Word: east
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...open meeting in the East Berlin headquarters of the S.E.D.'s central committee, party member Friedrich Dreke, 39, charged that the leadership had enriched itself at the expense of the people and had run a "foreign currency mafia" with illegal sources of income. Declared Dreke: "What we need is a complete change of command in the party apparatus right up to the post of General Secretary...
Wendehals literally means turn neck, the name of a rare bird that can twist its head 180 degrees; the word has been adopted by East Germans to refer to the thousands of Communist Party officials, from Egon Krenz, the current party leader, down to district secretaries, who overnight began to sound as if they had joined the pro-democracy movement. A favorite target is Gunter Mittag, the recently sacked Politburo member in charge of the economy. Described by the newly outspoken East German press as arrogant and autocratic, Mittag is being held responsible for wrecking the economy and cooking...
Krenz, almost pleading for credibility, faced an uphill struggle as popular demands for a reckoning grew. In East Berlin a government television team entered the so-called "forbidden city" of Wandlitz, situated on a lake outside Berlin, to show the public how the elite, including Krenz, had lived in luxury, enjoying servants, limousines and imported Western delicacies -- a life-style totally removed from the generally spartan existence of most East Germans. The compound is surrounded by a wall; no photographs of it have been published until now. Krenz moved from Wandlitz to a small apartment in East Berlin...
Krenz made it clear that he would fight to hold on to his job. "I am here to stay," he told factory workers near East Berlin. "I didn't take over just to push for change for a few weeks." Krenz said he was ready for an "unsparing investigation" of the party's mistakes and transgressions. He and the beleaguered Politburo also took a first step toward some form of power-sharing by proposing round-table talks on reform with non-Communist parties and legal opposition groups; the agenda would include changing the constitution, which currently gives the Communists...
...fact, each concession by Krenz seems to have created a fresh threat to his political survival. The opening of the borders to the West, for example, permitted a torrential outflow of East German marks, carried out by citizens who at last could use them, even at absurdly low rates, to buy something -- in the West. Fretted Prime Minister Modrow: "East Germany must not become a nation of speculators." The government's bewilderment underlined the problems encountered by a Communist leadership, albeit a reform-minded one, in coming face to face with the complexities of capitalism. Within a matter of days...