International The New Germany

Did it have to happen

this way?
BY STEFAN HEYM

t was hardly beloved, the German

Democratic Republic. Who didnt
5
have something bad to say about it?
And only seldom were there moments
when citizens felt any closeness to the
country. How many of them turned their
backs on it with great inner belief? And
10still, now that its last little hour has
ended, one asks oneself: did it have to
happen this way?
Those who stood not even a year ago
on the Alexanderplatz in Berlin and
15announced We are the people! did not
want this end, at least not in this form. I
remember how my colleague playwright
Rolf Hochhut, a West German, walked
around the square it was black with
20people - and said with astonishment,
But this is not a solution for German
reunification! What did they want? The
old state, only refurbished, with a little
less police, less corruption and a
25tolerably functioning economy? A new
state with new structures, and if so,
what kind of structures? A mixture of
socialism and free-market economics?
One only knew what one didnt want
30any longer: the omnipresent State
Security, the exploitation by inept
functionaries, the intellectual sterility.
But there was no new model, no plan
for the future except the one impressed
35upon the common man by Western
television and by Western products
available in hard-currency shops just
as there was no revolutionary organization or party with a stable leadership.

40There were only groups of mostly

young people, organized mainly within

or around the churches, in alliance with
a few well-meaning intellectuals.
The great revolutionary demonstra45tion on the Alexanderplatz was initiated
by a handful of Berlin theater people.
Into this political vacuum fell the call
for a united fatherland. That goal
achieved dominance with the fall of the
50wall, with Herr Kohls 10-point plan,
with the plunge into the consumers
paradise, with the endless lines in front
of the bank tellers windows, until
finally all glory and honor to our
55chancellor one possessed the new bill
that promised a new life.
I am for free speech. I am for free
traveling without borders. I am for the
colorful and the esthetic. Let there be an
60end to organized boredom, to forced
discipline, to parroted, hollow wisdom!
And to deficiencies and the deficient. I
dont know how to characterize this
order that has broken down in other
65places as well. It was not socialism and
we aren't shedding a tear for it. And if it
were possible to coordinate German
reunification with the creation of a
democratic and economically efficient,
70uniform state on German soil, then all
the better.
But the growing together of that
which belongs together, as Willy Brandt
put it, happened in a curious way. Two
75equals did not form a federation;
instead, one controlled the money and
ordered what was to be done, while the
hm-abo November 1990

International The New Germany

other, intimidated, uncertain, followed

75the orders.
Who made a sacrifice? Who gave up
his state, his offices, institutions,
organizations? Whose workers lost their
jobs, whose farmers their markets,
80whose women their independence? Yes,
the people didnt even have the time to
really think about who, what, how,
where; laws and treaties were pushed
through a provisional parliament whose
85thoughts were as provisional as the
body itself, and no one, citizen or
politician, was really aware of what the
results would be.
This strange haste was hardly a
90product of chance. It was accelerated
by the need of the people to finally have
the means for modern comforts. But one
must ask: did the whole state, with

everything about it that was halfway

95usable, have to be thrown away?
Perhaps yes, perhaps just as you cannot
be only a little bit pregnant, you cannot
have just a little bit of capitalism.
And so it has come now, capitalism,
100complete and in all freshness, to that
part of Germany that was the GDR. It
only remains to be hoped that for the
Germans, and for the rest of the world,
it wont cost so very much.
Stefan Heym, an East German author,
was a strong critic of the communists.
[Adapted from NEWSWEEK , October
15, 1990; 652 words. Reprinted by
permission. All rights reservered.]

hm-abo November 1990