East Germany's gentle revolution turned a little nasty last week. The euphoria that had accompanied the crumbling of the Berlin Wall was followed by a wave of bitterness against the hard-line Communist leadership, under the now ousted Erich Honecker, that had stifled East German lives for two generations. Some of the anger also sprang from the realization, following the opening of borders to West Germany, that the East German economy was in worse shape than the citizenry had realized.
In hundreds of meetings across the country, including Communist Party gatherings, people poured out their disgust, demanding that their former leaders be...
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