Mass Emigration from GDR to FRG

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has offered economic aid to the East, partly in an attempt to persuade East Germans not to leave their country. The ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) and the opposition Social Democrats (CSU) are alike in their belief that a reunified Germany is not without complications. In addition, the SED, or the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, is reluctant to let go of the inroads it has made in establishing the most affluent MarxistLeninist government in Europe. As Josef Joffe writes in World Press Review:

Using ponderous circumlocutions, the leader of the left, HansJochen Vogel, has address his fellow Germans in the East thus: 'We implore all those who are thinking about emigration to examine carefully whether they would not rather support the process of democratization in the GDR.' (1990, p. 14)

In the same article, originally published in the conservative Times of London, Joffe quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the chronicler of the French "ancien regime," as being right when he said that "a bad government is most grievously endangered when it starts

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t history has shown otherwise. The tide of refugees that began in the summer of 1989 is probably linked to the freedom of information which East German citizens have gained in the last 15 years as part of the process which began with the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. Although conditions in East Germany were not growing appreciably worse by 1989, glimpses of a better life gained by more freedom of information had given East Germans something to strive for"a third generation of East Germans gradually got a firsthand knowledge of alternatives in the West" (Thies, 1990, p. 1). In his "Obituary for the Berlin Wall," McAdams (1990) tells us that new party leadership, under new East German premier Hans Modrow, regarded new evidences of internal corruption as the result of an influx of insidious influences from the capitalist world"currency speculation, drug smuggling, espionage, and even NeoNazism" (p. 365). It was in this frame of mind, McAdams tells us, that Modrow made his illfated proposal to reconstitute the East German police force, the Stasi. An article in The Wall Street Journal from March 1990, concerns allegations of Stasi activity. An East German party leader named Ibrahim Boehme was accused of being
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Unity Party, East German, West Germany, Angeles Times, East Germany, Social Democrats, Hans Modrow, East Germany's, Wall SED's, Ethnic German, east german, mcadams 1990, west germany, socialist unity party, unity party, east germany, socialist unity, social democrats, christian democrats, west german, political parties, los angeles times, obituary berlin wall, federal republic germany, chancellor helmut kohl,
Approximate Word count = 2203
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)