Germany: The Promise of Freedom; D. Boudreaux and T. Plofchan, Jr.

167 Germany: The ProlDise of Freedom by DonaldJ. Boudreauxand ThomasK. Plofchan,Jr. I n September 1990, less than a year after the Berlin Wall came crashing down but before the official reunification of Germany, we visit ed both West and East Germany as participants in the eighth annual Multiplikatoren Seminar. This seminar, which is sponsored by the West German government, brings together young American and German professionals in order to create personal, cultural, business, and intellectual ties between the United States and Germany. Of cou~se, the fall of Communism and the reunification of Germany dominated the discussions of the 1990 seminar. Visiting Bonn and Berlin during this very excit ing time in Europe's history provided unique insight into the events of the past year in Germany and in those nations that just recently escaped the totalitarian stranglehold of Communist rulers.

This essay identifies lessons culled from our visit to Germany-lessons applicable both to emerging and to established democracies. Lesson1: Communismfailedmiserably. Communism's failures are evident everywhere. The most memorable moments of our visit occurred in Berlin where, because West Berlin's hotels were still filled to capacity with refugees who had fled Communist rule, our German hosts put us up in East Berlin's Hotel Unter den Linden. This hotel is said to be among East Berlin's finest, Don Boudreaux and Thomas K. Plofchan, Jr., are studying law at the University of Virginia. Mr. Plofchan is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Government Department at the University of Virginia and is the U. S. Director of the Multiplikatoren Seminar. and indeed, East Germany's premier rock star was a guest while we were there. Upon arrival at the Hotel Unter den Linden we saw firsthand the glo ries of Communism.

The rooms in this hotel are about the size'of a large walk-in closet. We do not exaggerate. A bed here is nothing more than an elevated piece of ply wood with an aged and thin pad laid across the top. The linen is threadbare and stained, as are the tow els in the bathroom. Whenever a light is turned on, dozens of cockroaches can be seen scampering across the furniture and the floor. In one of our rooms, the window could not be closed, much less locked. Hot showers had to be taken no later than 6:45 A.M. because by 7:00all the hot water is gone until mid-afternoon. Of course, lessthan-Iuxuri ous hotels can be found in capitalist societies as well, but such hotels are never billed as being among the finest accommodations available. Other aspects of our visit provide a more telling contrast between capitalist and Communist soci eties. Perhaps the greatest testament to Commu nist "efficiency" is the lack of technical services that citizens of capitalist nations take for granted.

When one of us attempted to place a wake-up call to the other, whose room was two floors up, this proved to be impossible. Forget about direct room to-room dialing; it doesn't exist. So the caller tried to place the call through the hotel operator (who, thankfully, spoke reasonably good English). The caller asked the operator to ring room 602. After several minutes of clicking and clanging, the oper ator apologized for not being able to complete the call. The operator calmly explained that the 168 THE FREEMAN • MAY 1991 "sixes"in the hotel's telephone switchingsystem weren'tworkingthat day! The lack of modern telecommunicationswas alsoapparentwhentryingto calloutsidethe hotel. Onememberofourparty,dialingdirectfromWest Berlin, made a three-minute call to the United States.The price was $6.50. At the same time on the followingnight, this person placed the same three-minute call from our hotel in East Berlin.

But because there is no direct dialingfrom East Germanyto the U.S., the call was placedthrough the hoteloperator.The pricewas $28! Despite our hotel's shortcomings, it had the virtueofbeinglocatedlessthan a milefromwhere the BerlinWall once stood.(Incidentally,the offi cial East German name for the Berlin Wall was "the anti-fascistwall of protection."The idea was that the Wall was protectingthe citizensof East Germanyfrom the capitalisthordesof the West.) Withinminutes we were able to walk from ugly and poor East Berlininto attractiveand prosper ous West Berlinwhere even the third-classhotels appear to be immenselymore comfortable and convenientthan East Berlin'sfinest. We spent a good deal of time walkingbetween East and West Berlin.It did our bourgeoishearts good to stroll freely through Checkpoint Char lie-now nothingmorethanabandonedanddilap idated buildings.These buildings,however,still echo their horriblepast when Communistborder guardsbarked out commandsand stood ready to shootany East Germanfor the crimeofseekingto live as a free man or woman. These same border guardsalso causedWesternvisitorsto East Berlin to undergo agonizing minutes (and sometimes hours) of interrogation and intimidation before being allowedaccess into the supposedworkers' paradiseof CommunistEast Germany.

