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PARTISAN REVIEW
nature of political and cultural transltlOn in that part of Germany.
Unlike the other East European countries, the GDR was integrated
(some people would argue absorbed) into a consolidated democratic
culture. The birthpangs of democracy were less excruciating than in
Romania or Poland. Whatever the price of privatization and the rise of
unemployment, the East German economy was the only economy in the
former Soviet bloc to fully enjoy assistance from a prosperous Western
country. Also unlike in the other Eastern European countries, the
pensioners are not among the worst off and therefore resentful
categories. The full conversion of pensions from Eastern to Western
currency provided if not a high living standard, at least a reasonably
decent one.
The result however has been the emergence of a hybrid political cul–
ture. On the one hand, the FRG constitutional, civic culture has been
affected by the merger with the predominantly authoritarian traditions
of East Germany, and with its lingering memories, affinities, and loyalties.
On the other hand, the former GDR citizens, after the initial euphoria,
increasingly developed feelings of malaise, disaffection, humiliation,
shame, and anger. The unification created a situation no other East Eu–
ropean country has experienced: a gap between first- and second-class
citizens.
In
other countries, the distinction may be between former
Communist party members and non-members.
In
Germany, in addition
to this political differentiation, there is the distinction between Easterner
and Westerner. The latter has little patience for the former's self-pity and
awkwardness. The former found out that brotherhood does not entail
empathy.
In
many respects, the psychological makeup of citizens in the
new East German
Lander
is closer to the Hungarian and Polish experi–
ences than to the Western managerial mentalities.
The initial obsession with the past, the eagerness to discover the se–
cret police files, expose the informers, stigmatize
deiateurs,
the post–
Vichy-style anti-collaborationist frenzy, has subsided. East Germans feel
that their Western fellow countrymen have little understanding for their
psychological afflictions. Their voices are not heard, their plights are ne–
glected, their resistance has been assigned to the memory hole. One has
to think again what kind of state the GDR had been.
It
was of course
the opposite of what it pretended to be. The claim to be the " incarna–
tion of Marx's dreams" was just preposterous. Ulbricht and Honecker
were dull Stalinist bureaucrats with little understanding of the real
working class or the Marxist intelligentsia's utopian expectations. The
persecution of Wolfgang Harich, Robert Havemann and Wolf Biermann
says a lot about their ruling elite's allergy to neo-Marxist critical
