CORRESPONDENCErnLetter From EastrnBerlinrnby Hamilton BeckrnThe New KohlonizationrnThe euphoria that accompanied thernopening of the Bcdin Wall on Novemberrn9, 1989, should still be fresh in ourrnminds. Wc remember the scenes ofrnpeople dancing on the Wall in front ofrnthe Brandenburg Gate, total strangersrnembracing each other, sharing bottles ofrnchampagne. We remember the partyrnatmosphere that culminated in reunificationrnin October 1990. Today I amrnwriting to tell of the hangover that hasrnfollowed the party.rn”Hangover” is actuallv not the bestrnword to describe what I saw in the easternrnpart of Berlin from February to Julyrnof 1992, because a hangover goes awayrnover the course of time and the pain andrnfrustration in the former GermanrnDemocratic Republic (GDR) have beenrngetting worse, not better. If vou havernfollowed cents in Gcrmanv since thernWill came down, you have probablyrnheard sentences like: “Now that the actualrnphysical Wall has come down, wernhave to break down the mental wallsrnthat still separate us.” I want to suggestrnthat the wall in the mind is growingrnhigher instead of getting lower and thatrnthis wall is not just a mental phenomenonrnbut has its basis in actualitv.rnConsider this fact, trivial in itself butrnsymptomatic: in 1991 about 100 womenrnin \ est Bcdin married men from Africa;rnonl 46 married men from East Berlin.rnEast Berlin today presents a differentrnappearance than it did the last time Irnwas there two years ago. The very air inrnthe East is different from what it usedrnto be, as the characteristic GDR-stenchrnput out bv cars and trucks belchingrnfumes is largely gone. So many streetsrnare being renamed so quickly that mapsrnsoon become obsolete for East Berlin.rnGone are Lenin Boulevard and Ho ChirnMinh Street as well as numerous otherrnstreets named after prominent and notso-rnprominent communists. Everywherernone sees shops that offer goods and servicesrnthat earlier (in the German languagernof today, the word for “earlier”rnhas come to be synonymous with “beforernreunification”) were rare if not unknown;rntravel agencies, driving schools,rnlaundromats, Turkish snack shops andrnexpensive Chinese restaurants, videornstores and sex shops. On the street cornersrnpeople hawk newspapers, in thernsubways there are panhandlers, and everywherernVietnamese and Polish vendorsrnof black-market cigarettes. Soviet militaryrnuniforms and Socialist Unity Partyrn(SED) insignia arc for sale on thernstreets. Garbage containers are filledrnwith perfectly usable furniture that hasrnthe one unforgivable flaw of clearly havingrnbeen made in the GDR.rnOne also sees many stores selling locksrnand security devices, a testimony to thernincrease in burglary and ear theft in thernEast since the Wall has opened. Thernonce omnipresent police now seem justrnas scarce as in any Western city. Onethirdrnof the inhabitants of large cities inrnthe East are afraid to go out on thernstreets alone in their own neighborhood,rnwhich is not only more than for comparablerncities in West Germany but morernthan for New York and Chicago; lessrnthan 4 percent of these inhabitants considerrnthemselves “very safe.” The numbersrnwere recrsed before the Wall camerndown.rnOne sees many empty stores as well,rnvictims of rising rents and the decreasernin purchasing power of East Bedin consumers.rnAround the corner from where Irnlived was a small drugstore that hadrnbeen run by a family for the last 13rnyears. Their going-out-of-business salerntook place in August. A West Germanrnchain, Rossmann, is opening a hugernstore just down the street from them.rnThis is the nature of competition, vournmight say. But competition should bernthe same for everyone, and West Berlinrndrugstore owners, knowing that thev toorncould not survive against Rossmann, arernprotected by a special regulation thatrnprevents it from opening any stores inrnWest Beriin. Rossmann is moviirg intornthe East with more than thirty storesrnwhile it remains excluded from thernWest, just as though the Wall still separatedrnthe halves of the city. The ownersrnof the drugstore around the corner, byrnthe way, count themselves lucky. A Syrianrnwho li’cs in West Berlin has boughtrnthe propert) and plans to turn it into anrnItalian restaurant. He has agreed to hirernthe former proprietors as waiters andrnwaitresses.rnAt least they do not have to join thernlarge and growing army of the unemployed.rnOver two-thirds of the workrnforce is idle in some areas of East Germany.rnThe inflation rate over the 12-rnmonth period ending last August wasrn12.9 percent in the East, 3.5 percent inrnthe West. Sixty-nine percent of EastrnGermans view the general economic situationrnin their part of the country asrn”bad” or “very bad,” only 2 percent seernit as “good” or “very good.” With veryrnlittle time for transition, the Easternersrnor “Ossies” have been thrown into thernwaters of capitalism, and telling them tornlearn how to swim, as many Westernersrnor “Wessies” do, is neither very helpfulrnnor much appreciated by the Ossies.rnThey can complain more loudly aboutrnthe state than before; they have videorncassette players, new furniture, and usedrnOpel Cadets (having gone into debt inrnthe process); and they are adjusting uneasilyrnto a worid in which money plays arnmuch more important role than it everrndid before. As one 13-year-old giri fromrnthe East put it, “For many people unificationrnhas meant up until now unemployment.rnCoca Cola, and McDonald’s.”rnThere is still a gap between incomes,rnso that the West attracts the best andrnmost mobile members of the East Germanrnwork force. Strangely enough, therernhas been much less difficulty equalizingrnrents. In fact, in some parts of EastrnBerlin rents have not onl) gone up byrnmore than 500 percent since reunification,rnsome apartments in the East arernnow more expensive per square vardrnthan comparable ones in West Berlin.rnWhen rents are increased to Westernrnlevels but wages are not, it is easy to seernwhat the result will be: thousands ofrnpeople in East Bedin will soon no longerrnbe able to afford their apartments.rnThe fundamental economic problemrnlies in the question of property ownership.rnThe courts are overwhelmed withrncases handling claims that occasionallyrngo back as far as the Weimar Republic,rnFEBRUARY 1993/37rnrnrn