They’ve Only Just Begun : Huge social, economic woes face new Germany

The most lasting political consequence of Europe’s most terrible war has finally been annulled. Tuesday there were two Germanys, today there is only one, a single state faced with the formidable task of recombining two long-separated populations into a single people. When the victorious World War II Allies divided Germany 45 years ago they laid the basis both for different political systems and for a profound cultural growing-apart. Reunification is a political event, but it is also a process of reconciliation that begins with today’s re-emergence of a single national sovereignty.

Germans on both sides of the now-erased dividing line are candidly apprehensive about their future. So are Germany’s neighbors, not so much because they fear the revival of a militarily aggressive Germany--very few do--but because they now must contend with a Continent-dominating economic superpower. The rebirth of a unitary German state does more than change the political map of Europe. It also changes the way the world will now regard a Germany whose size, wealth, talents and drive all but compel it to assume an international leadership role.

Reunification, so long awaited, will be painful and socially disruptive. The sudden and total collapse of Communist control in East Germany starkly revealed how thoroughly bankrupt and corrupt that state’s command-driven economy had become. In coming years the prosperous western part of Germany will be required to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to bring the shattered economy and tottering infrastructure in the east up to its standards.

The human costs will be heavy. Thousands of inefficient state-run enterprises in the east are doomed to disappear, and millions of jobs along with them. By the end of this year, 25% of the east’s labor force could be unemployed. By next year it could be 50%. Under Communism, employment was guaranteed, even if the pay was poor and the labor force sullenly unproductive. Prosperous Germans grumble about the heavier economic costs they are being called on to bear. But the greatest burden will fall on those in the east, most of whom are ill-equipped for the challenges, responsibilities and rewards of a competitive, free-market economy.

Economic upheaval and social disruption are the seedbed of political extremism, and certainly not in Germany alone. The breakdown of authority in the east has already given rise to some incidents of radical violence. It wouldn’t be surprising to see more as hardships increase and as class resentments between richer and poorer Germans grow.

For all that, the 62 million western Germans remain a people whose fidelity to their post-war democratic institutions seems firm and unequivocal. Now comes the task of educating 16 million eastern Germans in the same rights and obligations of democracy, a political system they have not experienced since Hitler’s accession to power 57 years ago. The new Germany faces many challenges. This is by no means the least--nor the least urgent--among them.