the nation one more opportunity to halt an exodus whose dimensions threaten to rival the postwar drain that had to be stopped with the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961...
...Those government actions were probably what ultimately convinced so many people to give up on the chances for reform and leave the country...
...Krenz is strongly identified, for example, with Honecker's two last and worst blunders: the rigging of the May 7 nationwide communal elections, and the regime's support for China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square a month later...
...If Krenz proves a transitional figure, his replacement is likely to be someone more attuned to Gorbachev's reforms...
...Many analysts in the West assume the intellectuals are watching the activities of the opposition organizations with intense interest...
...There are many indications, though, that his elevation was at best an interim step and at worst a mistake...
...But over 50,000 East Germans had already focused world attention on the GDR's achievements by fleeing illegally to the West...
...The Soviets didn't want East Germany as an albatross in these relations...
...Gerhard Thomas, editor of the East Berlin church weekly Die Kirche, seemed to be drawing a parallel with the tragedy in Beijing when he wrote: "Nonviolence grows out of humane values, from respect for the opponent, and from a will for understanding...
...These people are committed to socialism, and they are not advocates of a reunited Germany...
...An East German economist has calculated that the work force lost through mid-October will cost the GDR $800 million in gross national product, the equivalent of two-thirds of the $ 1.1 billion in hard currency it will earn this year—and the flight goes on...
...Krenz has called for discussion, but he has carefully limited it to the existing institutions of Party and government where control from the top can be exercised...
...As the man who actually headed the electoral commission that falsified the May 7 returns, Krenz may find it difficult to respond positively to the current groundswell of protest and admit past mistakes...
...That movement had worked to advance peace and human rights for more than two decades, largely under the protection of the Protestant Church...
...Honecker, indeed, seemed almost paralyzed as the refugee numbers swelled and the streets filled with the biggest crowds since the workers' uprising in 1953...
...Consequently, they have demanded as a first step official recognition of their organizations by the Krenz government, forat present their political activities are illegal and punishable under East German criminal codes...
...In the streets of East Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden tens of thousands more were regularly protesting their lack of freedom...
...A West German diplomat who has observed the months of turmoil and exodus from the vantage point of Bonn's mission to East Berlin says Gorbachev clearly played a direct role in the dismissal of theailing77-year-old Honecker...
...Krenz, as he moved from one important Party post to the next, had all the advantages that accrue to a crown prince...
...Activists next poured into East Berlin's streets to protest the vote fraud and petitioned the government to take action...
...But they want that socialism to be democratic...
...The massive emigration and the repression that led to it have dealt a double blow to East Germany: It is suffering economically, and its reputation as the Communist country whose living standards and educational levels showed the system really worked lies in tatters...
...AS THE EXODUS CONTINUES The Choice for East Germany By Donald R. Shanor As the mass demonstrations and the opposition groups that finally brought down Erich Honecker now direct their rhetorical fire at his protégé and successor, Egon Krenz, there are signs that East Germany's Communist leaders and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev may have done too little too late to regain control in the country...
...In addition, they are demanding press freedom, the right to nominate independent candidates for the 1991 elections to the People's Chamber, and guarantees of free and secret voting...
...and dozens of others...
...Since those words were printed, there has been a proliferation of opposition and pro-democracy groups in East Germany: New Forum, the most prominent, headed by the painter Baerbel Bohley, the former lawyer Rolf Henrich, and Jens Reich, a scientist...
...Meeting in Dresden at the end of April, 200 representatives of East Germany's 19 Christian churches issued a set of direct challenges to Communist theology...
...Donald R. Shanor, Director of the International Division of Columbia University's Journalism School, has been monitoring East Germany's peace movement for the U.S...
...a revived Social Democratic Party...
...the apparent beginning of an independent trade union movement...
...Institute of Peace...
...The document on justice charged that those who think independently "come under the suspicion of anti-state activities...
Vol. 72 • October 1989 • No. 16
