Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 2, 1990 TAG: 9007020086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: EAST BERLIN LENGTH: Medium
The official economic and social merger of the two Germanys essentially terminated East Germany's 40-year attempt to build a separate, Communist state, leaving only the hope that the disintegrating old structures would be replaced by a new prosperity.
As the new order went into effect at midnight, tens of thousands of East Berliners in the central Alexanderplatz cheered, popped champagne corks, tooted horns and lit firecrackers.
Thousands pressed toward a new branch of West Germany's Deutsche Bank, which had decided to open at midnight to start distributing West German marks.
The crush grew so heavy that some people fainted and several glass panes shattered, but there were no serious injuries.
The distribution of money continued more sedately when the 15,000 special distribution centers around the country opened at 8 a.m.
Armored vehicles escorted by police cars churned around the city delivering money where needed, and few people reported standing in line for more than 20 minutes.
The Berlin subway system, severed when the Berlin Wall was raised in 1961, was relinked Sunday, enabling people to travel freely on public transport throughout both halves of the city.
"This is a great day in the history of the German nation," declared West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who was the leading force behind the decision to meld the two economies quickly.
"The State Treaty is an expression of solidarity among Germans," he said, referring to the agreement that went into effect Sunday.
"Germans in the G.D.R. and in the Federal Republic are now again indissolubly linked. For now they are connected by a common currency, by the common order of the social market economy. But soon they will be linked in a free and unified state."
Kohl has been pressing to hold the first all-German elections by December so the process of unification can be completed.
But the economic merger effectively means East Germany already has surrendered economic sovereignty to West Germany.
Nothing stands in the way of West German entrepreneurs seeking to plunge into ventures in the East.
Appearing on a televised panel discussion, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere seemed to share the mixed excitement and anxiety of his countrymen as he described how he spent his last East German marks in a restaurant and then went home to toast the historic day.
"We face difficult weeks," he said. "For a certain time there will be lower wages and we will have to work harder."
Currency union promises access to places and goods denied to East Germans for more than 40 years.
But in the short run, it also threatens massive unemployment and dislocation as uncompetitive ventures restructure or fold.
From East Berlin to the country's smallest villages, clerks at banks, post offices and other special centers counted out crisp new marks Sunday against chits purchased last week.
In the crumbling blue-collar district of Prenzlauer Berg, Roswitha Kasten, the director of a branch of a small local savings bank, proudly surveyed the efficient distribution of money.
"People here only have to wait 20 minutes," she said. "It's all so well organized that if we start getting low on D-marks, we call the central branch and get new ones within an hour. It's brand new money, still in plastic wrappers."
In the village of Schoenelinde north of East Berlin, Werner and Ursula Graichen stood in a short line outside the local post office, which has one customer window.
"It's like New Year's," Ursula Graichen mused. "Suddenly at midnight everything is changed."
"The only sad thing is that it comes so late," said her husband, who gave his age as 53. "Our best years are gone now. It's too late for us to start over."
The currency exchange enabled most East Germans to exchange 4,000 East German marks for 4,000 West German marks, the equivalent of about $2,400, and to trade in additional East German marks at a less advantageous two-to-one rate.
To prevent a rush, the banks limited withdrawals to 2,000 marks per person for the first nine days.
A final tally after the first day indicated East Germans were approaching the exchange soberly, with no intention of squandering their first bundle of Western cash.
Officials said three million of the country's 16 million citizens withdrew money Sunday. The average withdrawal was 833 marks, for a total of 2.6 billion marks, they said.
The calm that governed the transactions reassured officials East Germans would not go on a spending spree, feeding inflation and wiping out the seed money for their new lives in a unified economy.
Stores were closed Sunday, but thousands of East Berliners spent the time studying shop windows newly stocked with West German goods.
by CNB