European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 02, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Reunification one year later merger marked by distrust and disillusionment Rostock Conrad Welas continued from Page 1 nation of Quot wessies Quot As the westerners Are called and  Quot As far As i m concerned they can put the Wall Back up Quot said Bettina Pfeiffer a West Berliner. Pfeiffer Sells painted chunks of the Berlin Wall each sealed in Clear plastic. She operates from a neat White clothed table near the Brandenburg Gate. Quot unification has brought us nothing but trouble and higher taxes. Berlin has Only become dirtier and More crowded with East germans and poles Quot she lamented. Quot what have we gained from unification an entire country Are you kidding have you Ever been Over there it s terrible i Don t need it nor do i need  soon after unification Gunter Schulenberg a Public affairs official for the . Air Force at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin rented a residence in the Eastern part of the City. Quot moving there was a big mistake Quot Schulenberg said. Quot when i Cross Over in the evening to go Home i go through a time Warp. I fee like i m going Back to the 1950s. There s nothing Over there a no grown neighbourhood infrastructure such As the Corner bar and other things. I m searching feverishly for a place Over Here in the  Quot i know How he feels Quot said Gabriella Lukas a press spokeswoman in the Berlin City government. Quot i worked in Brandenburg after the Wall came Down and found it difficult to adjust. I found it easier to do things when i lived in the Ivory coast than in the former East Germany Quot she said. Quot i think there s a Small minority in the East that can make the adjustment to our Way of life quickly. The rest will take several  German satirist Matthias Richling struck a revealing chord when he said Quot As Long As our Brothers and Sisters were trapped behind the the Iron curtain we were willing to die for them. But do we really want to live with them Quot a poll by the incas Institute in Bonn revealed recently that 21 percent of West germans wish the Wall were Back a and so do 12 percent of East germans. A the reasons Are cliches a a said Lukas. Quot the wessies Call the possies a Lazy dumb and a Bunch of whiners the possies Call the wessies a arrogant self entered con  of course there a a Kernel of truth in those accusations but the general atmosphere Between the two is currently very  the incas poll confirmed a powerful Quot we is them Quot feeling in the country the poll showed 69 percent of the West germans consider themselves diligent workers but Only 34 percent of the westerners think their cousins in the East share that virtue. Three quarters of the easterners consider westerners egotistical but they ascribe that fault to Only 22 percent of their fellow easterners forty three percent of the easterners believe they profit More from unification than westerners while 34 percent of the westerners feel they be lost something through unification in perhaps the most startling finding. 60 percent of those polled on both sides of the former Iron curtain feel they be neither lost nor gained anything by unification Quot the atmosphere changes  said Peter Luther the Berlin City parliament member who also is director of City health services. Quot everyone wanted unification Quot said the former East Berliner. Quot it was our greatest wish but people had no idea what the ramifications of unification meant. I think 20 percent of the discontent has to do with the higher  according to a government official in Bonn payroll taxes have climbed about 5 percent this year and significant increases Are in the offing especially with the value added tax on All goods and services which is now set at 14 percent. Quot in the past coping with life was easier in the East Quot Luther said. Today the easterners complain that their lives have become too complicated. A they have new Laws and rules to learn and live by. In the past people in the East always had a Job. It was usually a bad Job a unhealthy and often not productive a but it was a Job. Of course now they complain because we re faced with nearly 40 percent unemployment Quot he said. Quot at the same time they re driving new Western cars and have been abroad on vacation. They accept the easy part but Are frightened by the Tough part a the future of rebuilding a free Market  another new politician from the East is Konrad Weiss. Before the Wall came Down Weiss was a film maker and a Leader in the citizens movement that toppled the communist regime. Now he has a seat in the German parliament in Bonn As a member of the bund is 90 Union �?T90 party which makes him one of the few of those frontline reformers in the German government. Weiss is optimistic. He thinks his country is headed in