Unification Is Not a One-Way Street : Germany: As the two states grow together again, East Germans will have considerable impact on their Western relatives.

The nature of German society has been a key to European security for three centuries. Yet as East Germany collapses into the lap of West Germany, most observers seem to have equated unification with an extension of West German society to the East. Little attention has been paid to the ways in which the East Germans will change the West German society to which others in the West have grown accustomed.

A unified Republic of Germany will not only have a different name than the current Federal Republic; it will be a very different society. As the two German states grow together again, the East Germans will have considerable impact on their Western relatives.

This has already been evident. The clear call for German unification by the new East German Social Democratic Party, or SPD, shocked many in the West German SPD, who for years had toyed with the idea of recognizing East Germany as a separate, sovereign country. The conservative alliance in East Germany, to take another example, is clear in its defense of the Oder-Neisse line as the German-Polish border, in contrast to its Western partners, the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union and in particular Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Until Tuesday, his vague utterances only heightened fears in Poland and elsewhere of the potential revisionist aims of a unified Germany.

There are other examples. Given their communist heritage, the East Germans are sure to press their West German partners to prohibit any neo-fascist or extreme right-wing political activity in any part of Germany. Although it is doubtful that they could muster the strength to pass a constitutional ban on such activities, they will force an important debate in German society on neo-fascist activities.

East Germans, who have grown up with an extensive social-welfare system, will also exert strong pressure in the new Germany to deepen and widen the already substantial social underpinnings of the strong West German economy. Unification could mean a striking move by the new Republic of Germany toward an economy that would combine robust capitalism with one of the world’s most generous and extensive networks of social benefits, services and payments. The new Germany, in fact, could soon become the proponent and model of a successful third way between unfettered capitalism and the shackles of Stalinist socialism.

In East Germany, neutrality has always beckoned as an expression of emancipation from the Soviet Union and the division of Germany. Now that both are happening, the image of neutrality shimmers invitingly. West Germans, bound to the West, are likely to prevail, but there will be a heated debate on Germany’s role in the heart of Europe.

Believe it or not, East Germans are also likely to spark a more individualistic, grass-roots style of democracy than has existed in West German society. In West Germany, the rise of citizens’ initiatives since the 1970s has been tightly linked to the emergence of the environmentally oriented Greens. In East Germany, the opposition groups that blossomed last fall have been distinct from the East German Greens. The East German citizens’ movements have been strident supporters of local democracy and popular initiatives and referendums. They are quite skeptical of West Germany’s political machine, which is dominated by the major parties and oiled by mutual favor, loyalty and tight discipline. East Germany’s embryonic brand of participatory democracy could spread westward.

Some negatives will also influence the scene. Even though ousted Communist leader Erich Honecker had always called East Germany the “anti-fascist state,” the regime considered as taboo the growing signs of a marginal, indigenous neo-fascist movement. As a result, the Communist government never allowed the East German people themselves to go through the difficult process of digesting the Nazi past. Second, traditional German-Slavic enmity permeates East German culture. Relations between ordinary Poles and West Germans have been far better for many years than between Poles and their East German “allies.”

German emotions and energies will be absorbed by these and other issues. One thing is certain, though. Germany--and Europe--won’t ever be the same again.