Eastern Germany

BERLIN -- Vera Sudrow peeked into the immaculate sleeping compartment and stifled a giggle."To think that the party bigwigs slept in this train. I wonder if they had breakfast in bed?" she said mischievously.As the gleaming green train pulled out of Berlin's Zoo station in the early morning and headed north for the Baltic Sea, Mrs. Sudrow and her five friends continued their inspection of the cars that once made up East Germany's official government train. Once the Communist country's rail version of Air Force One, Train 004 carried top leaders, such as then-party leader Erich Honecker, his generals, chief henchmen and assorted emissaries, around the East bloc.

Chilling as it was to read of German youths parading through Dresden last month spouting Hitlerian hate, this phenomenon needs to be seen in the context of jolting change and disruption in the eastern, formerly Communist regions of newly united Germany. Eruptions of nationalism and racism have been unwelcome fellow-travelers of freedom throughout what was the Soviet bloc. Though eastern Germany may be no different, its history is, and therefore the world watches.Unlike West German youngsters, East German youngsters were never taught that their nation bore responsibility for the horror and Holocaust of the Nazi era. Communist indoctrinators put out the line that capitalists and imperialists gave rise to Hitler, and they were all in residence in West Germany.

BERLIN -- More than a year of public debate over united Germany's orientation ended yesterday with a decision to move the German government from Bonn to Berlin.The vote followed an emotional 12-hour debate in the German lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, that split political parties down the middle and threatened to continue endlessly through the night.In the end, 337 parliamentarians voted for Berlin while 320 backed Bonn. There were two abstentions and one invalid ballot."The decision was for Berlin because only Berlin symbolizes our country's unification," Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen said.

BERLIN -- A Soviet soldier guarding an arms depot in eastern Germany opened fire on Friday on three uniformed German army officers apparently in the act of photographing the Soviet base, wounding one of them in the arm, officials said.It was the first serious incident involving the two armies since Germany was united last year and Soviet forces began to withdraw from what had been East Germany.The Bonn government said that the Soviet action was "in no way justified" and ordered an investigation.

LEIPZIG, Germany -- In the basement of the local city hall, Josef Fischer has a simple graph that gives a rough idea of the dramatic social upheaval in former East Germany.It looks like a fir tree, and it charts the number of people living in each age group. At the top, where very old people are grouped, the tree is narrow, but it widens and grows until it reaches the most recent years, where its branches are the longest.Last year's and this year's branches, however, are a shock. Instead of being the longest, they are stunted; they resemble war or plague years in which nearly whole generations are wiped out. The reason is not a normal catastrophe, but the deep-rooted uncertainty that has caused tens of thousands of parents not to have children.

There is a direct connection between protest demonstrations in eastern Germany and the unseemly wrangling between Bonn and Washington over the financing of the Persian Gulf war. This week, President Bush and German Finance Minister Theo Waigel sought to put the dispute behind them, with the latter promising prompt payment of Germany's $6.4 billion pledge and Mr. Bush expressing appreciation.Nevertheless, the matter will probably continue to rankle. Many Americans were vocally unhappy over Germany's reluctance to supply troops during the war, even in support of NATO ally Turkey, and about illegal German shipments of chemical warfare materials to Iraq.

LEIPZIG, Germany -- In the largest demonstration in eastern Germany since the fall of communism, at least 60,000 people marched yesterday for an end to unemployment and the uncertainty that is gripping their lives.For many it was the first demonstration since the regular Monday night demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989 and 1990 for German unity and against the East German Communist government."I decided to go out on the streets again. I just couldn't sit inside and do nothing. My wife is unemployed -- she got her notice today, on Easter week.

POTSDAM, Germany -- At the Christmas carnival here, Hans-Georg Fesser and his wife Susanne watched their daughters sail high through the air on an amusement park ride, the girls' blond hair whipping around their excited smiles.Then the ride stopped, as surely as the ceremonies and firework-studded celebrations that marked the drive toward German unity over the last year ended with Sunday's re-election of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.Now, both Mr. Kohl and eastern Germans like the Fessers will have to hunker down to manage -- on their vastly different scales -- life in the post-euphoric reunited Germany.

BERLIN -- Helmut Kohl took his place in history as the first chancellor of a reunited Germany last night, after the first free all-German elections since 1932 swept his conservative Christian Democratic Union party to victory.Mr. Kohl had staked his political career on an unwavering commitment to swift unification of eastern and western Germany, and last night, the beaming chancellor embraced the reward."This is a day of joy," said Mr. Kohl, speaking in Bonn. "This is a great result, and we may take pride in it."

BERLIN -- A near-breakdown of the former East German legal system is resulting in cynicism about the law and increased crime.Almost all the 1,493 judges and 1,237 state attorneys are suspected of having cooperated in some way with the much-hated Stasi secret police, but there is almost no way of checking their background.While legal officials try to sort out the mess and import judges from western Germany, crime has been soaring."It's a big job to reinstill respect for the law. For decades there was no real justice here, and people lost respect," said Hans-Joachim Jentsch, justice minister of the eastern German state of Thuringia.