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PARTISAN REVIEW
tion in Gennan history. Whatever happened to the ardor of the human
rights movements? Is it true that dissidents were isolated, unpopular intel–
lectuals and that their movements were strongly penetrated by secret po–
lice? Does this make their message less intense and morally attractive?
Since when is popularity the litmus test of ethical validity?
As Habennas put it, "While after 1945 the resistance movement of
20 July, however selectively it was described, was incorporated into the
founding idea of the Federal Republic, today the historical accomplish–
ment of the civil rights movement of East Gennany is slipping from na–
tional memory.
It
should have been possible for it to attain a fitting
symbolic representation in the founding of a new republic. Because the
very discussion of such a founding was anxiously warded off, the cry 'We
are the people' has remained without a lasting echo. This is another
reason why those East Gennan compatriots, who feel hurt by a process
of unification that was demeaning in many respects, are turning to the
past. They are clinging to old identities instead of drawing self-assurance
from their own contribution to democracy."
The issue indeed is what past these post-Leninist societies have to
come to tenns with.
In
the case of the GDR (and arguably Hungary,
Romania, Slovakia, and Croatia, countries that during Wodd War II
had belonged to the Axis), the process of de-Communization encom–
passes the equally important process of de-fascization.
In
some of these
countries, anti-Communism has been an excellent device for covering
staunch nationalist sentiments and nostalgia for authoritarian solutions.
In
the case of the GDR elites, especially for the first generation, one cannot
dissociate their commitment to this country and their memories of Nazi
atrocities and anti-Communist persecutions. The refusal of the East Ger–
man state to admit any culpability or responsibility for the Hitlerite disas–
ter and the Holocaust was part of the fiction or myth on which this so–
ciety was built: that it represented the progressive, anti-capitalist, peace–
oriented part of the Gennan heritage. "The stronger socialism, the more
secure the peace." This slogan was posted everywhere in the former
GDR, on buildings, train stations, school walls, and airports.
Undoubtedly, people held these rhetorical devices in contempt. But
many among the literary and intellectual elites sincerely believed in the
GDR's special mission. They fought against Honecker in the name of
Gennany's critical Marxist, sometimes anarcho-libertarian traditions, not
in the name of
Kaujhalie
.
But their utopian hopes were dashed by pan–
Gennan national enthusiasm. Gregor Gysi's Party of Democratic Social–
ism was successful because it addressed the grievances and worries ex–
pressed by those for whom the GDR had been a
Heimat.
Its demoniza-
