BERLIN, March 18 (UPI) -- The Politburo member who with his news conference opened the Berlin Wall and the last leader of communist East Germany are lobbying for two contrary political ideas, 20 years after Germany's peaceful revolution.
"The border is open, nothing special to report." Those were the words an officer from the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) directed at Politburo member Guenter Schabowski in the evening hours of Nov. 9, 1989.
It was the day that would go down in history for the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that marked the beginning of the end of a communist state that had divided Europe for five decades.
"And all this guy had to say was 'Nothing special to report,'" Schabowski, 80, remembered with a smile when he talked to the foreign press corps this past Friday in Berlin.
Schabowski himself had (unwillingly) sparked these historic events: In a news conference earlier that day, the Communist Party official told a flabbergasted group of international journalists that restrictions to traveling abroad and even permanently leaving the country were lifted, effective "immediately." Schabowski had misunderstood the note East Germany's last leader Egon Krenz had given him minutes earlier: The traveling restrictions were indeed to be lifted, but not before the next day.
Tens of thousands of people swarmed to the Berlin Wall, and the hopelessly outnumbered border guards, having not been informed, didn't know what to do. After a standoff that lasted for hours, they opened the gates and let the people through to West Berlin. That no single shot was fired remains one of the true miracles of this peaceful revolution. "The calmness of the people and the coolness of the border police prevented a bloodshed," Schabowski said.
Today, nearly 20 years later, Germany is preparing for the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which culminated in Germany's reunification on Oct. 3, 1990.
Schabowski has since transformed from a diehard Communist (who on Nov. 9, 1989, hoped and believed that open borders would save East Germany) to one of the system's fiercest critics, calling it "essentially flawed." This has caused some of his former allies, including Krenz, to denounce him as a traitor.
Schabowski and Krenz, who in 1989 decided to overthrow longtime leader Erich Honecker to save East Germany by opening up to Soviet-style reforms, today are bitter foes. Both had been convicted of murdering those people who had tried to cross the Berlin Wall and ended up shot dead by border guards.
However, only Schabowski, after what he calls a "slow but steady process," began to renounce his former convictions as "misguided." Krenz, on the other hand, has turned into a hero for the so-called Ostalgie (nostalgia for the "Ost," or East) movement, made up of people nostalgic for life in East Germany who are ignoring the unfree side-effects it came with.
Krenz has never really renounced communism and has repeatedly defended East Germany and its leaders. Observers say he would love to join the anti-capitalist Left Party, the successor group to the East German communist party. Aided by social and economic problems, the Left Party over the past years rounded up voter support by offering populist answers to complex problems.
It had 53 parliamentarians elected to the German Bundestag, enjoys a delegate presence in 10 of 16 state parliaments, and governs Berlin in a coalition with the Social Democrats. Latest polls put nationwide support for the Left Party at roughly 11 percent, but figures for eastern Germany race up to between 20 percent and 27 percent. Political experts say the mainstream parties need to pay attention to the Left Party's growing popularity in eastern Germany if they want to contain it ahead of the upcoming federal elections this fall.
Notwithstanding the Left Party's political success, Germany's domestic intelligence agency is monitoring the party and individual members for anti-constitutional tendencies. Schabowski has denounced the group for its ties to the old elites and its unwillingness to come to terms with its Stasi past.
That doesn't bother Krenz much. He visited Berlin last month to promote his new book, which details his life in prison. At a reading session, Krenz ended up talking mostly about the forgotten positive aspects of East Germany, motivated by questions of people who addressed him with "Dear Egon" -- much like an old friend.
Germany has no reason to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he said. East Germany "was no monster, and it deserves better treatment," Krenz added, looking somewhat nostalgic himself when the audience, made up of mainly elderly people, erupted in loud applause.
