Former GDR journalists coping with democracy

By Harry Bhaskara

BONN (JP): After reunification in 1990, media investors flocked to eastern German to tap its readership market.

But, five years after, the majority of western Germans still know very little about their five new federal states.

Part of the reason is a prejudice toward the east Germans. And, since eastern Germans stick to their newspapers even though many have changed ownership, western German newspapers have a difficult time penetrating the eastern market.

Also, western German newspapers prefer not to talk about western German feelings on problems arising from reunification, said Sibylle Quenett from the Kolner Stadtanzeiger daily in Koln.

On top of this, western Germans are generally not interested in going to east Germany, she said.

"They are afraid that the restaurants might not be good or they can't find a good hotel. But the prejudice is slowly disappearing," she said.

In the last five years, journalists have started to swap places. Eastern German journalists have found work in western German newspapers and western German journalists find jobs in eastern German newspapers.

Dr. Erich Follath, the foreign editor of the Der Spiegel magazine in Hamburg said they now have ten eastern German journalists on their staff of 200.

In eastern German, a really successful journalist may become a chief editor, he said, but in most cases the leaders are western German and the staff is mixed.

Like in other industries, the transformation of the press is often accompanied with pain.

Value systems, attitudes and daily living are worlds apart in the former separate countries.

Brandenburg government spokesman Erhard Thomas recalled that in the beginning it was a very strange situation.

"They didn't dare ask questions," he said referring to eastern German journalists, "the function of critical journalism has to be learned."

Dr. Thomas Loffelholz, the chief editor of Die Welt in Berlin, said eastern German journalists wrote for their leaders in contrast to western journalists who wrote with the readers in mind while searching for an interesting slant.

"When they (eastern German journalists) apply for jobs they don't include their articles. In the past they were put in jobs by the party," he said.

The individual is emphasized in the west, whereas under the communists the community counted the most. It was dangerous to have an opinion, so it was difficult to set up an enterprise or make a decision.

"It takes a long time for them to accept that they are independent. It would take all their courage to claim their rights," Thomas said.

Wolfgang Georgi, a former eastern German journalist who now works with the Berliner Zeitung daily, recalled that they used to have a "book of taboos". They couldn't publish stories about horses, for example, because there was no wheat for the horses then.

The Berliner Zeitung used to be the unofficial organ of the SED communist party (the socialist Unity Party of Germany). In 1991, it was acquired by a big west German publisher. The paper now has a circulation 450,000.

During the Berlin trade fair in the old days, Georgi recalled, journalists were told to refrain from saying bad things about the U.S. in the hope that the trade fair would be a success.

"This is probably a wrong calculation of the situation since U.S. businessmen were not interested in what was being written in the newspapers," Georgi said.

During a normal week, journalists were regularly summoned by government ministries and were briefed on what to write, he said.

"But the thing is that GDR couldn't go on anymore because the leadership could not lie to themselves forever. They can't live continuously in a false world," he pointed out.

The "false world" included regularly publishing planned economics statistics and reporting that the target had been fulfilled or surpassed, which wasn't true, he said.

Asked if things had changed since the newspaper was bought by a western German, Georgi said censorship had disappeared.

"But there has been a different limitation in a different direction. You can write whatever you want as long as it sells," he said.

This can create comical situations.

"All of a sudden, someone would say there has been no stories about animals so on the next day there is a splash picture of giraffe. And one story about Asia has to be dropped," he said.

In the past, Georgi said, the chief editor followed the line of the party but now he or she must follow the wish of the owner.

"There is a censorship of money. There is a subtle economic pressure or hire and fire principle," he said.

It is not good for a newspaper to only think about how to increase the copies sold, Georgi insisted.

"It must promote ideas," he said.

Nevertheless, Georgi said he enjoyed the freedom of expression and no longer felt like a second-class citizen.

Asked about whether the injection of 150 billion marks (US$105 billion) every year to eastern German economic reconstruction had any meaning to him, he answered that it certainly affected the living standard in the east.

"But the profit gained by those companies investing in eastern Germany is channeled back into western Germany," he said.

Michael Erbach, another eastern German who is now chief editor of the Potsdamer Neuste Nachrichten in the historical eastern German city of Potsdam, recalled that after reunification he discovered that two of his colleagues were members of the Stasi.

"And there were two serious attempts in late 1980s to lure me to become a member of the Stasi," he said, referring to the notorious East German secret police.

Erbach was in Berlin when the wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989. He wrote the story the next day. He said censorship had finished by then.

"But I did not think of reunification at that time and I am glad that eastern Germans returned home in the evening. Only later did I realize that reunification was the only sensible alternative," he said.

Asked to compare the working atmosphere, he said the pressure is high now.

"But I am aware that the publisher purposely picked an eastern German to lead the paper," he said.

Window: "Eastern German journalists wrote for their leaders in contrast to western journalists who wrote with their readers in mind."