United Germany

The first crisis of united Germany is massive unemployment from collapse of the spy biz.The Arab world would have more moderate leaders if they didn't get bumped off with such frequency.

DUESSELDORF, Germany -- The Cold War's most notorious spymaster, Markus Wolf, went on trial yesterday in united Germany, contending that he faces "absurd" charges of treason, bribery and espionage "because the public wants to see a scapegoat."Cool and occasionally wry, the former chief of Communist East Germany's embarrassingly successful espionage network defended his 30-year career of stealing the West's most precious secrets as an honorable duty to a sovereign state whose laws he did not break.

Q. How can you get Blue Cross of Maryland to process a claim fast? A. Make it for executive entertainment expenses.United Germany is making it a crime to have spied for East Germany against West Germany but not the other way round.You may soon earmark 10 percent of your tax payment for deficit reduction. The other 90 percent is for debt service.

Q. How can you get Blue Cross of Maryland to process a claim fast? A. Make it for executive entertainment expenses.United Germany is making it a crime to have spied for East Germany against West Germany but not the other way round.You may soon earmark 10 percent of your tax payment for deficit reduction. The other 90 percent is for debt service.

The Germans are as uncomfortable with united Germany as the rest of Europe is.Coyotes are immigrating to Murrlind and Murrlinders want them deported to Pennsylvania where they came from.Russia and its sidekicks have joined the World Bank and IMF and if that doesn't sink the world monetary system, nothing will.Everybody in the Middle East talks is making conciliatory gestures and none of them knows how to react to the other side's.Uh-oh. The special prosecutor suspects the House banking scam was as crooked as it looks.

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.

DUESSELDORF, Germany -- The Cold War's most notorious spymaster, Markus Wolf, went on trial yesterday in united Germany, contending that he faces "absurd" charges of treason, bribery and espionage "because the public wants to see a scapegoat."Cool and occasionally wry, the former chief of Communist East Germany's embarrassingly successful espionage network defended his 30-year career of stealing the West's most precious secrets as an honorable duty to a sovereign state whose laws he did not break.

The unification of Germany today changes the world. No longer will Europe be divided by an Iron Curtain bristling with the armies of the two superpowers. No longer, conversely, will France and Poland and Germany's other neighbors find shelter under the protective umbrellas of the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead, the Americans and the Russians will have to exercise what is left of their old duopoly of power not through hostility but through the kind of cooperation vividly etched in the Persian Gulf crisis.

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 -- A yearlong battle for possession of united Germany's government tilted decisively in favor of Berlin yesterday when Chancellor Helmut Kohl gave the city his backing."

Berlin. -- As Germany suffers a series of crises and its leadership wallows in inaction, many people are wondering what happened to the country's chancellor, Helmut Kohl.Wasn't he the man who led East and West Germany to unification, who stood in front of the flood-lit German parliament building on Oct. 3 1990 and proudly watched as the German flag was hoisted? Wasn't he touted as the personification of united Germany -- big, strong and successful? What has gone wrong?The simple answer is that nothing is the matter with Mr. Kohl, only that our perception of him is correcting itself now that the period of unification is over.

The Germans are as uncomfortable with united Germany as the rest of Europe is.Coyotes are immigrating to Murrlind and Murrlinders want them deported to Pennsylvania where they came from.Russia and its sidekicks have joined the World Bank and IMF and if that doesn't sink the world monetary system, nothing will.Everybody in the Middle East talks is making conciliatory gestures and none of them knows how to react to the other side's.Uh-oh. The special prosecutor suspects the House banking scam was as crooked as it looks.

The first anniversary of Germany's political reunification finds that nation uncomfortably conscious that its destiny projects eastward into lands of turmoil as well as westward where it treasures membership in a democratic alliance.In its first year of unity, Germany was reluctant to play an active military part in the Persian Gulf conflict outside the NATO theater of operations but was eager to support an independent Slovenia and Croatia as Yugoslavia slipped into civil war. It took the lead in providing economic assistance to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union while pleading with its Western allies to join in to correct the political balance.

Salzburg, Austria - Is there really an Austria? Until last year that was a question Austrians could avoid. It cannot be avoided now: The reunification of Germany has made that impossible.Joining ''Europe'' might seem the way round the question. Austria is near the head of the queue of countries applying to join the European Community. But public opinion is not convinced that this is a good idea.There are several reasons why many Austrians don't want to join the Community. For one thing, rather than solving the problem of Austria's relationship to Germany, it seems to threaten even more German influence on Austria than already is the case, since Germany is the most powerful economy in the European Community.

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.

British Prime Minister John Major, in total repudiation of predecessor Margaret Thatcher, has declared he wants his country to be "where it belongs, at the very heart of Europe." Not only that. He uttered these words in Germany, and he did so just three days after Mrs. Thatcher was in the United States warning against "a federal European superstate" that would be dominated by Germany.So great is the rift thus opened in Tory ranks that the London Financial Times reports Mrs. Thatcher may break publicly with her supposed protege if Mr. Major accepts a significant loss of British sovereignty to the European Community.

BERLIN -- The price of German unity was pushed another notch higher yesterday when West Germany agreed that the Soviet Union would receive $8 billion for the withdrawal of its 365,000 troops in East Germany.The agreement, one of the last hurdles to Soviet approval of German unification, was confirmed after weeks of haggling over the price tag. The Soviets had asked for nearly twice the amount, saying it was necessary for transportation, rehousing and reintegration of the troops, who will leave over the next four years.

The most radical military reorganization of NATO in its 42-year history is premised on the need to maintain a U.S. commitment to the defense of Europe while permitting drastic force reductions dictated by the end of the Cold War and budgetary constraints. It also seeks to reconcile the undoubted power of a united Germany with the understandable concerns of Germany's neighbors and, indeed, its own people.This translates into an emphasis on multi-national forces capable of immediate or rapid reaction to crises anywhere in the European area, plus main-force units much reduced from present size that will have the traditional mission of resisting a Soviet nuclear or conventional attack.

BERLIN -- A yearlong battle for possession of united Germany's government tilted decisively in favor of Berlin yesterday when Chancellor Helmut Kohl gave the city his backing."