Butnow,standingsilent,the buildingsat Check pointCharlieno longerhouseimpedimentsto the movementof peopleand goods.The firsttime we crossedthisformerborderwe wereovercomewith elationat Communism'srecentdemise.Millionsof peopleonceheldhostageintheirownlandarenow free to go wherethey please,think as they please, workas theyplease,playastheyplease,andto own private property and contract freelywith others. This thought was inspiring.However,the second timewe walkedthroughCheckpointCharlieanger temperedour elation-anger at the thoughtof the atrocitiescommittedby theborderguardswho not so long ago occupiedthese crumblingbuildings, and evenmoreangerat the thoughtof the despots who gave authorityto theseguards. Lesson2: Peoplewhohaveexperienced Communismprefercapitalism. Of course, CheckpointCharlie is not the only part of the Berlin Wall to have crumbled. The entireWallis now all but completelydown. In one ofhistory'sgreatironies,the Wallis nowbeingsold in piecesto Westerntouristsby Germansfrom the east, Poles, and Turks who operate unregulated stallsalong its former path. In additionto selling piecesof the Wall,these upstartentrepreneursare also quite happyto sell to the highestbiddergen uine East Germanand Soviet armyuniforms.

An anecdote aptly illustrates the newfound entrepreneurial spirit that for so long was sup pressed by Communistgovernment.As may not be knownin theU.S.,thewesternsideoftheBerlin Wall was covered with graffitiwhile the eastern side was bare. Since the revolutionof November 1989, however,the market has revealeda greater demand for colored pieces of the Wall chipped fromthe westernsidethan for barepieceschipped fromthe easternside.We witnessedentrepreneurs fromthe easternsectionofBerlinapproachingthe easternsideofthe Wall,sprayingit withpaint,and thenchippingoffpiecesin orderto better meetthe demandsof tourists. Innate entrepreneurialabili ties are awakeningat great speed in the formerly Communistsection of Germany.It is significant that not onlyis Communistrule dead in Germany, butitssymbolsarebeingsoldfor Westerncurrency in a veryfree and competitivemarket. The overthrow of the Communist regime in East Germanyallowedlibertyandthe free market to gaina toe-holdinEastBerlinevenbeforereuni ficationhadbeenofficiallyachievedon October3, 1990.In East Berlin,just a few yardsfrom Check point Charlie,a new Chineserestaurant recently opened. This restaurant looks like many of the Orientaleateriesthat arefoundin WestBerlinand alloverthefreeworld.Itsnameis writtenin bright and bold neon; its interior decor is quite elegant; and its front door sports signs that proudly announcethe restaurant'spolicyofacceptingVisa, MasterCard,AmericanExpress,and Diners' Club creditcards.

In addition, just across the street from this restaurant is a newly opened travel agency. DisGERMANY: THE PROMISE OF FREEDOM 169 Since the revolution of1989, the market has revealed a greater demandfor colored pieces of the Wall chipped from the westem side. played in its window was a poster of a beautiful woman lying on the sands of a tropical beach. The poster advertises TWA flights to Hawaii. The trav el agency also accepts all major credit cards. The new Chinese restaurant and the travel agency are solid evidence that capitalism has begun to creep into the eastern part of Berlin. It is only a matter of time before capitalism's creep willturn into a surge bringing greater prosperity and liberty to all the citizens of what used to be called the "German Democratic Republic." Lesson3: Rejuvenationcannothappen overnight. Regardless of how bright East Germany's eco nomic future may be, signs of its horrible centrally planned past remain evident. For example, under Communism's iron fist, only 7 percent of East Ger man households had telephones. Though this no doubt will improve in the future, it currently is still quite difficult (as described earlier) to make a phone call from anywhere in East Germany.

