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Ulbricht tries to make that slogan work, sometimes acting as if he had even stricken the word Germany from his vocabulary. A party-lining East German no longer speaks of himself as a German at all but as a citizen of the D.D.R.—the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. East Germany's culture minister used the recent 300th anniversary of the Dresden State Theater to proclaim that there is no common German culture, and a Foreign Ministry officer recently declared: "The word Germany now is only a geographical concept." Ulbricht even changed the name of East Germany's Secretariat for All-German Affairs to the Secretariat of West German Affairs, to show that the two Germanys no longer have anything in common. All of this, he said in his New Year's message, "should help overcome any remaining illusions about reunification. The task is to make clear that socialism and capitalism can never unite."
Dull Paradise. Because of Ulbricht's efforts, East Germany today is a country that looks different, thinks different and even smells different from West Germany. Hanns Eisler's anthem speaks of an East Germany "risen from ruins and turned toward the future." In fact, Ulbricht has turned his country toward the East—for that is where he sees the future. He regards the Soviet leash as his regime's lifeline. A Soviet field marshal commands East Germany's 200,000-man army, its 600-plane air force and its 200-ship navy. The Soviet ambassador frequently sits in on meetings of Ulbricht's Politburo. More than 72% of East Germany's exports flow eastward, and East German tourists generally head the same way. License plates from Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union dot East Germany's sparsely traveled highways, and its famed spas and museums echo with the labial lilt of Slavic voices. Soviet troops—350,000 of them—have created enclaves of little Russias, little Ukraines and little Georgias in the heart of East Germany.
While West German cities glisten with activity and night life, the workers' paradise next door seems to be like most paradises: merely dull. Its cities die at dusk, and those of its citizens who venture forth show on their faces the ennui, the boredom, of people who are constantly subjected to ideological blasts. East Germany's 40 daily newspapers are full of cant and propaganda, and even an annual folk fair has to be called a "Festival of Creative Socialism." Its intellectual life is almost totally noncreative, since voices that speak or hands that write with less than extreme caution quickly get their owners in trouble.