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So had enough other young men, women and children to turn a trickle of refugees into a torrent, pouring out of every crack they could find in the crumbling Iron Curtain. The first route, through Hungary, has largely shut down since East German officials cut back on exit permits to that country a month ago. Next, East Germans by the thousands planted themselves in the West German embassy in Prague, as Czechoslovakia was the only country to which they were allowed to travel without an exit permit. Those who could slip into Poland converged on Bonn's compound in Warsaw. And when special trains carrying the refugees to West Germany were routed back through their homeland, near riots resulted. Dozens clambered over fences, lunged at the passing cars and climbed aboard, convinced that the moving trains offered the last opportunity to get out.
The illegal exodus has been going on since May, when Hungary began clipping the barbed wire separating the East bloc from Austria. But nothing dramatized the crisis so vividly -- or posed the hard questions for East Germany so immediately -- as the swarm of tents packed with would-be emigres overflowing the embassy compound in Prague. Last Tuesday, after the first freedom trains had rolled out of Prague, Honecker sealed off the country's border to Czechoslovakia, leaving East Germans isolated and caged once more. There were signs late in the week, however, that restrictions on emigration might be eased, according to West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
The paradox is that East Germany's 40th birthday party should have been a glorious moment for the 77-year-old Honecker. Largely because of his grimly orthodox leadership, "Honi" could boast of giving the German Democratic Republic the strongest economy, the finest industry and one of the best-fed, best-housed and best-educated populations in the East bloc. It was the world's most successful -- or least unsuccessful -- example of Marxist government.
The refugees' flight seemed not only a dramatic act of rejection by his own people but also a challenge to the legitimacy -- and perhaps the very existence -- of Honecker's country. Beneath the flags and banners, East Germans are increasingly questioning who and what they are -- and not liking the answers. Those who have made their way to the West since the beginning of the year have done so not out of material desperation or fear of persecution but in blunt renunciation of the East German system. "It is a suffocating place, and we didn't see any chance of the present regime's changing," said Karl Weinbauer as he waited, dirty and cold, in Prague.
Many who stay behind share the same anger and frustration. "People are leaving East Germany because they have lost all hope of change, because the Communists are closed to Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika," said Reinhard Schult, one of the founders of the biggest new opposition movement, New Forum. "We can no longer tolerate the kindergarten atmosphere or being constantly led by the nose on all fronts."