NEWS ANALYSIS : East Germany’s Leader Moves--but Cannot Hide His Elitist Past

When Communist Party leader Egon Krenz invited a television team into his bungalow in the Pankow district of the capital, he and his wife, Erika, emphasized the down-to-earth nature of their modest, six-room home.

But during the program they admitted they had moved into Pankow, an ordinary neighborhood, only the day before--and did not point out they had moved from the elite, guarded suburb of Wandlitz, a fancy retreat for senior Communist officials.

In a later interview, Erika Krenz acknowledged they had lived in Wandlitz, where deposed leader Erich Honecker also lives, and added, “We would have stayed in Wandlitz if we’d always wanted to be surrounded by guards, but that was no life.”

Yet it must have seemed like a pretty good life for the many years the Krenzes lived in Wandlitz luxury before they suddenly moved earlier this week.

Wandlitz has now become something of a dirty name, and East German TV, after being refused admission to the compound, entered this week to show East Germans how their leaders lived.

The camera zoomed over a heated swimming pool with a solarium, Western-made washing machines and various exotic fruits on shelves--all items unavailable to more than 90% of East Germans.

And the camera crew surprised 77-year-old Kurt Hager, who was fired as Politburo ideology chief in the massive shake-up last month, as he took a walk. Obviously startled, he said, “It’s a rare event to meet any outsiders in Wandlitz.”

When asked why Communist leaders resided in luxury while many workers lived in depressing slums, he answered defensively: “I was never convinced that it was necessary for us to live here and nowhere else. But we had to bend to the orders of the party.”

The party has claimed that its leaders needed the protection of what Hager called an “internment camp” for their security after the bloody 1956 uprising against Communist rule in Hungary.

But in recent days, the Communist leaders seem to be attacking their own: The fact that on Thursday, Honecker was singled out for investigation is a sign, diplomatic observers here say, that the members of the old regime will be discredited and disgraced, as were the Stalinists under Soviet reformist successors.

Indeed, Communist leaders, in addition to badly managing the economy, have lived well while their countrymen subsisted frugally, suffering their lot in silence.

In addition to their luxury homes, they were chauffeured around in imported Volvo limousines while others waited a dozen years for a small Trabant car; they shopped at special stores laden with foreign goods not available to other East Germans, and they took special vacations at villas and fine hotels by the Baltic Sea.

In recent days, the Communist Party has singled out a main scapegoat: former Politburo member Guenter Mittag, who was responsible for the overall economy. Mittag is a ready victim, as is Honecker. But others will be blamed--not only in the capital but also in provincial towns.

Krenz has tried to distance himself from popular backlash against Communist leaders. But observers say that it is apparent to all is that for years, Krenz was Honecker’s chief henchman--and that that is why he succeeded Honecker.

For 10 years, Krenz was overseer of the state security apparatus, the feared and hated Stasi, whose thugs terrorized East Germans with midnight knocks on the door and repressive blacklists.

It is Krenz who is associated in the minds of ordinary East Germans with the rigged local elections last May. And it was Krenz who backed the bloody Communist repression in Beijing last June.

So when Krenz says that the Communist Party congress next month will “put the whole truth on the table,” the chief victim of that truth-telling may well be Egon Krenz.