Of Turncoats and Scapegoats

By Frederick Painton

East Germany's gentle revolution turned a little nasty last week. The euphoria that had accompanied the crumbling of the Berlin Wall was followed by a wave of bitterness against the hard-line Communist leadership, under the now ousted Erich Honecker, that had stifled East German lives for two generations. Some of the anger also sprang from the realization, following the opening of borders to West Germany, that the East German economy was in worse shape than the citizenry had realized.

In hundreds of meetings across the country, including Communist Party gatherings, people poured out their disgust, demanding that their former leaders be investigated and, if necessary, tried and punished. Inevitably, perhaps, the time for retribution had come. During one of the almost nightly mass rallies in Leipzig, the mood was summed up by a young speaker who condemned the regime, shouting "You treated us like a herd of cattle!"

Similarly, at a meeting of the opposition group New Forum in Potsdam's Erloser Church, an overflow crowd of 5,000 booed, whistled and stamped their feet when party theoretician Otto Reinhold, until recently one of the East German guardians of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, proclaimed his conversion to reform by saying that the constitutionally enshrined leading role of the Socialist Unity Party (S.E.D.) was a thing of the past. From the audience a voice shouted, "Wendehals!" (turncoat), unleashing an uproar in the audience.

Wendehals literally means turn neck, the name of a rare bird that can twist its head 180 degrees; the word has been adopted by East Germans to refer to the thousands of Communist Party officials, from Egon Krenz, the current party leader, down to district secretaries, who overnight began to sound as if they had joined the pro-democracy movement. A favorite target is Gunter Mittag, the recently sacked Politburo member in charge of the economy. Described by the newly outspoken East German press as arrogant and autocratic, Mittag is being held responsible for wrecking the economy and cooking the figures to such an extent that reformers cannot find accurate economic data with which to work. Prime Minister Hans Modrow, the moderate former Dresden party chief who himself was investigated in June by Mittag and his minions, welcomed parliament's decision to probe abuses of power under Honecker. Said he: "An example must be set."

Krenz, almost pleading for credibility, faced an uphill struggle as popular demands for a reckoning grew. In East Berlin a government television team entered the so-called "forbidden city" of Wandlitz, situated on a lake outside Berlin, to show the public how the elite, including Krenz, had lived in luxury, enjoying servants, limousines and imported Western delicacies -- a life-style totally removed from the generally spartan existence of most East Germans. The compound is surrounded by a wall; no photographs of it have been published until now. Krenz moved from Wandlitz to a small apartment in East Berlin a few weeks ago.

At an open meeting in the East Berlin headquarters of the S.E.D.'s central committee, party member Friedrich Dreke, 39, charged that the leadership had enriched itself at the expense of the people and had run a "foreign currency mafia" with illegal sources of income. Declared Dreke: "What we need is a complete change of command in the party apparatus right up to the post of General Secretary."

Krenz made it clear that he would fight to hold on to his job. "I am here to stay," he told factory workers near East Berlin. "I didn't take over just to push for change for a few weeks." Krenz said he was ready for an "unsparing investigation" of the party's mistakes and transgressions. He and the beleaguered Politburo also took a first step toward some form of power-sharing by proposing round-table talks on reform with non-Communist parties and legal opposition groups; the agenda would include changing the constitution, which currently gives the Communists the monopoly of power.

In fact, each concession by Krenz seems to have created a fresh threat to his political survival. The opening of the borders to the West, for example, permitted a torrential outflow of East German marks, carried out by citizens who at last could use them, even at absurdly low rates, to buy something -- in the West. Fretted Prime Minister Modrow: "East Germany must not become a nation of speculators." The government's bewilderment underlined the problems encountered by a Communist leadership, albeit a reform-minded one, in coming face to face with the complexities of capitalism. Within a matter of days, the East German currency -- officially at parity with the deutsche mark -- fell to one-twentieth of its denominated value. One result is that foreigners as well as East Germans with access to hard currencies can buy up low-cost East German marks to purchase goods in East Germany that are subsidized at artificially low prices.

To halt speculation, Modrow announced strict customs controls on the borders with the West. But East Germany's monetary crisis is likely to worsen, thereby increasing dependence on the deutsche mark -- and West Germany. Bonn, in the meantime, is withholding its promised assistance until it is convinced that East Berlin will introduce concrete and irrevocable reforms.

With reporting by Frederick Ungeheuer/Berlin