Berlin Bulletin:  No. 13, 
October 2 2010

Celebrating German Unity and Fighting Back

By Victor Grossman

Once again the time has come in Germany for bells to
ring, fireworks to explode, politicians to declaim and
media to drench us with joyful, endless reminders of
events of twenty years ago and the evils they overcame.
Last November it was the Fall of the Wall, now it's
German Unity which is so loudly commemorated, the final
demise in 1990 of the German Democratic Republic, East
Germany.

A majority certainly did rejoice, those whose families
had been separated above all but also those who had
felt so isolated from the real, the western world with
its liberties, its free election choices and its modern
consumer joys and travel opportunities.

Perhaps one sixth in the East had mixed feelings. They
too had so often been dismayed by the republic's
leadership, not seldom careerist, too isolated from the
people it ruled over, helpless in some ways while too
often brutal in counter-productive attempts to stay in
power. Yet that one-sixth consisted of people who had
for years devoted hands and hearts to building an anti-
fascist East Germany with no poverty, no homelessness,
many equal rights for women, care-free, loving (and
free) care for children and free education for all.
Despite all the blunders which many had recognized and
deplored it had achieved no small part of this agenda.
Now, good or bad, it was all to go down the drain, with
all their lives' endeavors. Few of these people
applauded the speeches, were awed by the fireworks or
sang the Western anthem, "Deutschland uber alles". Many
just despaired.

But others were re-assured by the fact that West
Germany, too, had a strong social welfare system, in
some respects nearly as good as in East Germany, in
some respects better, thanks both to old traditions as
well as to decades of political competition between the
two states.

A few found solace in a very different direction. Their
attempt to change the world had failed, not only
because of the blunders and false paths but also
because the other side was simply stronger, cleverer,
and luckier from the start. But now, they hoped, as
Germans who still dreamt of a better world, at peace
and without the blood-thirsty warriors symbolized by
names like Krupp, Siemens and BASF or by Boeing and
Lockheed Martin, their efforts were no longer
restricted to the small East German rump state but
could extend to all Germany, Europe's strongest
economy, perhaps even to the rest of Europe which it
often dominates.

This hope seemed a case of "delusions of grandeur". Has
it experienced even the slightest success?  The answer
is perhaps expressed with the handy German word: "Jein"
- Ja and Nein.

The West German state and its men of wealth had soon
almost totally destroyed the East German economy, not
just the decrepit little factories waiting for credit
but handsome state of the art factories as well, and
far too many concert halls and theaters, vacation homes
and thousands of recently-built, not always
architecturally beautiful but comfortable apartment
buildings, now emptied by a huge westward exodus of
mostly young people hunting for jobs and a future.

Yet, as some had predicted, the traditional German
social net meant that even the millions without a job
did not go hungry, while those with no roof over their
heads were largely those from broken homes, often
drinkers or rebellious youngsters. Medical care was
available and for many the advantages in terms of
travel possibilities, consumer goods assortment and a
decrease of dull propaganda outweighed any
difficulties.

The socialists slowly recuperated from their losses in
East Germany. At first dismissed as a dying ember, the
PDS, a radically reformed descendant of the former
ruling party, gradually won up to 20-30 per cent of the
voters. It was opposed but grudgingly tolerated by the
German leadership as long as it failed to surpass a
useless 1 or 2 percent in the far larger regions of
West Germany. The four older parties managed quite
comfortably with no one really rocking the boat.

But after joining a rebellious new West German party in
2007 to form the LEFT (DIE LINKE), and aided by the
charisma of the militant former head of the Social
Democrats, Oskar Lafontaine, it soon splashed down onto
the all-German political map, receiving nearly 12
percent of the national vote in 2009 and breaking into
all but one of the western state legislatures where it
competed (just missing out in right-wing Bavaria). And
it drew a worrisome number of voters from both the
Greens and the Social Democrats, a price paid for their
cuts in the social net when they held government power.

Thus, as the earlier optimists had hoped, the stage for
dramatic action had indeed been greatly extended, and
the German LEFT sent encouraging signals to tattered
left-wing parties and groups all over Europe.

But now, also all over Europe, and in the wake of a
crisis which has not really ended despite all rosy
media claims, an attack has been launched against the
"common people".  Sarkozy and Berlusconi, the British
Tories and even the Spanish Socialists want to counter
financial and economic woes with "unavoidable
austerity", of belt tightening, not by the bankers and
speculators who caused them, or the big companies now
raking in profits again, but by those least able to
make new sacrifices. Angela Merkel's Christian
Democratic coalition with the pro-business Free
Democrats, after some hesitation and internal quarrels,
has now stepped up its rough-riding attacks: cuts in
allowances for children of the jobless, reduced
assistance for home heating costs, bowing to all
demands of the energy giants to lengthen the lives of
nuclear power plants, opening the way for rent
increases, rejecting a minimum wage law for the
miserably underpaid, and big increases in health
insurance taxes with an option for extra treatment
charges while sparing the employers and increasing the
split in medical care between the wealthy and the
others, with all but basic dental care already
forbiddingly expensive. Then, after lengthy debate
about the miserly payments for the jobless, Merkel's
minister finally announced an improvement: five more
Euros a month, about two subway fares.

Meanwhile, the tabloids in all Europe supported a
dangerous new movement against Muslims (or, alternately
Roma, or Gypsies). It has gained rapid strength, most
recently in Sweden and the Netherlands, but also in
Switzerland, Hungary, Denmark, Italy and France and has
surfaced nastily in Germany with the racist book of a
well-known banker. With so many losing confidence in
all the present parties a new party of this kind in
Germany could become an extremely dangerous menace,
recalling all too acutely what once happened in
Germany, then targeting Jews and today Muslims.

But where was the LEFT? For months it has been so busy
with internal problems and quarrels about its future
program and how militant it should be that all too few
actions were taken on these burning issues. The Social
Democrats and Greens, also currently in opposition,
were quicker to take up the cudgels on various social
issues. This is ironic, since many nasty "reforms" were
passed by them  when they were in office, like cutting
taxes on the wealthy while raising the retirement age
from 65 to 67. They must therefore count on voters'
poor memory and , indeed, the Greens especially have
pushed up high up in the polls, even rivaling their
frequent partners, the Social Democrats. They have led
in opposing nuclear power plants and the storage of
their dangerous waste materials and in the fight, now
turned very bloody, against the expensive, detested new
rail station in Stuttgart. But in Hamburg, where they
share power with the Christian Democrats, they have
sadly capitulated.

Finally this past week the LEFT stepped up its actions.
Together with attac, the anti-globalization
organization, it "occupied" offices of the Deutsche
Bank in cities all over Germany. On Berlin's shopping
avenue, Kurfuerstendamm,  15 members of both groups
moved in, stopped business, gave the staff chocolates
to show their lack of animosity towards them, and put
their signs in the big windows, while 150 sitting
outside on the sidewalk sang and waved militant signs
demanding that the bank pay for the crisis or calling
for its nationalization. The same afternoon a long
parade led by the Left walked through downtown Berlin,
also denouncing the banks. The marchers. about a
thousand, heard that up to 100,000 working people from
all Europe were demonstrating in Brussels, they cheered
at warm greetings from strikers in Athens and rejoiced
that millions were on a one-day strike in Spain, that
there were protests all over, even a big unexpected
protest in Romania.

Perhaps, after an all too quiet summer, things will
move again. With attacks on pensions and the rights of
labor now seemingly coordinated in the whole European
Union the need for a coordinated, militant fight-back
is crucial everywhere. A strong position by the German
LEFT would justify the current anniversary jubilation.

_____________________________________________

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