The article on the GDR from "Le Monde diplomatique" is not unfair, but not too clear.  As one who lived in the GDR from 1952 on (I was a McCarthy-Era exile), I watched its development with a mixture of hope and dismay, with the latter increasing in later years, but always with a strong measure of troubled approval.  I have constantly pondered and debated: Why did the experiment fail? What does the current "Ostalgie" mean?  Which way are things now moving, and is all this relevant to those who believe in socialism - or want to believe in it?

        I was convinced that the GDR was indeed a socialist state, as I understand the term: i.e. all major industry and finance were taken from private hands and nationalized.  This was especially gratifying in Germany where big industry and finance sponsored the Nazis, built up Hitler and gained immense wealth through slave labor, while destroying half Europe and many millions of people.

        By almost completely eliminating the profit system, it became possible to achieve the best aspects of the GDR; goals still dreamed of by millions: free education, with living expenses covered for higher education, free medical care, from medicines, hospital care and visits to freely chosen doctors or dentists up to monthly stays in rehab spas.  Add free abortions, cheap vacations and summer camps, free child care, school lunches and milk for a few pennies, special help for
single parents and large families.  Throw in rents at about 5 percent of wages, dirt-cheap public transportation, unchangingly inexpensive groceries and subsidized, very cheap books, theater, music and cultural or athletic activities. Best of all, I felt, the obscenities of unemployment, homelessness and economic insecurity were almost completely eliminated.

        This explains some of the current nostalgia, since nearly all of it has disappeared with unification.  But why, then, did the population oppose this seemingly Utopian society, often leaving when possible (even illegally and dangerously) and finally voting against it (though with about 16 percent supporting it to the very end, not five percent as mentioned)?  Above all, it proved unable to match the production of consumer goods achieved in the West.  There were geographical and historical reasons for this, one of them because the United States poured every possible assistance into West Germany, which the war-torn USSR was patently unable to do after World War II; indeed, in the early years it took out a great deal of industrial reparations, putting East Germany at an additional disadvantage.  The socialist system was new and untried in Germany and made, not always voluntarily, many of the same blunders made in the USSR and other east bloc countries.

        It must also be admitted, I fear, that unending hopes of "making a million" and far greater fears of losing one's job are both more conducive to ever more and varied production than the economy in the GDR, which was far more easy-going, where it was not uncommon to have a political meeting or visit the factory doctor, dentist or even barber or grocery shop on work time, and where the labor shortage offered a comforting assurance that if one didn't like a job or a boss one could easily find another.  That is less productive, I admitted, but I wondered whether we are born to toil away our lives making commodities sold only because they are cleverly advertised and often soon replaced.  In the GDR, despite fewer luxuries and annoying (but not desperate) shortages, nearly everyone could live comfortably with no giant gaps between rich and poor.

        But the extremely clever advertising on western TV, a spin-off of Madison Avenue techniques which nearly everyone watched, led to growing envy and disappointment at the sparseness of luxuries, a feeling of missing out on what western cousins and uncles were buying, and the ban on travel to Paris, Rome, St. Tropez and New York, which seemed more attractive than Prague, Budapest, Leningrad or the broad beaches of Bulgaria.  The thin choice of available cars - with
amazing waiting lists - and the scarcity of southern fruits were key factors in rejecting the GDR and socialism (the 1989 events were often called a "banana revolution").

        But there was another key factor.  The immense West German and US propaganda offensive was a challenge beyond the ability of the GDR leadership.  Most top men, nearly all tried and true veterans of the war against fascism, were limited by their own traditions - the authoritarianism of the Stalin years - and the bitterness of the years in exile, prison or concentration camps.  They saw the threat from West Germany as a continuing offensive by virtually the same economic and political forces which built up Hitler and they wanted to prevent the slightest inroads.  Their analysis was in many ways correct but their methods were completely wrong; instead of winning people they antagonized them.  This was worsened by swarms of stupid dogmatists and careerists, who thundered at honest, well-meant criticism as "voice for the West and a
return to capitalism".  Sometimes they really were, but the reaction was so crude, counterproductive and occasionally brutal that towards the end even some system supporters turned to resigned withdrawal or sometimes opposition.  Since the west encouraged such symptoms a vicious circle ensued - which became a fatal whirlpool.

        But for those not involved in opposition to the state life could also (no, not always) be pleasant and rewarding.  East Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden in particular offered some of the best theaters, opera houses and orchestras in all Europe, books and films were cheap and varied, with an amazing number of US offerings. Getting TV and radio news "from both sides", East and West, made interested GDR citizens perhaps the best informed group in the world.  Yes, we had the Stasi, often stupid, intrusive and occasionally threatening - but my FOIA files show me that the FBI was hardly less present and pervasive.

        It was indeed a very mixed bag.  But with no GDR, German rulers are out for blood.  The high jobless rate, about 20 percent in the East, is the excuse for radically cutting the whole social welfare system.  Many people have been marching in protest, the leaders are frightened and making small revisions in their very brutal plans.  Will that help?  Many East Germans who rejected the old GDR are having doubts.  Few wish the old GDR back, more and more may be wondering what a socialist economy under a better star might bring.  So am I.