First Published: Frontline, Vol. 7, No. 10, November 27, 1989.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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BERLIN
Frontline received the following on-the-spot impressions from Berlin. Paul Schreiner is a U.S.-born activist who has lived in West Berlin for the last ten years, and Amos Mund is a veteran West Berlin trade union and community activist.
Paul Schreiner: They made an announcement last Thursday night, and by midnight people were on the Wall. It all happened just that fast. It was hysteria. Nobody was really sure, not even the border guards, if you needed a visa.
It’s hard to get in and out of West Berlin – not because of restrictions, but because the city is full. Cars are everywhere. There’s been a transfer of millions of people, creating gridlock, but the atmosphere is relaxed.
What’s really most amazing is the revitalization of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED). They just kicked out the former leadership from all their posts in the Politburo, the cabinet, and the parliament. It’s clear from the rank and file there’s a tremendous outpouring of complaints and demands. The old guard really has been pushed aside. The Politburo has been reduced in size to make it much more effective. It remains to be seen if Egon Krenz will stay; one hears less and less and less from Egon Krenz.
But it isn’t Poland and it isn’t Hungary. The SED members are holding their ground as communists, and they’re speaking at huge rallies where they’re not excluded or booed out. They wouldn’t do all that poorly in an election, either. Things are happening so fast I can’t think of any other electoral group that would fare better. There was a huge SED rally a week ago addressed by the rank and file that 150,000 people attended.
But where the action is at is the parliament. Now it has become incredible, with debates and contention between parties. For the first time, they now vote by secret ballot. The cabinet, which used to be almost all SED, has been reduced in size and is now composed of one-third Liberal Democrats, Farmers, German Nationalists, etc. What they are all calling for is socialism that really is socialism. But possibly in the constitution, they may change the section granting the SED "the leading role in society."
The West Berlin senate called a rally in the west with the mayor of West Berlin, longtime Social Democratic Party leader Willie Brandt and Chancellor Helmut Kohl. There’s a tremendous outpouring of good feelings. People are overwhelmingly overjoyed. But Kohl, a conservative who didn’t have the courtesy to greet the mayor of East Berlin, was roundly booed when he spoke. That’s because there is an incredible housing crisis, not only in East and West Berlin, but all over West Germany.
There is a broad consensus in West Germany that change in the GDR is a positive thing. The U.S. is losing its influence by the day. It’s hardly being discussed any more what the U.S. is going to do. It’s irrelevant. The U.S. doesn’t have anything to say any more.
That the Wall had to come down sooner or later was inevitable. But I didn’t think we’d live to see this, that it would happen in our lifetime.
Amos Mund: Monday night at the first session of the new East German parliament, the government which had just resigned was asked about its gross mismanagement. The outgoing prime minister just said it was not his fault, but someone else’s. The real power had been the head of state security, Mielke.
When it was Mielke’s turn to be questioned, he said he thought all the people trusted him, and told the government and Politburo their problems. If there was still a problem, it was because nobody listened to them. He began mumbling, the man who was the most feared and powerful in the country for 20 years. The parliamentary deputies were all laughing at him, because nobody cared about who he was any more. And that’s how far the revolution has gone already.
Today there is a different attitude in the GDR media, making it so interesting to read and watch. The party press carried a whole page of writers and artists known for being critics of the government. No Western investigative journalist can out-scoop GDR reporters nowadays. The media and the artists are the guarantee the revolution will last. People who have criticisms don’t run away any more. They stay and fight.