EDITH KURZWEIL
429
the food in the nearby restaurants, when available, is abominable and
expensIve.
The Wessies on the political right, smelling the profits that could
be made by bringing their know-how to the East and cheap labor to the
West, were delighted at the prospect of reunification. But whether or
not they were carried away by the promise of liberating their fellow
Germans, or realized that Chancellor Kohl and his party, the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU), would gain politically, they soon were dis–
enchanted: the Ossies' infrastructures are as good as nonexistent; their
factories are antiquated. They were used to being taken care of by a
paternalistic state, to getting paid whether or not they produced, and
their standard of living is somewhat below that of the Wessies' unem–
ployed. Although industrialists, lawyers, and financial manipulators
quickly made large deals and potential profits, taking advantage of the
low prices of real estate and of the Ossies' inordinate inexperience with
market forces, they no longer want to invest without governmental
backing or guarantees.
The Wessies on the political left, however, who used
to
romanti–
cize socialist ideas, not only resented the fact that reunification seemed to
strengthen their political opponents on the right, but were unprepared
for the ideological vacuum. Some of them had fled from the Eastern
sector between 1945 and 1961, and now are able to claim property - a
dilemma for critics of capitalism and for humanitarians, who by retaking
their houses and farms must get rid of the current occupants who cannot
possibly find other accommodations (at ridiculously low rents, and in a
housing shortage). Others, full of curiosity upon visiting the former East,
noted that the disregard for the ecology they had laid at the door of
capitalism had been infinitely worse under socialism. And yet others, such
as Gunther Grass, who had tried to forge a German "middle ground" by
eschewing the totalitarian aspects of socialism and equating it to the
mindlessness and greed of consumerism, advised that unification should
wait.
But how could postponement have facilitated the merger, partiClI–
lady since the borders came down so suddenly, and the entire world re–
verberated under the demonstrations for freedom? In any event, when the
Ossies insisted on "Deutschmark hier, oder wir kommen zu dir," the
game was up. Neither right nor left could ignore this threat any more
than they could ignore the stench of the Trabi's nearly unrefined gaso–
line.
According to Maaz, the Wessies have managed to build a demo–
cratic society over the last forty-five years, while the Ossies moved from
fascism to Stalinism to "Western" consumerism without missing a beat.
"The constant promise of a better future (communism) and the magic
