Freedom to Leave Is Not Freedom to Vote : Germany: The Wall has come down, but if there is ever to be one Germany again, those in the East must stay and work toward democratic reconstruction.

Americans can barely imagine what the end of the Berlin Wall means for Germans--in both the East and the West.

As the pictures of Berliners standing on top of the wall appeared on television screens here, we knew that this was a deeply emotional moment--one that could never be repeated.

The wall stood for personal tragedies, human pain and individual oppression. It had become the symbol of a divided and curtailed nation. We Germans are not one nation with two countries, we are two separated halves of one nation. The artificial and physical nature of this division has been bitterly felt by the German people.

For more than 28 years we have had to live with the frustrations and anger that the wall has brought to our families, relatives, friends and neighbors. Those who fled got a ticket to freedom with no return. East German television became the only means for receiving news about home.

Our desire for reunification is deep-seated. Our motive is not political but emotional. We, the Germans, have caused the two moral and political catastrophes of the 20th Century. We are not interested in reviving dreams of some “glorious” or “mystic” nation. What we seek in East and West Germany is what the division has denied us and what all other nations share: a common history, language, culture and national identity.

In this respect, East Germany has certainly suffered most from the division. A hollow attempt to develop its own socialist culture, history and identity was followed by another hollow attempt during the early 1980s to claim Martin Luther and Frederick the Great for its socialist history. But a nation’s history is indivisible.

Nevertheless, West Germany considered the challenge seriously and feared that in the end, East Germany might win the struggle for history. Helmut Kohl came to power with a new approach. He consciously avoided the term “reunification” and instead stressed the “unity” of the German nation. Unity, he said, can be achieved only by creating a “feeling of togetherness” in all of Germany. The Germans must be aware of what they share and what they have in common. They must overcome the feeling that they are divided and experience the feeling of unity.

Did Kohl eventually create the feeling of unity that he initially sought? One may be easily persuaded that his well-intended approach contributed to increased dissatisfaction and disillusion among East Germans. It provided them with an incentive strong enough to leave their country at the first opportunity. Factories, stores and restaurants are closed because their workers left--forever.

We Germans in the West, however, feel some ambivalence about the mass exodus. How can we cope with the masses of resettlers? We have angst . We have compassion and feel symbolic relief for those who find the courage to leave their country, which is also our country.

When the wall was up, we welcomed them because they were oppressed. We wanted them to enjoy the same democratic freedoms that we do. It was a very emotional moment in the Bundestag when its members, upon receiving the news of the symbolic end of the Berlin Wall, rose to sing the German national anthem. But tearing down the wall is not good enough. Freedom to move is not freedom to vote.

We do not want East Germany to become a void, a political vacuum without a social infrastructure. If all 17 million East Germans cross the border, there will be no united Germany. We on both sides of the wall must understand that all of Germany is ours. We must encourage them to stay in the East and press for reforms from within. True freedom for all of Germany means that those Germans living in the East must actively work toward democratic reconstruction. Only they can make the system change. It Germany wants to reunite, those in the East must remain there.