the right direction politically economically and socially. Quot the problems Are mental Quot he said. Quot easterners still prefer to avoid political confrontation and that a a mistake in a democracy. In the East we still have three generations raised under authoritarian Rule a 12 years of nazis and 40 under communism. Quot one year after unification we re faced with Western stubbornness and the easterners falling into a kind of nostalgia for the Security they had Quot Weiss said. His greatest concern is the intolerance of foreigners shown in the Eastern states. He noted that racism is nothing new in the Region and that it was promoted by the communist regime. Quot the government used racism As a tool against the polish when the Solidarity movement became popular in that country. They used racist arguments against Israel throughout the past. Racism is not something that happened because the Wall came  Weiss said that he expects a financial recovery in four to five years. Quot then i will return to making  Esther Schapira a television journalist based in Frankfurt has been reporting from Eastern Germany for two years she is horrified by the displays of racism in the East the attack on minorities the Neo nazi activities. Quot there was always a mood of intolerance there but it s become much worse it s turned into a Radical  Schapira said attacks on refugees on the streets and in their Homes Peter Luther a Hamburg a Bremen a Hannover Berun Germany a Magdeburg a Essen Cologne Bonn Phillips Hal Vacha Leipzig _ Erfurt # y a Dresden i is  Frankfurt Nurnberg i Stuttgart a Munich a amps have forced the government to expand police Protection in the new German states. Quot they seem to have a very different idea of what s right and wrong than we do Quot Schapira said. Quot Young and old feel it s absolutely legitimate to set fire to apartment houses where the refugees have been housed by the state even at the Cost of killing someone. The main thing is the foreigners leave their country. Its a society that has been brutalized in its  Schapira said the emotions Are fuelled by frustration Over joblessness and the sense of being second class germans. Quot there s the very real danger that the next election will put a Large Neo fascist party in parliament Quot she warned. Hajo Funke a University professor in Berlin said his research shows that Only 1 percent of German youth is organized in Neo nazi parties. However his polls show that 24 percent approve of attacks against foreigners and 40 percent of the youth in the East find the presence of foreigners disturbing. Funke considers the hate Levels a temporary aberration the outgrowth of the turmoil Over the demise of a society and the rebuilding of another. Peter Jakob a spokesman for the City of Berlin acknowledged that the people Are discouraged. Quot but the situation in t As bad As the general mood. We re moving City Hall from Schoneberg to the pre War City Hall in the Eastern part of the City although it Isnit finished to show people Over there that positive things Are  Jakob Calls Berlin the litmus of German unification. Whatever works Here will work for the country whatever fails will probably fail elsewhere he said. Quot the problems in the East Are enormous and have to be faced All at the same time. We have a great unemployment problem horrifying pollution to Cope with the school systems have to be made compatible houses must be built and renovated we have conglomerates that need to be liquidated the heritage of the former state secret police the scandals in some East German medical institutions and the Ever pressing property  the most immediate obstacle he said is the property question. Until the issues of property ownership in the Eastern states Are resolved there will be no massive outside investment the Berlin official said. Quot much of the property confiscated by the communists originally was confiscated from jewish citizens by the nazis. We have to sort out this complicated problem before anybody can buy  another critical Point with the easterners is that they feel they be been overrun by the Quick Money artists who find the new German citizens easy Marks. On a broader scale they resent the army of Slick entrepreneurs suddenly in their midst. But not All germans Are pessimistic even those who be been Hurt financially. I am sorry that Berlin has been awakened from our sleeping Beauty slumber Quot said Barbel Hahn who has a Small Bookstore in the Kreuzberg area of Western Berlin. I had a Small Book store in Charlottenburg also in the West but when Berlin was chosen capital my rent went from 400 Marks to 4,000 Marks. I can t make that Selling books Hahn said nevertheless she is pleased. I Welcome unification and would t have it any other Way although i hear plenty of people complaining Quot Page 2 a the stars and stripes wednesday october 2, 1991