Exile for Heretics

A crackdown on nonconformity

The critique of the Communist Party's role in East German industry was tough and trenchant. "The indolence of the bureaucrat corresponds to the apathy of the worker, which, in turn, is matched by the disgust of the technical experts." The author was Rudolf Bahro, 42, a mild-mannered executive of an East Berlin rubber factory, and the quote was from his new book The Alternative--banned in East Germany, but a bestseller in West Germany. In an extraordinary act of defiance and courage, Bahro had agreed to be interviewed on West German television, which is watched by an estimated 1 million East Berliners every day. Bahro denounced Communist leaders as "exploiters" of the working class and proposed that true Marxists should rebel against the despotic socialism of Eastern Europe by forming a new League of Communists, harking back to Karl Marx's original group of supporters in London in the 1840s.

The day after that daring interview last month, agents of the East German Staatssicherheitsdienst (State Security Service) descended on Bahro's apartment and arrested him on charges of espionage. While he could be sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment, he is just as likely to be summarily exiled to the West.

Among Bahro's sympathetic listeners in East Germany was a high-level Communist bureaucrat who was moved to compose a laudatory article for the West German weekly Der Spiegel. The anonymous apparatchik declared that "Bahro's courage has earned him an honorable place in the history of the German workers' movement." Other officials were scarcely in agreement. Indeed, Bahro's broadcast has infuriated the East German leadership, which is determined to stamp out nonconformity, ranging from the manifest heresy of Bahro's book to mildly subversive rock-'n'-roll lyrics. Along with prison and harassment, East Germany's main weapon against protest is deportation. In the past few months, nearly two dozen ranking intellectuals and artists have been expelled from the country.

The first notable victim of the exile policy was Balladeer-Poet Wolf Biermann, 40, who was refused permission to re-enter East Germany last November after a tour in the West. Government officials, who charged Biermann with "defamation" of East Germany abroad, had evidently been stung by some of the jabbing questions raised in his irony-laden songs. The government's action provoked an unprecedented storm of protest, led by twelve prominent East German writers and artists. Many of those who signed the petition for Biermann's readmission were either coerced into withdrawing their names or fired from their jobs.

One signer was Sarah Kirsch, a gifted poet who was subjected to anti-Semitic taunts. GET OUT, JEWISH PIG! was painted over the entrance of her East Berlin apartment, possibly by the secret police. Last month she was pressured by authorities to leave East Germany for good. Another well-known poet, Reiner Kunze, has also been obliged to leave because of what he called "frightening methods of intimidation." His daughter was forced to leave school before her final exams because she was the child of "an enemy of the state," and his wife was summarily refused promotion at the hospital where she works. Kunze's book of verse and prose poetry, sarcastically entitled The Wonderful Years, contains many poignant vignettes about life in East Germany, especially the stultifying omnipresence of the security forces.

Other artists who have lately joined the exodus include Gerulf Pannach and Christian Kunert, two of East Germany's top rock musicians, and a well-known composer, Tilo Medek. Writer Juergen Fuchs, who had been imprisoned for sending to the West an account of his interrogation by the secret police, was released and dispatched to West Berlin.

Another distinguished dissenter who may well be one of the government's next targets is Robert Havemann, 67, a former university professor and a close friend of Biermann's. He is an ex-party member who was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II with East German Party Boss Erich Honecker. Now under house arrest, Havemann appears slated for deportation despite his failing health.

The government's policy of forcibly exiling dissident intellectuals has given false hope to many East Germans who want to get out. About 200,000 people have applied to emigrate to the West. Fewer than 10% have been granted exit permits, while others have lost their jobs as a result of their applications.

At the same time, East Germany carries on a brisk traffic in political prisoners, who are regularly ransomed off to West Germany. Last week 180 prisoners--mostly men and women who had been caught trying to escape to the West--were driven in chartered buses to the border. Then they were handed over to West German authorities who had paid up to $28,000 a head for them, a trade in bodies that the embarrassed Federal Republic justified in the name of "inner German reconciliation." As about 1,000 prisoners are ransomed every year, East Germany turns a handsome profit by ridding itself of its dissidents.

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