(4 of 4)
Perhaps the most cogent explanation for G.D.R. loyalty is that the existing state insulates the people against the shock of the outside world. "We look at the West, and it's a fairyland," says an East Berlin housewife. "Our attitudes are different. We grew up more modest. We missed out on a lot, but we make do. Over there it's all money, money, money. We don't have it." There , is the touch of an inferiority complex as well, and given widespread West German complaints about new burdens, it is perhaps justified. "Maybe it's best not to unify the country," says an East Berlin pensioner. "The West would probably treat us as second-class citizens, like migrant workers."
Reunification is not on the current agenda -- not on East Berlin's nor on Bonn's. Certainly not reunification as old-fashioned nationalists still imagine it: a kind of anschluss of the G.D.R. by West Germany. "We did not throw off the Soviets to become a colony of the West," says Peter Grimm, a dissident writer.
A straightforward yes or no to reunification is too simple in so complex a constellation. NATO and the Warsaw Pact will have to shed their military dimensions. The European Community will have to define its attitudes toward Eastern Europe. The two Germanys will want to expand the web of existing agreements between them, an interweaving of interests that neither can unravel without harming itself. In years to come, perhaps a German confederation within an expanded European Community may emerge, but in an age of new perceptions, it may not matter what it is called.
In the meantime, with its borders open to the West, the G.D.R.'s sense of self and of self-confidence may actually be strengthened, but only if democratization and liberalization move apace, if the Communist dictatorship is dismantled, and if the people can partake of the freedoms enjoyed by their countrymen on the other side.