East Germans Reject Instant Unification

East Germany decided Wednesday against an instant merger with West Germany but called for unification and joint elections Oct. 14 to stave off total economic collapse.

“The situation is difficult, and it is very serious, but it isn’t hopeless,” Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere told the Volkskammer, or Parliament, during a marathon--and often strident--special session.

The vote of 187 to 148, with 11 abstentions, left the ball in West Germany’s court, since the Bonn government must agree to make constitutional changes in order to hold elections seven weeks earlier than the Dec. 2 date already set.

The West German Bundestag, or lower house of Parliament, is scheduled to debate the thorny issue today, but Chancellor Helmut Kohl appeared unlikely to win his bid to push forward the national election.

Timing of the merger and pan-German vote has triggered heavy political infighting in both Bonn and East Berlin because rivals believe an earlier election date would give Kohl a tremendous advantage in his race to become the first postwar leader of a single Germany.

The opposition Social Democrats would prefer that East Germany formally cede to West Germany no later than Sept. 15, then wait until Dec. 2 to elect a single parliament.

That strategy assumes that a longer election campaign would hurt Kohl because West German taxpayers might grow more nervous or angry about the mounting costs of unification.

Kohl’s Christian Democrats, whose sister party leads the East German Volkskammer, want the elections and formal dissolving of East Germany to take place on the same day.

The Volkskammer rejected an attempt by a small conservative party to have East Germany immediately merge with the West.

Skyrocketing unemployment and bankruptcies have wracked East Germany since it plunged overnight into the free-market system July 1. After 40 years of central planning by a corrupt Stalinist regime, East German factories and businesses are finding it virtually impossible to compete with West German goods and services on their own because of outdated equipment, shoddy materials and bloated work forces.