Devising a Sound U.S. Policy Toward an Elected East German Government

Introduction

On 18 March 1990, the 16 million
people of East Germany had the first
opportunity since 1932 to vote in free
elections. In casting their ballots, the
East Germans thoroughly repudiated the
communists, providing a near majority to
the center-right parties. These parties
formed a coalition government with the
Social Democrats on 9 April, one which
excludes the communists from power
altogether. On 14 April, the newly
elected East German parliament adopted a
resolution endorsing incorporation of its
territory into NATO as part of a unified
German state.

Importantly, at virtually the same
moment and following discussions with
Secretary of State James Baker in
Washington, D.C., Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze made clear that his
government was “not persuaded by the
arguments we heard to include the unified
Germany in NATO.”

While the developments in East Germany
are exceptionally promising for the
future evolution of Germany toward a
unified and democratic state, this time
of transition requires a carefully
thought-out U.S. policy which can help
reinforce the pro-democratic groups in
East Germany and support the West German
government’s position that a unified
Germany should remain in NATO.

The Significance of the
March 18 Elections

The election process itself affirmed
the desire of the overwhelming majority
of the East Germans for genuine democracy
and their sense of political
identification with the main political
parties of West Germany. Although there
were more than 60 political groups in
January 1990 and 23 were listed on the
ballot, 70% of the votes cast went to the
parties backed by and now affiliated with
the two major party groups in West
Germany: the center-right CDU/CSU and the
democratic socialist SPD.

The campaign was particularly
noteworthy for the direct and highly
visible role played by West German
leaders and parties. This role clearly
translated in the minds of many voters
into tangible evidence of incipient
unification, whose economic terms were an
important issue in the election.

Summary of the March 1990
Election Results

With 94% of those eligible to vote
participating, the election represented a
massive repudiation of the Communist
Party (which received just l6% of the
vote) and a major endorsement for the
center-right parties, especially the
CDU-led Alliance for Germany (with 48% of
the total). Exit polls suggest that a
major reason for the much worse than
expected performance of the SPD (22%) in
its area of dominance during the
pre-World War II Weimar Republic is that it
proposed a much slower process of
reunification while the CDU-led
Alliance and the Free Democrats (with 53%
of the vote) agreed with Kohl on a rapid
process of reunification.

Recent polls indicate that 91% of the
voters in East Germany favor
reunification. It may be that the
overwhelming success of the CDU-led
coalition was mainly due to its
endorsement of unification on the fastest
possible timetable. It is worth noting,
however, that the general disenchantment
with socialism (only 25% feel positively
about it) may also have contributed to
the center-right’s success.

After some weeks of discussions, the
SPD reversed its original opposition to
joining a governing coalition with the
Alliance and, on 9 April 1990, agreement
was announced on a Grand Coalition to
encompass the CDU/Alliance, the Free
Democrats and the SPD. The government,
which will take office on 17 April 1990,
will include the CDU leader Lothar de
Maziere as Prime Minister and eleven
CDU/Alliance cabinet ministers. The SPD
will take seven cabinet seats including
Foreign Affairs and the remaining six
cabinet seats will be divided among the
other parties (with a Lutheran minister
from Democratic Awakening to hold the
defense portfolio).

These decisions portend several
important prospects for the immediate
future:

• The Grand Coalition will have the
  2/3 majority in parliament needed
  to change the East German
  constitution. This should enable
  it to take the steps required for
  speedy reunification.
• The political responsibility for
  the next steps will be shared
  among all the leading
  democratic parties.
• The new government has a popular
  mandate to negotiate with West
  Germany on reunification, a key
  prerequisite for its effective
  participation in the
  “two-plus-four” talks
  on reunification.
• The communists are excluded from
  the government which should
  facilitate the rapid dismantling
  of the previous regime’s coercive
  institutions.
• There is explicit agreement on
  the part of the new government
  that a reunited Germany should
  remain in NATO — in principle, a
  major and positive step. At this
  point, however, that position is
  predicated on Germany being
  denuclearized and on NATO’s
  renouncing any first-use of
  nuclear weapons — conditions
  that would have the effect of
  jeopardizing NATO’s deterrent
  capability and eliminating the
  U.S. force presence in Central
  Europe.
• The leading role of the East
  German CDU should facilitate
  cooperation with the Kohl
  government on the many and
  important practical issues of
  unifying the two Germanies, e.g.,
  agreement on monetary union and
  on the rate of conversion between
  the East German and West German
  currencies.

Dismantling the Coercive
Apparatus

Every communist dictatorship rests on
three key institutions of internal
control: the party, the military and the
secret police. In any country seeking a
transition to democracy from dictatorship
there is always a risk that the elected
government will have authority in some
areas — such as the economy — but that the
coercive apparatus of the former regime
will remain substantially intact,
thereby continuing to pose explicit (or
implicit) threats to the new government
and population. Therefore, the
transformation or dismantling of these
institutions poses a major challenge for
the new government; if successfully
accomplished, such changes provide major
defenses against the restoration of a
communist regime by coercion.

The Party

In the fall of 1989, the East German
Communist Party had a membership of 2.3
million. Even after all the initial
revelations of corruption, leadership
changes and reorganizations, it still
obtained l,892,000 votes in the 18 March
1990 election. Moreover, in the capital
city of Berlin the communists obtained
30% of the vote.

