After the republic

Richard Bagley interviews Hans Modrow, the last leader of the German Democratic Republic.

In 1989 the German Democratic Republic was preparing for 40th anniversary celebrations on October 7.  It never made it to its 41st. Twenty-two years on eastern Germany remains ravaged by the takeover by the west that tore through its social structures and smashed up its state-owned economy, plunging it into decline.

The population in the east now stands 2 million lower than at the point known simply as Die Wende, "the turn."  Whole villages stand empty. Others have no young women or few young people at all. Pay in the east is lower. Unemployment higher.

When young people across the GDR marked the country's 40th birthday in 1989 by taking to the streets to demand change they cannot have anticipated the fallout from their actions.

But Hans Modrow, the last socialist leader of a country that no longer is, understands why they marched. At the time he was a party leader in Dresden, east Germany's third largest city which was razed to the ground during WWII.

And, sitting in the history-drenched surroundings of London's Marx Memorial Library, he recalls with encyclopaedic knowledge both his wartime generation's establishment of the GDR and the events and failings that led to its downfall.

At 83 he remains a razor-sharp, politically active socialist, unlike so many who fell by the wayside once control over power and privilege returned to capitalist hands. The GDR was formed when he was 21.

"Because of the experience of the war we were clear that there should never again be war and never again fascism," he says.

Modrow recalls the big demonstration in Berlin on October 10 1949 that celebrated Wilhelm Pieck's election as president and the birth of a new country.

"This can only be understood by those who experienced this post-war situation in that part of Germany.

"Shortly before that the new Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl had said that the youth were still wanderers between two worlds. They hadn't got rid of fascism, but they had not yet connected with the new Germany."

Modrow says that the experiences of this founding generation gave rise to two guiding principles in the new country - "that it should be anti-fascist and it should be democratic and that this can only happen with socialism."

But he adds: "What we only understood very much later is that the generation that was born later didn't have this experience - they were born under socialism.

"Our mistake was failing to acknowledge that the youth of the 1980s also wanted to achieve something new."

He recalls an attitude that people had a good home and a stable life, so they should be satisfied.

"But youth want to strive for something, they want to strive for something new!" he says animatedly.

The ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) was far too late to acknowledge this.

And Modrow says this point was rammed home by the protesters' chants in favour of the last Soviet leader.

"In Autumn 1989, when the youth of the GDR demonstrated in Berlin, they called out 'Gorby' and not the president, Erich Honecker.

"In 1949 they went to our president, but in 1989 the youth had nobody they could connect with."

It was into this political maelstrom that Modrow was to be thrown to prominence.

"I saw in the middle of 1989 that changes had to be made," says Modrow, who sat on the powerful central committe.

"There was no longer any dynamism or development in the GDR."

But he says that no discussion about the growing protests and their demands was allowed. Even the replacement of 77-year-old Honecker on October 18 did not herald a change of heart.

"The biggest mistake on this day was to think that if Honecker was gone that with a new general secretary the problems would be solved.

"I wanted a discussion of the situation in the country but it didn't happen. The overwhelming majority of the committee opposed it."

This effectively created a five-week power vacuum.

"This was a time when every day counted. A month was like a year."

Then, despite no official orders, the borders to the west were opened when massive numbers of people began gathering there following an accidental announcement.

"Our luck in this situation was that the people policing the borders held their heads high and opened the gates when the masses came," recalls Modrow.

Within days Honecker's replacement Egon Krenz had resigned. Modrow was elected his successor by the country's parliament.

Four days later on November 17 Modrow set out a platform focused on reforms within the GDR and a partnership treaty with west Germany.

"The aim," says Modrow, "was on the one hand to prevent conflict within the GDR and also to prevent interference in its internal affairs."

But hopes that the east could agree favourable terms on behalf of its people were soon dashed hundreds of miles away in the Soviet Union.

Modrow sensed growing instability under Gorbachov and, when the Soviet PM declared that rouble-tied economies should hitch themselves to the dollar, he realised that this would spell the end of the GDR.

"I came to the conclusion at that point that everything possible had to be done to defend the interests of the people of the GDR in the event of German unification."

Modrow met the Soviet leader on January 30 1990 to discuss a three-stage reunification process that he estimated would take three years.

"I worked on the basis that such a Germany should be militarily neutral."

But the US wanted a united Nato Germany. Gorbachov quickly ceded to their demand.

"On this basis Gorbachov laid the ground for Nato to ride into the east. I can understand those in Russia today who say that Gorbachov was a traitor," says Modrow.

The pace of the Soviet political retreat was startling.

Far from the three-year process that Modrow had envisaged, it took less than a year for west Germany to take over the GDR.

When the right-wing Christian Democrats triumphed in the east at March 1990 elections it laid the ground for an all-Germany poll in December.

The Christian Democrats under Helmut Kohl again triumphed.

His government set up an agency which handled the firesale of state assets.

The west held all the economic trump cards.

State housing in the east was sold off to wealthy westerners, particularly in Berlin, while pensions and wages were pegged at a lower rate for the east than the west.

It was during this period that the Party of Democratic Socialism came into being, born in 1990 from the ashes of the SED. And at those December 1990 elections Modrow was one of 17 PDS MPs who made the strange journey to Bonn to sit as GDR politicians in the west.

The existence of the PDS, although founded in adversity, has since helped give birth to a new left force in all of Germany called simply The Left.

But Modrow is candid about the challenges facing this coalition, which also drew in trade unionists and smaller parties of the west.

The average age of the membership in the east is over 65, while in the west it's just under 50.

"The tendency for a lot of young people in Germany is that though they are active in politics, they don't join parties," he says.

And he admits that the Left Party youth, which numbers 4,000, is active in universities and colleges but has a limited reach among working-class youngsters.

However Modrow also believes the party has played a crucial role in keeping socialist solutions on the national agenda.

It can continue to do so, so long as it doesn't make the mistake of turning to the right to become more accepted by the political establishment, he says.

"Germany already has a social democratic party, it doesn't need two. The moment it becomes a social democratic party it may as well dissolve itself."

He acknowledges that it faces a tough election battle next year with polls putting it several points lower than its last vote. But he has some advice for his party colleagues.

"We need to have more unity between east and west within the party and a united culture.

"We have concluded a united programme, but this programme has got to come to life. It can't just be adopted from above. The party membership has to be actively behind it.

"So there's a lot more to be done."

But he believes that the right-wing policies pursued by the traditional parties, not least Europe's self-appointed "leader" Chancellor Angela Merkel, could open a window for social advance.

"The social tensions in Europe won't go away. And Germany itself is not free of social tensions," he says.

"The trade unions in Germany are slowly coming to the view that social resistance is necessary.

"This could present the Left with a chance to project ourself."

Hans Modrow was in London for the ‘Praxis: Marxism in the 21st Century’ conference at the Marx Memorial Library.  The photo shows Hans Modrow with then West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the World Economic Forum in 1990. This article first appeared in The Morning Star. Richard Bagley is the Morning Star’s deputy editor.