Just as its leadership was preparing to celebrate the 40th anniversary of GDR (German Democratic Republic) statehood, a political storm of unprecedented proportions broke over East Germany. It is a storm that is sweeping away long-established landmarks of central European politics, as it has already swept away much of that very leadership.
The winds of change blowing through East German cities, across the GDR's borders, and into the council chambers of the political leadership have hardly begun to die down. We cannot yet tell whether the flood of citizens fleeing the GDR will level off after having exceeded 203,000 for the year (some having emigrated legally), or how many will return, especially now that barriers to travel have been removed. No one can say what groups and individuals will come to the force within the GDR, just what demands they will make, and what the West German reaction to them will be. Finally, the political future of the new leader of the party and state in East Berlin, Egon Krenz, remains opaque.
Following the nonstop flow of refugees to the West and mass demonstrations by those who stayed, a rapid series of political changes took place. The 44-member cabinet stepped down in early November, and the ruling party's entire Politburo followed suit. A hurriedly convened party congress was held in mid-December. The GDR Volkskammer has passed new travel and election laws and has in an unprecedented secret ballot elected a noncommunist party leader as its speaker. In light of such changes, will Krenz succeed in stabilizing GDR life, or turn out to be a transitional figure, akin perhaps to Karoly Grosz of Hungary?
Moreover, in the case of the GDR (and unlike such countries as Hungary or Poland), there is always a question about the very existence of the country. Any serious shift in the inter-German relationship, however, would have major significance for all of Europe, and for the two superpowers as well.
Any attempt to answer such questions must take into account the general trend of politics in Eastern Europe, the role played by the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, and the internal development of East German society and politics. Despite East Germany's special and unusual relationship to the Federal Republic, a better key to understanding events in the GDR is to see it in the larger context of political change in Eastern Europe generally.
A Rule without the People
To begin with, the GDR regime, like that of other East European states, suffers from a legitimacy deficit. A crisis of political legitimacy arose when the Soviet Union's political system was declared not to be an obligatory model. But in East Berlin, as in its allied capitals, similarity to the Soviet model had been a major justification for the regime. Gorbachev further weakened the model function of the Soviet Union by blaming systemic flaws for the "era of (Brezhnevite) stagnation" and by proposing drastic changes in institutions and practices.
The society and people of East Germany had matured far beyond what the system allowed for. A highly educated, well-informed people - achieving the highest level of production and technological advances in East Bloc industry and agriculture - were treated with an infuriating paternalism. Institutions of
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