At first, as Frank Sinatra used to sing, they had high hopes -- pie-in-the- sky hopes. After 40 years as the poor relatives, the East Germans were going to be welcomed into the big house. Following decades of yearning for the good life, as they had seen it nightly on West German television, 16 million East Germans would be inside the supermarket with real money in their pockets. In the country's first-ever free election last March, people acted not only on the principle of one man, one vote, but also for one mark, one mark. Last Sunday, when monetary union between the two parts of the country took effect, they began to collect.
The shopping spree had actually started months earlier. East Germans moved beyond the oranges and bananas, so popular when the Wall first came down, to consumer electronics and cars. Everywhere, new brand names began to beckon: Panasonic, Miele, Zanussi. Magdeburg became Marlboro country. The West German chain Spar opened a supermarket 40 km east of the border and stocked it with Western goods. East Berlin got its Benetton.
Yet with DM-day come and gone, the mood is uneasy. While West Germans fret over the blank check they have signed, East Germans fear that before they enter the earthly paradise, they may have to pass through a purgatory of inflation and unemployment. They are also concerned that they may prove to be easy pickings for predatory Westerners, or Wessis in G.D.R. parlance. Certainly, the Wessis are coming. Hotels are packed with Western businessmen eager to cut deals, whether the object of desire is a state-owned company, retail floor space, or a summer home on the Baltic.
Inflation worries arise because state subsidies in the G.D.R. kept many prices artificially low. Rent and the costs of basic foods and public transport typically were a fraction of those in West Germany -- less than one- fifteenth in the case of rent. On the other hand, consumer durables were outrageously overpriced -- and an open market will bring them down.
East Germans earn less than half the average West German wage, and the 1-to- 1 money conversion, the key part of the economic-union agreement, does nothing to alter that. In part, this is rough justice. Productivity in the G.D.R. is perhaps only a third of West Germany's, so employers will be paying less but also will be getting less.
For nearly a half-century, East German workers have held lifetime jobs in companies that had only to meet production goals, without much concern for costs, quality or innovation. The madness in this method is symbolized by the Trabant, the plastic-enclosed, four-wheel motorcycle posing as a small car. Until last November, customers waited up to 15 years for the privilege of buying one for then 22,000 ostmarks, or about $4,000; currently, the Trabant cannot be sold at any price.