Word: westing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
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...
...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...
...what a party it has been for the Germans. Through the Wall and the rest of the border fences, the flood of East Germans to the West continued all week long. Ten million East Germans -- nearly two-thirds of the population -- obtained permits to cross over. By the end of the week, upwards of 4 million had made the journey, crowding the autobahns and filling stores. Most had eyes bigger than their pocketbooks. They financed their mini-splurges with a one-time $55 in "welcome money" provided by West Germany...
...relief of politicians on both sides, no more than 15,000 East Germans elected to stay permanently in the West, joining the 225,000 who had fled before the border opened. Some -- East Germany says as many as 10,000 -- may return home. But the human hemorrhage stopped, confirming what common sense should have told East Germany's leaders years ago: people who feel free have no need to run away from home...