These data underscore the fact that,
even though the East German communists
have pledged to change and become
participants in democratic politics (as
their co-ideologists have done in many
other nations), the party may yet retain
a cadre capable of disrupting or
otherwise subverting the fundamental
reform program sought by the vast
majority of East Germans. At the very
least, this large and, presumably,
well-placed group represents a
significant intelligence (and possibly
physical) threat to the government
expected to be formed by early 1991 to
rule a unified Germany.

The Army

The East German army had a strength of
163,000 in the fall of l989. The former,
communist government of East Germany
announced in February 1990 that the army
would be transformed into a much smaller,
all-volunteer force. As of December l989,
about 80,000 of its members were reported
to be working in the civilian economy
(e.g., coal mines, hospital wards,
sanitary functions, and factory
production), obliged to replace workers
who had emigrated West.

Reportedly, several hundred East
German officers have applied to enter the
West German armed forces. The West German
Defense Ministry said that while soldiers
might be accepted, it would be extremely
difficult for officers to be
admitted. Presumably, this comment
reflects at least a partial recognition
of the security nightmare that would be
inherent in integrating
communist-recruited and -indoctrinated
military personnel into West Germany’s
armed forces — and, therefore, into
NATO’s alliance structure.

The Secret Police

Statements by the former East German
government (and non-governmental
estimates) placed the strength of the Staatssicherheitsdeinst,
the State Security Service or detested
secret police (universally known as the
Stasi) at about 85,000. The Stasi was
said to have had an estimated 130,000
informers and computerized files on about
5 million East Germans.

The secret police have ostensibly been
dissolved, but a newly elected member of
the East German parliament from a
democratic party recently noted that
while “the technical structure is
gone, we can’t be sure there isn’t a
second structure.” In fact, even
after the East German government had twice
announced the dissolution of the Stasi,
there are a number of indicators that at
least important elements of the
organization continue to function:

• In mid-January 1990, the West
  German Minister of the Interior
  said in an interview in Bunte
  magazine that there was “no
  sign that agents have been
  withdrawn. The division of the
  Stasi responsible for espionage
  — the Hauptvervaltung fur
  Aufklaerung (HVA) or Main
  Administration for Reconnaissance
  — is functioning as it was in
  Honecker’s time.”
• A leading West German paper, Die
  Welt, wrote on 29 January
  1990 that “The East German
  government has not kept its
  promise of December” to end
  the tapping of telephone calls to
  West Germany, postal censorship
  and contacts with East German
  spies in West Germany.
• The vice president of the
  anti-communist resistance in
  Angola stated in February 1990
  that hundreds of East German
  personnel continue to prop up the
  internal security and
  intelligence apparatus of the
  Angolan communist regime.
• Virtually none of the estimated
  thousands of East German spies in
  West Germany have surfaced,
  defected or — to public
  knowledge — been caught or
  expelled.
• Reports indicate that much of the
  Stasi spy apparatus has simply
  been transferred to Moscow’s
  direct control and
  protection. This including
  published charges that Stasi
  files and personnel are being
  moved to Soviet military bases in
  East Germany and to the Soviet
  Union.

Clearly, absent a complete and
effective termination of the Stasi, its
operations and its continuing ties to the
Soviet Union, there is a significant
danger that this apparatus — perhaps in
combination with the residual communist
party and elements of the East German
military — will serve to promote
interests inimical to genuine democracy
and liberty in a unified Germany.

A Recommended Approach for
U.S. Policy

There are a number of actions the
United States should take in the coming
months:

• Remain firm that a
  reunited Germany should be a full
  member of NATO. The Bush
  Administration is to be commended
  for quickly and explicitly
  rejecting the Soviet suggestion
  that Germany might be a member of
  both the NATO and Warsaw
  Pact alliances. On April 11, the
  White House correctly called this
  “another formula for
  neutrality” and reiterated
  U.S. support for “full
  membership of a united Germany in
  NATO.”
• Accordingly, the United States
  should press for the rapid
  withdrawal of all Soviet troops
  from East Germany and its formal
  withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.
  Under no circumstances should a
  unified Germany be obliged to pay
  costs associated with maintaining
  such a Soviet presence on German
  soil.
• Assure that U.S. military
  forces remain an integral part of
  deployed nuclear and conventional
  deterrent in Central Europe,
  including in Germany.
• Provide regular and
  public reports of continuing
  hostile international actions by
  East German entities to
  include espionage, support for
  aggressive foreign regimes and
  technology theft and/or illegal
  transfers.
• Such reports should also address
  the progress being made toward
  the dismantling of the former
  East German institutions of
  coercion, especially the secret
  police. Such public
  information that is objective and
  authoritative could be of
  inestimable help to the East
  German democratic leaders.
• Encourage West Germany to
  offer amnesty and establish a
  special fund for cash rewards for
  former East German intelligence
  agents, officials and military
  officers who provide reliable
  information on past, present and
  possible future hostile
  activities of the East German
  regime.
• Stipulate that U.S.
  acquiescence in liberalized
  export controls for high
  technology transfers and
  multilateral financial assistance
  to East Germany be predicated
  upon a demonstrated rupture of
  all East German ties with the
  coercive apparatuses of the
  Soviet Union.
• Insist on the immediate
  diversification of East German
  oil and gas supplies away from
  the Soviet Union, which currently
  delivers 123% of East Germany’s
  consumption — the balance being
  exportable surpluses over and
  above domestic needs. In
  the context of a unifying
  Germany, maintaining this
  inordinate reliance on Soviet
  energy supplies serves only as a
  kind of “payola scheme”
  to move at least $3.5 billion
  annually into Moscow’s coffers.