East Germany Hesitates on Reform, and So May Lose It All

Since the early 1980s, living standards in the German Democratic Republic have been stagnating. While East Germans remain better off than their neighbors elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the gap with West Germany--the comparison most important to East Germans--has widened.

Moreover, East Germans are increasingly aware of these differences. A dramatic loosening of previous travel restrictions has allowed millions of East Germans to venture to the West, many of them for the first time. Although East Germans have always had access to West German television, actually seeing a modern, affluent capitalist welfare state in practice has had an important psychological impact in bringing home the real economic and political differences between the two Germanys.

On top of this has come the powerful impetus for change provided by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the reaction evoked in the ruling circles in East Berlin.

East Germany’s Communist leaders have thus far rejected much of Gorbachev’s reform manifesto. While accepting the need for reform in the Soviet Union, they insist that their needs and problems are different. In addition, in conversation with Westerners, East German Communists will slip in a more subtle but equally powerful argument: that their sensitive geostrategic position does not allow them the luxury of the wild experimentation they see occurring among their Eastern neighbors.

The problem is, of course, that stability in East Germany is a questionable commodity. East Berlin’s apparent unwillingness to contemplate serious reforms is only fueling discontent and instability. The combination of rising expectations and stagnating living standards has led to growing frustrations. Increasingly fed up with the limits of their own system and seeing no signs of immediate change on the horizon, a growing number of East Germans are exploiting any available opportunity to go West.

The exact number of East Germans who have officially applied for emigration remains a closely guarded secret in East Berlin. But Western estimates suggest that the figure may be as high as half a million. Furthermore, many of these individuals are highly skilled, motivated and entrepreneurial--those who may be better adjusted to live in the West but also those who East Germany desperately needs.

The future of reform in East Germany is the key to the future of the German Question. For decades West German statesmen have quietly hinted that they would be willing to accept the existence of two German states if political and economic liberalization took place in the East. In recent years, Bonn has repeatedly declared its willingness to assist the East German regime in the pursuit of reform. To East Berlin, this is a Faustian bargain. Not only does it fear growing West German political and economic domination, but there are no guarantees where the slippery slope of reform will end.

Is there a version of reform socialism that will satisfy the political and economic aspirations of East Germans, thereby defusing the German question? Or would reforms inevitably take the country down the roads of political pluralism and capitalist market principles, as is happening in Hungary and Poland? If so, would the end result be two Germanys that continue to coexist, or would East Germany be entirely bereft of any reason for continuing to exist? These are the key questions underlying the current exodus of East Germans to the West via Hungary. And no one, either in Bonn or East Berlin, is really certain what the final answer will be.

At the moment, there is a curious alliance in favor of East German reform. Whereas the West eagerly applauds the dismantling of communism in Poland and Hungary, a good number of Western observers harbor quiet hopes that reform in East Germany can somehow be made to work. They fear that the alternative will inevitably be a contentious debate over German reunification. This alliance also includes a good number of West Germans for whom the German question is first and foremost a question of political and civil rights for East Germans.

The window for reform in East Germany is narrow and uncertain at best, however. The current East Berlin leadership, aged and constrained by its own political baggage and narrow views on socialism, is either unwilling or unable to use it. Whether a younger generation of more flexible East German leaders will have the skills to steer their country through this narrow window and manage the uncertainties inherent in this process is by no means certain. What is clear is that the longer East Berlin hesitates, the more pressures for change will increase and push it in a Western direction, thereby confronting both German states and their neighbors with a new chapter in the German question.