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Germany: Building a World Without Walls
| Article
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20118 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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2 / 1992 |
2,721 Words |
| Author
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Lee Edwards
Lee Edwards is senior editor for the Current Issues section
of THE WORLD & I. His latest book is The Power of Ideas: The
Heritage Foundation at Twenty-five. |
The euphoria of unification that was everywhere in Germany when it occurred has been replaced by a sober realization of the price of unification. Nevertheless, Despite national concern about mounting expenditures and tensions between east and west Germans, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany is proceeding with one of the great experiments in freedom of this century: It is attempting to integrate the 16 million brainwashed inhabitants of a Stalinist state into the political and economic life of a modern democratic nation with-in the span of one generation.
The problems are myriad, ranging from the resolution of property rights to dealing with the environmental devastation left by the communists to the proper disposition of millions of Stasi (secret police) files. The costs are astronomical: Some 500 billion marks (approximately $310 billion) have been committed, but no one is sure whether even so enormous a sum will be sufficient. The opposition is formidable including those inside the country who charge that Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised unity with no new taxes and then reneged, and those outside the country who believe that one Germany will inevitably become a dangerous Germany.
Who Owns What?
In what used to be East Germany, the essential question is, Who owns what? Who gets the land, houses, apartments, factories, and other property that used to belong to the Communist Party?
With regard to farmland, it is generally known who owned the land before communization, and farms can be returned to their original owners. But problems arise where buildings have been built on land that used to belong to Herr Schmidt, who is demanding the return of his land whether there are new buildings on it or not. As a result, the price of land has soared, and some property owners already see themselves as millionaires, who will "retire to Miami and live in the sun."
Resolution of ownership questions has been given to the Treuhandanstalt, an independent federal organization charged with privatizing, restructuring, or closing down the original 8,000 industrial companies owned by the East German government. The Treuhand's motto is "We want to sell," and consequently investors with a plan that guarantees the creation of new jobs are given priority over former owners. In its first year, the Treuhand sold some 3,100 companies at a cost of 12 billion marks with a commitment of 70 billion marks in future investment by the
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