Another example of socialism's utter inability to provide for its citizens is seen in the bullet holes that today still mark many of East Berlin's buildings.These bullet holes-hundreds of them in each building-were put there by the invading Soviet army in 1945.Most of these buildings haven't been repaired, renovated, or even painted since World War II. The amount of capital required to bring this former "Communist jewel" up to minimum Western standards is awesome. The East German automobile is evidence enough of Communism's grotesque inefficiencies, as well as of the effort required to establish a pro ductive economy in eastern Germany. Called the Trabant, this car was nearly the only personal auto mobile found on East German roads during the three decades preceding the 1989 revolution. The Trabant looks like an early 1960s economy car. Trouble is, it is far from economical. Its selling price was equal to the average yearly wage for an East German worker. And the waiting list for a Trabant was approximately 10 years for citizens of East Berlin and 15 years for citizens of other parts of East Germany.

Once an East German finally acquired a Tra bant, he needed more than 30seconds to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour. According to Car and Driver magazine, this acceleration rate is 170 THE FREEMAN. MAY 1991 "slower than anything not rolling on eighteen wheels." A healthy Trabant's maximum speed is a measly 66 miles per hour. Also, in addition to being a pollution machine, the Trabant is danger ously unsafe.! A West German reported to us that, not long after the fall of the Wall, he was driving on a West German autobahn at night when he saw a flickering light just ahead. He slammed on his brakes. Moments later he realized that the flicker ing light he stopped to avoid was a lone candlein the rear window of a slowly moving Trabant. The candle was serving as the Trabant's taillight! The Trabant undoubtedly makes even the worst Amer ican or Japanese car built in the past half-century look like an auto connoisseur's dream.

With production facilities capable of producing only the level of "quality" evidenced by the Tra bant, much time, money, and effort must be expended before the eastern part of Germany will be able to compete with the West. Nevertheless, it is promising that eastern Germans now have the opportunity to compete without the heavy shack 1es of Communism weighing them down. Lesson4: A reunifiedGermanyposes no threatto worldpeace. Although there are obstacles to overcome, the Germans want the citizens of other democratic countries to look favorably upon their reunified nation. They want non-Germans to understand that there is little threat of the rise of a militaristic German state. America and the rest of the world's democracies can trust a unified Germany because of two fundamental differences between today's Germany and the Germany of the pre-World War eras. First, postwar Germany has joined the ranks of the world's most prosperous nations, and is inte grated into the world economic order in a way that wasn't true during the first half of this century. Ger many is a major exporter. Its economic prosperity is protected and furthered by production and trade with peoples of other nations. As long as Volkswa gens and Braun coffee makers are crossing German borders into other countries, there is little threat that Germany will send missiles and bombs across these same borders. No economically pros perous nation increases its wealth by bombing its trading partners.

Second, today's Germany is a constitutional democracy in which the military is solidly under civilian control, and a system of checks and bal ances characterizes the German federal govern ment. Democratic nations with such constitutional safeguards are not likely to be militarily aggressive. Because of these characteristics, which differen tiate present -day Germany from its past, Germans realize that military aggression is unproductive and would only lessen the world economic influence that their post-World War II leaders have worked so hard to acquire. The not-uncommon suggestion that Germans are especially disposed to sacrifice their wealth and position in the world economic order because of some expansionist forces inher ent in German blood is nothing more than a reflec tion of naive racism. Conclusion:Germany'sfuture is bright for Germans and for all free people. Of course, the most direct beneficiaries of the death of Soviet-dominated Communism in Europe will be the people who were prisoners of those totalitarian regimes. But people from every nation that trades with Germany and other former Com munist countries will have their lives improved by the burial of Communism. Eastern Germany's future promises hard work, to be sure, but it also promises freedom and prosperity for a people who have long been thirsting for both. In their attempts to quench their thirst, former captives of the Com munist regime in eastern Germany will create wealth and prosperity which, through their trading practices with other nations, willbe shared with the entire free world. D 1. CarandDriver,December1990,pp. 89-cn.The quota tion in the text is foundon page94. Thisarticlealso reports the resultoftheirTrahantroad test.Notsurprisingly,the car receivedan incrediblylow score.