A State, Not a Nation

By KARSTEN PRAGER BERLIN

Hope and resignation. Like oil and water, they do not mix well, yet those are the conflicting emotions that course through East Germany now that the Wall has come down. More of the former perhaps than the latter, as this artificially created country longs for a fresh start after 40 years of orthodox Communist rule, as it yearns for free, multi-party elections and economic rebirth.

The shock of Nov. 9, the day an embattled East German government allowed its people to cross their borders for at least a glimpse of the outside world, has yet to wear off. Those among the nearly 5 million people who, in little more than a week, made the journey cannot quite believe they did, and the faces of the thousands who pour through frontier crossings every day are bright with expectation. In Berlin, East Germans huddle over subway maps as they head into Western terra incognita, a place most of them know only from television; at other checkpoints their cars pile up for miles on end.

When they return home, though, East Germans now face an array of questions that seemed theoretical, if not downright irrelevant, only weeks ago. Do they want to build the future within the boundaries of the state as it presently exists? Would they be better off if the whole country were, in effect, annexed by Bonn? Could they hold their own in a partnership with West Germany? And perhaps most important, what are they -- East Germans or just Germans?

The euphoria of the moment has not removed all the reminders of how it was until very recently. On the route to Friedrichstrasse, a main Berlin crossing point, the subway train glides through two empty stations bricked up since 1961, when the Wall rose. The platforms are bare, eerily lighted by a few dusty neon tubes. East German border guards have learned to replace their studied sullenness of old with the occasional smile, but West Germans and others still must file through cattle-chute-like passport control points, and are made to exchange 25 deutsche marks ($13.50) for East German marks, at the usurious rate of 1 to 1, one-tenth the black market quote, for every day they spend in the German Democratic Republic. In the evenings, the smell of coal smoke hangs over gray, dilapidated cities -- as it did in the bitter days right after World War II.

What East Germans expect first of all from their new leaders is an effort to build "real Socialism" and sweep away the remnants of a corrupt and repressive regime. They want closer relations with their West German brethren, a growing together with the Federal Republic -- but not necessarily reunification; they insist on being accepted as they are. And finally, they demand economic reward, even though they know they are not likely to catch up with the West any time soon.

Still, the issue of identity nags: Is the G.D.R. a nation, a state, part of a country yet to be unified? "For 40 years we were just letters," says Christian Fuhrer, pastor of Leipzig's Nikolai Church. "G-D-R. But not German. Not democratic. Just letters. We are Germans, certainly. But our German history is submerged: 1917 is when it begins for our students. The people must develop an identity. Only then can we discuss reunification."

Most East Germans will respond to "What are you?" with "German" -- despite the regime's persistent attempt to deny history, stifle the concept of Germany and replace it with a vague notion of "Socialist nationhood." The effort went to ludicrous lengths: because the national anthem contains the words German fatherland, only the melody is played; the anthem is no longer sung. Not surprisingly, one of the demands of the opposition calls for an anthem with words.

Since the late '60s, West Germany has used the formula of one nation-two states to describe a society divided by differing political and social systems, but built on common history, culture, language and family bonds. Though Bonn recognizes G.D.R. passports, it says there is only one German citizenship to which the people of both states are entitled. And since the relationship between Bonn and East Berlin cannot be compared with that between Bonn and, say, Paris, the West Germans insisted long ago, over G.D.R. objections, that their respective diplomatic missions were "representations," not embassies. A West German diplomat who served in East Berlin recalls hearing East Germans defying their government's line by pleading, "We don't want you to treat us like foreigners."

Today, the G.D.R. has abandoned the claim to separate nationhood. "I am a German Communist. I live in a state that is German, and I am of German nationality," says Max Schmidt, a party theorist and director of the Institute for International Politics and Economics in East Berlin. "To say that the G.D.R. is a nation was a theoretical mistake. We are not two states like any other two states. There is an ethnic component, and that is a perspective we must respect."

As long as the two-states concept it survives, it has negative implications for reunification -- or perhaps better, unification -- since hardly anyone inside or outside the two Germanys wants to re-create the centralized polity that existed between 1871 and 1945. The East Germans maintain that, as Central Committee member Otto Reinhold puts it, their state provides a necessary "antifascist" and "socialist" alternative. *

They are now bolstering their contention with a new, subtle argument that directly plays to the concerns and fears of Germany's neighbors, East and West. "In the past," says Schmidt, "it was Germany that destroyed European stability. Since 1949 the two-state system has been essential to such stability, and it is therefore in a justified security interest of others to leave that equilibrium. There is fear, spoken or unspoken, not so much of the Germans per se than of a reunified Germany that would become an economic giant with ambitions and would thus upset the balance. Look at the French, look at the Poles, look even at the U.S., and see how they are reacting." Not to mention the Soviets.

