AMERICA AND THE EMERGING EUROPE
631
is somewhat surprising since, after the Helsinki treaty of 1975, millions of
people were able to travel between the two halves of the country.
What, then, did West Germans see when they visited the East? Only
hard-working laborers happily driving their Trabants? Deteriorating
houses populated with humble, hospitable people cautiously complaining
to them about the Party regime? Did anybody notice the incompetence
of many East Germans? The military-style education? The subservience?
And what, on the other hand, did the hundreds of thousands of lucky
East Germans see in the West when they visited their numerous relatives?
Only the supermarket crowds? The wealth of self-confident, widely trav–
eled people who showed pity and generosity for their Eastern kin? Did
they notice the harsh professional competition? The huge debts so many
well-to-do people were accumulating? The lack of moral orientation
commonly lamented in the West? Apparently, the ways in which East
and West Germans perceived each other was extremely selective. But to
correct the image of the past, former illusions and delusions must be
abandoned. Therefore, it is crucial to keep the
Stasi
archives open to ev–
eryone interested in the past.
At present, the German public appears to have little gratitude for the
liberation of East Germany from Communist rule. When observing the
disregard for freedom and the newly acquired individual rights, Dosto–
evsky's question in
The Brothers Karamazov
-
whether human beings re–
ally need freedom or whether a majority of them can conveniently live
without it - has become more tormenting than ever. Few post-Com–
munist intellectuals seem to enjoy the spiritual freedom which they were
deprived of before. This leads us to questions about their background, to
the influences which shaped them during the forty years of the GDR's
existence.
The discussion of Germany's past is full of collectivist notions. Often
theoretical assumptions developed prior to 1989 are used to explain the
course of events throughout the countries of Eastern Europe, especially
their unexpected and peaceful self-liberation. Events which took scholars
and politicians by surprise are now presented as the logical result of this
or that long-recognized development. Empirical evidence by persons
who lived under that system is resisted. When former East Europeans
come to the West, they are often confronted with definitive statements
about the nature of the society in which they lived, and they rarely get
the chance to raise doubts about those concepts without looking
apologetic or falsifying their own history and personal biography. But
facts are more ambiguous and contradictory than clear-cut ideological
schemes.
