Two Germanys Ratify Pact on Economic Unity

In their most decisive step yet toward reunification, the two Germanys ratified a historic treaty Thursday merging their economies and promised to respect postwar Polish borders.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that the pact saves East Germany “from immediate collapse.”

In East Berlin, the once-dominant Communist Party denounced the treaty as “an act of violence” certain to trigger widespread unemployment and bankruptcy.

Legislators in East Germany’s Volkskammer gave themselves a rousing standing ovation earlier in the day after passing the treaty and the separate Polish resolution following a relatively brief debate.

But in Bonn, impassioned deputies in the Bundestag, or lower house, debated well into the night before approving by a vote of 445 to 60 the economic merger expected to cost their country billions of marks. If passed as expected today by the upper house, or Bundesrat, the treaty will go into effect July 2.

That would leave only the last act in the swiftly unfolding unification drama: all-German elections.

Kohl and his conservative Christian Democratic Union would like to replace West German national elections scheduled in early December with all-German elections. The chancellor, who is seeking reelection, is a popular figure in East Germany.

Liberals, such as the West German opposition Social Democratic Party, favor unification at a slower pace, believing it would lessen the expected economic hardship.

“We don’t quarrel over whether there should be German unity, but how,” said Hans-Jochen Vogel, chairman of the Social Democrats.

Under the treaty ratified Thursday, the two countries would meld their social, economic and currency systems--virtually everything but their governments.

East Germany would essentially cede control of its crippled economy to the powerful West German Bundesbank, or central bank. The country would plunge into the free-market system, giving up heavy state subsidies that have kept rents and food staples artificially cheap for decades. Some experts have estimated that perhaps one in three East German factories, farms and businesses have a chance of survival.

East Germany’s economy, though considered a model in the Communist world, was shattered by years of corruption and mismanagement.

The treaty would replace the virtually worthless East German ostmark with the thriving deutschemark at a rate of 1 to 1 for wages, pensions and small savings, and 2 to 1 for everything else.

The Communists and some others in East Germany argue that the terms of the union are socially unjust, and 83 of the East German Volkskammer’s 400 deputies voted against it.

But Economics Minister Guenter Krause, a Christian Democrat, told the Volkskammer: “The treaty is a decisive step toward German unity and creates the framework for our evolution from a command economy to a social market economy.”

In Bonn, Kohl warned the Bundestag before the vote: “We face one of the greatest structural tasks since the war.

“We . . . will have to make sacrifices for the great goal of the unity of our country,” he said, but “no one will meet with undue hardship.”

Much of his lengthy address focused on Germany’s painful history with Poland.

“Poland’s border with Germany, as it stands today, is final,” Kohl said. “At no time, either today or in the future, will it be questioned through territorial claims on the part of us Germans.”

“Today we face an absolutely clear choice,” he added. “Either we confirm the existing border or we gamble away the chance of German unity.”

His conviction marked a dramatic departure from his initial reluctance to guarantee Poland’s western borders several months ago when reunification first came up and Warsaw demanded reassurances.

At the time, Kohl insisted that only the government of a united Germany could speak for a united Germany. Under harsh international criticism, he eventually agreed that the borders were inviolable.

The victorious World War II Allies gave Poland sizable chunks of Nazi Germany’s eastern provinces, including Silesia and West Prussia, to compensate for territory annexed by the Soviet Union earlier in the war.

Roughly one-third of present-day Poland was once German territory, and is still home to many ethnic Germans.

The Bundestag vote on the Poland resolution was 487 in favor, 15 against. The Volkskammer earlier voted 378 for the resolution, six against; 18 deputies abstained.

West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher said Thursday’s declaration represented “far more” than a simple will to be good neighbors with Poland.

“The Germans want nothing more than to live in unity and in peace and in friendship with all the peoples of Europe,” he said.

Genscher met with Secretary of State James A. Baker III on Thursday in West Berlin as a prelude to German unity talks today.

No details were made public of their discussion, but the subject of economic support for the Soviet Union is looming as a key issue.

West German newspapers reported Thursday that Bonn was considering backing a multibillion-mark bank loan to aid Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform efforts.

Meanwhile, camera-clicking tourists Thursday began thronging to Checkpoint Charlie, the famed Berlin border crossing, for a last glimpse of the tiny guardhouse that made history but is about to be demolished.

Shortly after the wall went up on Aug. 13, 1961, U.S. and Soviet tanks faced off at Checkpoint Charlie for 16 tense hours.

The three Western allies staff the checkpoint, which also has been the scene of some of history’s most dramatic escape attempts from East Berlin.

The small hut there is expected to end up in a museum, according to U.S. diplomatic sources.

NEXT STEP

Foreign ministers from the two Germanys, the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union will participate today in the so-called two-plus-four negotiations in West Berlin. The talks seek to resolve the question of a united Germany’s military alliances. The Soviets pose the major stumbling block to unity through their continued opposition to NATO membership for a united Germany. Also under discussion is the role the four powers play in Berlin, which they have administered since the end of the war.