566
PARTISAN REVIEW
Insofar as we limit ourselves to economics, the process of unification
seems to be successful.
In
the new states the volume of production is in–
creasing and unemployment decreasing.
It
would be wrong, though, to
assume that all the socio-economic problems have been solved, since
while some are, others remain hidden. Among these is the difference in
social benefits between the West and the East which is lessened through
financial subsidies; in favorable credit facilities, in measures to lower un–
employment, and in all kinds of financial contributions which exist in
the German welfare state.
The major problem concerns collective political identity, which
amounts to more than the ability to mobilize the economy. For na–
tional political identity emerges from citizens' adherence to a nation's
constitution, among other things, and from active participation in the
democratic process - by solving conflicts through institutionalized means .
And political identity reflects the history of a nation. Consequently, as
long as the process of unification proceeds from the assumption that
solving economic problems will induce a lessening of the East-West dif–
ferences in the political, social, and cultural realms, it is one-sided. But in
fact, the problems resulting from differences of taken-for-granted realities,
values, and attitudes, and of the representations of history , are being
treated without concern for the emotions and intentions of the citizens
of the former East Germany. Here, I am limiting myself to the represen–
tation of the period of National Socialism in the individual's mind and
to the collective concept of self. The fact that political identity is so
closely derived from economic well-being, it seems, contributes to a par–
ticularly irrational manner of dealing with the National Socialist past
which, in turn, may encourage the development of right extremist activ–
ities - a problem in East as well as West Germany.
In
this context, it is important to be aware of the following facts.
National Socialism and its crimes went beyond what we are able to
imagine.
It
was the last period of history to which the peoples of the
former GDR and the old FRG can and must relate - some of us still
through our own experience. Only a few years after this period ended,
two irreconciliably antagonistic social systems were established which
corresponded to the old world order of a Western and an Eastern bloc.
The GDR was founded on the idea that the National Socialist
regime had to be removed and replaced by a socialist society which was
anti-fascist and would extinguish National Socialism at its roots. But the
GDR was less successful in fulfilling this promise than its state declared.
It
developed its own post-fascist syndrome and conveyed non-democratic
traditions related to it. But little is known about the manner in which
this syndrome was expressed.
