Word: east
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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They are also on average far younger than the East Germans who beat a path to West Germany's door in the past. According to polls conducted for the Ministry for Intra-German Relations, more than half of the refugees are under 30, and only 17% are over 40. Surveys showed that fully 86% have vocational or professional training, and an equal number held down professional jobs in East Germany. All of those polled owned television sets back home, almost two- thirds owned private cars, and 15% had weekend homes...
Clearly, most of the new flood of refugees are not compelled westward by economic distress. True, the consumer offerings in West Germany far outstrip what is available back home, but East Germany enjoys the best living standard of any East European country. Most of the refugees, however, define a better life in terms that cannot be measured in deutsche marks. Of those polled, almost three-quarters said they were driven by the lack of freedom of expression and travel. Almost as many said they wanted more personal responsibility for their own destiny. As Heide Zitzmann, 37, a schoolteacher, summed...
Mixed in, largely unnoticed, among the thousands of East Germans making the trek westward was a handful of Rumanians and Soviets. That trickle could portend problems for all of Europe. While the Germans are a special case with their historic claims to a single nationhood, other East Europeans are eyeing Hungary's hole in the Iron Curtain and fantasizing about life on the other side...
...what you will about imperialism, it does have a way of keeping the natives from killing one another. This truth is entirely color-blind. What was true for, say, British India and East Africa is true for Europe. For 40 years the brutal Soviet dominion over Eastern Europe suppressed a myriad of nationalisms and kept things quiet. Now that Soviet power is in retreat, things are quiet no more...
This mood of independence was further on display during Mikhail Gorbachev's visit in April, when West Germans showed an enthusiasm for the Soviet leader so wild that the Economist aptly dubbed it a "Gorbasm." Now, with West Germany absorbing huge numbers of East German refugees, talk of reunification grows louder...