East Germany is taking the argument a step further by staking its future not only on internal renewal but also on a special relationship with West Germany that is embedded in the wider European scheme. In other words, once military forces begin to be reduced and the blocs shrink, East Germany should be considered a "Middle European" country, conceivably with special economic ties to states like West Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. "If we don't take part in the constructive development of Europe," says Reinhold, "then events will roll over us."

That is a far cry from the party wisdom of the past 40 years, as it is a shock to hear party leaders, who have suddenly seen the light, talk casually of the need to shed the Socialist Unity Party, East Germany's Communists, of its constitutionally enshrined role as the "leading party" and, even more daring, to remove Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology. "You can't impose that on the people," says a well-placed cadre. "You cannot constitutionally order that sort of thing."

Strangely enough, certainly in Western eyes, the concept of the G.D.R. as a state finds an echo among a population that by any measure is fed up with its leadership, angered by the hubris of a Communist Party that considered itself the state, cheated by an economy that, though the best performing in the East bloc, left the country "only those goods that nobody else in the world wants," as an East Berlin grocer puts it. A snap poll by a West Berlin research institute of 1,000 East Germans who flooded through the Wall after Nov. 9 found that nearly four out of five wanted two democratic German states with open borders. Another survey, by a London firm, counted 48% against and 38% in favor of reunification. Since then, nearly 5 million East Germans have gone visiting, but only 15,000 decided to stay out. Finally, none of the massive demonstrations of recent weeks capitalized on the theme of reunification. During the 28-year existence of the Wall, a psychological barrier seems to have risen as well.

The standard explanation for the loyalty of so many G.D.R. citizens is expressed by Jens Reich, one of the founders of the opposition group New Forum: "The ideals of Socialism prevail here." Historical roots certainly exist: German Social Democracy found its early expression in parts of the country that are now East Germany, and years of Communist rule have left a deep imprint. "A rhythm of life has developed," says Frank Schutze of the Potsdam Institute for International Relations. "People have got used to a collective existence in which their lives and their jobs are protected by a safety net with a finer mesh than in the West. There is a certain pride in its Socialist ingredients." Education is free, as is health care. Job security is assured.

Unsaid is that the system barely creaks along. East Germans may enjoy the highest standard of living in the East bloc, but that is not the comparison they make. Their yardstick is West Germany, whose wealth they used to ogle on television and can now touch but generally not acquire. Health care may not cost anything, but it is neither thorough nor prompt, a situation made more painful by the departure of young doctors in this year's mass exodus. Education is criticized for its narrow, blinkered and intolerant outlook. Job security is a laudable concept, but there is little choice. A young East Berliner who wanted to become a commercial fisherman wound up being trained as a toolmaker. "But everyone gets a job," he says sarcastically.

The only people who have come off well in the past four decades are the so- called upper ten thousand (the party and bureaucracy establishment) and those with "vitamin B" -- as in Beziehungen, or connections, in East German parlance. "They must all go," says a retired clerk in East Berlin. "All these criminals should be held accountable."

Perhaps the most cogent explanation for G.D.R. loyalty is that the existing state insulates the people against the shock of the outside world. "We look at the West, and it's a fairyland," says an East Berlin housewife. "Our attitudes are different. We grew up more modest. We missed out on a lot, but we make do. Over there it's all money, money, money. We don't have it." There , is the touch of an inferiority complex as well, and given widespread West German complaints about new burdens, it is perhaps justified. "Maybe it's best not to unify the country," says an East Berlin pensioner. "The West would probably treat us as second-class citizens, like migrant workers."

Reunification is not on the current agenda -- not on East Berlin's nor on Bonn's. Certainly not reunification as old-fashioned nationalists still imagine it: a kind of anschluss of the G.D.R. by West Germany. "We did not throw off the Soviets to become a colony of the West," says Peter Grimm, a dissident writer.

A straightforward yes or no to reunification is too simple in so complex a constellation. NATO and the Warsaw Pact will have to shed their military dimensions. The European Community will have to define its attitudes toward Eastern Europe. The two Germanys will want to expand the web of existing agreements between them, an interweaving of interests that neither can unravel without harming itself. In years to come, perhaps a German confederation within an expanded European Community may emerge, but in an age of new perceptions, it may not matter what it is called.

In the meantime, with its borders open to the West, the G.D.R.'s sense of self and of self-confidence may actually be strengthened, but only if democratization and liberalization move apace, if the Communist dictatorship is dismantled, and if the people can partake of the freedoms enjoyed by their countrymen on the other side.