Communists incorporated under united Germany

After German unification, the communist party of East Germany has not been banned. The following is an interview on this matter with Dr. Dirk Kroegel, Advisor for Parliamentary affairs at the Senate of Berlin, in Berlin. The articles on this page are the second report in a series based on a visit to Germany last month.

Question: Do the east Berliners still support the communist party strongly?

Answer: The PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) yes, this is something you can't explain very easily. Just imagine, anybody who wanted to do a career in the communist system moved to east Berlin as the party was located here and the government.

So these people are still living in their houses, they don't want to move, they don't have money to move and it is very hard for them to integrate into a system which they fought against in the past.

So it's a psychological problem and it will be solved only by the course of time.

Q: What about the younger ones?

A: The younger ones are adapting. We do not have problems, but of course there are some protests, not only against the political system, but also about matters concerning their lives. As you know, part of the 40 years of their lives was suddenly swept into nothing. This is also a psychological problem to overcome.

The communist party also absorbs these protests and of course there are those who have some nostalgic feeling for the GDR (German Democratic Republic) because apart from a totalitarian state one also lives a normal private life which has normal positive sides.

I mean anybody could live with the happy time of their life. And if you find that this does not count anymore there will be some resentment ...

Q: Do the younger ones want communist ideology?

A: No, the younger ones do not have a political aim at all. They have realized that the communist system is not the system of the future and they adopt what the other young people do and get accustomed to it. Seventy percent of the young in the east still think that it (reunification) is still a good thing to do. we make a poll every three or four months.

Q: How strong is the grip of the Communist Party in Berlin?

A: There are five or six parties, the biggest one is CDU (the Christian Democratic Union) with 37 percent, followed by SDP (the Social Democratic Party) 33 percent, the Greens 15 percent, the Communist Party 13 percent in all of Berlin. In east Berlin alone SDP has 33 percent, the Communist Party 28 percent, CDU 25 percent and the Greens 12 percent. So the Communists are strong only in east Berlin, all over Berlin that party has the fourth position.

Q: Why don't you ban the Communist Party?

A: That is because we made a unification contract. The contract has given them the right to be part of the system. We could still ban them if we could prove that they are against the constitution. But this is hard to do because they say that they are part of the constitutional system. That is the problem. The federal government banned the communists once in 1955 and thus we never has a communist party (in West Germany) after that.

Q: In the unification process, the west is the winner, why couldn't you do it?

A: These is a psychological take and give process. Even though you think the west is the winner, I think you are right, it is a reciprocal process. I mean you have to know that unification has not been not easy to reach because it not only has depended on Germany but it has been an international process. Without the support from the West and especially without the consent of the Soviet Union which still existed then we couldn't have done it. (hbk)