Kathmandu:

After World War II, the victorious forces split the world into two blocks. The West, led by the US, relied on free markets and an open society. The East, led by the USSR, relied on central planning by government, with businessmen and markets having no role to play.

Germany itself was divided, West Germany became an independent nation, and allied itself with the democratic and economically free West. East Germany came under the Soviet bloc. It sealed itself off from the West, prohibited its people from travelling, eliminated businessmen and capitalism, and declared itself a worker’s paradise.

West Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, prospered, becoming one of the world’s leading exporter, its currency the Deutsche Mark was Europe’s strongest, its companies the world’s envy, and ‘made in Germany’ became a coveted label. East Germans remained an impoverished lot, their suffering after World War II was not any less than privations they had endured during the war years.

East Germany had to prevent its people from leaving. Nobody would voluntarily stay in the hell it had become. The people were prevented from exiting by barbed wires, watchtowers, and concrete of the Berlin Wall. Guards had orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to leave for the West.

West Germany had no such restrictions. Its people, wealthy, happy, and having the means to travel, could go anywhere and did. East Germans watched on TV the prosperity, which could be theirs if they could just step across the border. They saw the department stores full of goods, and compared it with their own government-owned ration shops, where they had to wait for hours to buy bread. They saw their well-heeled Western brothers ride Mercedeses and BMWs while most of them had to walk, which was probably only slightly worse than riding the Skoda (car) a few had. They watched free elections in the West, while they had to suffer for decades under the socialist communist murderer Erich Honecker. They saw all this, and bided their time.

The time suddenly came on November 9, 1989. By that time Soviet Russia had shown signs of change under Gorbachev and dissent was being tolerated. In East Germany, as in the rest of the Soviet bloc, the masses were edgy, dissatisfied, and wanting an end to their misery.

The East German communist leaders sensing a revolution, thought it might be a good idea to let the troublemakers leave the country. However, as they had blundered in running the country, they blundered even more in making their intentions known to their people.

On that fateful day of November 9, the East German regime decreed that its spokesman Schabowski address a press conference announcing the new travel policy, which would be as liberal as that of the West. Schabowski, ill-trained in handling Western style questions from the press, made his historic and magnificent blunder, which led, within the next few hours to the dismantling of a nation.

The communist regime had decided that exit visas would not be required, and people could travel if they had passports. What Schabowski announced, under prodding by the Western media and in glare of TV cameras to his countrymen and the rest of the world, was, “Trips abroad may be applied for without meeting preconditions. Permission will be given forthwith. Permanent emigration may take place at all border crossings from the East to West Germany.”

“When does it take effect?” asked someone.“As far as I know, immediately,” replied Schabowski.

This was enough to send the East Germans scampering en masse to their country’s

border crossings.

The guards were simply overwhelmed. They could not shoot the entire population of their country. Under the sheer flood of numbers, the border gates gave way. The people flowed into the West and then demanded the Wall’s destruction.

Berlin Wall was taken down; pieces of it kept by people as souvenirs. With no one left to rule over, East Germany collapsed and was absorbed into the West. Germany became one again.

An experiment for creating a workers paradise had gone tragically awry. Are there any lessons for Nepal to learn from this failed experiment?

(The writer can be contacted at: everest@mos.com.np)