European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 19, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Unification jitters fear optimism Mark transition by Don Tate staff writer in their dizzying Rush to Freedom and unification with West Germany and with the solid new Jingle of real Money in their pockets it s easy for a visitor to assume that East germans Are Riding smooth and smiling to a state of economic and political Bliss. What they Are Riding one soon discovers is a rough nervous track foil of fear of the unknown which includes about everything. Quot the trick said one German Leader As the unification express roars toward the last Stop in a miraculous year toward destiny Quot is to make sure no one gets crushed under the  but when two fundamentally different economic and political species suddenly wed the living arrangement could seem More like a train wreck than marital Bliss. Quot the changes Are so rapid we have to read everything in the paper every Day to keep track Quot sighed an overwhelmed woman feeling the hot breath of capitalism for the first time. She says the country s Early euphoria soon burst under the pinprick of everyday anxieties. Quot because we May not have a Job tomorrow or a company to go to or a House we can afford to live  for years Many disillusioned comrades had lusted for the goods and freedoms of the West while paying lip service to the slogans of the East in a country that had been a Model socialist state following in the tracks of Moscow and boasted the highest living Standard in the Warsaw pact much time was spent shaping the Quot socialist personality a proclaimed to represent All that was Fine and progressive in Man. Building new socialist Man in an earthly sharing Paradise sounded theoretically glorious. In practice meeting phony quotas in Safe jobs in a dreary series of five year plans that Jet Quality and incentive go to hell brought Only a certain drab Security located nowhere near Paradise. And then last fall the gradually failing system that needed Walls and Iron curtains to Seal in its workers suddenly began failing All at once. Like a shot fast Germany fell from being a shining red Star in the socialist sky to accepting handouts fan estimated $60 billion a year in direct Aid to come from West Germany under capitalism. With their own people s army deserting by the thousands East germans looked up to see an army of powerful Deal makers invading from the West. 1 he visitor finds this Divorcee from bankrupt communism like a woman with one bad marriage hardly out the door before being body slammed into another one with an. Economic Jabba the hut threatening to Swallow her whole. Suddenly she s continued on Page 12 july 19, f99g stripes Magazine 17