East-West Homecoming for a Serious Boy

By William R. Doerner

People around Neunkirchen, the Saarland coal-mining town where Erich Honecker was born 75 years ago, remember him as a serious-minded boy who passed out political newspapers after school at age ten and shunned religion class as a matter of working-class principle. "He didn't play with us in recess or go swimming in the summer," recalls Kurt Humbs, 76, a classmate in nearby Wiebelskirchen, where Honecker grew up. "Sometimes," he adds, "you had the impression you were looking into a mirror with no glass in it."

Humbs and his neighbors will have another chance to look into the mirror next week. Fifty-two years after he left Neunkirchen, now part of West Germany, and twelve years after he became the bland but politically nimble leader of Communist East Germany, Honecker is scheduled to make a five-day visit to his homeland. His host will be West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and a lot more than nostalgia will be in the air. Postponed earlier as a result of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the trip will mark the first time an East German party leader has set foot in West Germany, and only the second time since the two countries were created nearly 40 years ago that leaders of both have met face-to-face on German soil.

Honecker's visit repays a trip made to East Germany by then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1981. The East German leader's plans for a reciprocal visit fell victim to a freeze in superpower relations in 1984, after West Germany had decided to deploy U.S. cruise and Pershing II missiles and the Soviets, in response, had walked out of arms negotiations in Geneva. Criticized in the Soviet press for planning to carry out his trip despite Bonn's move, Honecker dutifully canceled at the last minute. His arrival in West Germany now is one more sign of how U.S.-Soviet relations have improved.

The trip also underscores the change in intra-German relations. For years the two states were bitter cold war enemies, unable to reach even a basic agreement recognizing each other's de facto national existence until 1972. Today, while still separated by an 863-mile border bristling with armed patrols and barbed wire, the two states have settled into a wary but increasingly pragmatic relationship, held together by more than 70 bilateral agreements governing everything from postal communications to electricity sharing. "German-German relations used to be much worse than East-West relations in general," says Wolfgang Berner, deputy director of Cologne's Federal Institute for East European and International Studies. "This has changed." While no small part of that change is due to West German bridge building, Honecker has in recent years also grown more flexible.

The West Germans plan to celebrate that progress with lavish hospitality, even though three new technical accords are the only formal agreements expected to emerge from Honecker's trip. His trip is classified as a "working visit," but Honecker will be accorded most of the trappings normally reserved for grander state visits, including lunch with President Richard von Weizsacker, meetings with leaders of the Bundestag and five hours of talks with Kohl. Bonn quickly acceded to one Honecker request: coffee and cake at the Essen home of Berthold Beitz, chairman of the Krupp steel empire, with whom he has developed a business and hunting friendship over the past seven years. That session will be followed by a reception for Honecker at the Villa Hugel, former home of the Krupp family. "Think of it," jokes Beitz, "a lifelong Communist in the home of the Krupp cannon kings."

Still, not all West Europeans are enthusiastic about the increasingly cozy relationship between the two Germanys. Some worry that West Germany, in its eagerness to accommodate Honecker, will gradually loosen its ties to the Atlantic Alliance and the European Community. A few West Europeans have even raised the specter of German reunification, fearing the creation of a nation that would economically overwhelm the rest of Europe. But the principal objection is that a unified Germany would be neutral. This would hopelessly weaken NATO and, in effect, allow the Soviets to dominate the Continent without ever making a military move.

Few serious European observers of the German scene, however, give much credence to any neutralist scenario. Even in France, the nation most sensitive to fluctuations on the German fever chart, most analysts see little cause for real concern. Says former Foreign Minister Jean Francois-Poncet: "The experts do not doubt West Germany's commitment to democracy nor the firmness of its ties to the West."

Nor does anyone in West or East Germany take seriously the idea that reunification is possible in the foreseeable future. It is clear, for one thing, that the Soviets would never tolerate the revival of a strong Germany, neutral or otherwise. "The existence of two German states is a reality," Mikhail Gorbachev declared during a visit to Moscow by President von Weizsacker. "One must start from that."

Indeed, some West Europeans believe the Honecker visit will actually cement the political division of Germany. Says Walter Schutze, director of Franco- German studies at France's Institute for International Relations: "It will be the consecration of Honecker as an independent leader." Furthermore, many of the several million Germans who fled the East and now live in West Germany are offended by elaborate displays of intra-German fraternity, including Honecker's reception.

The major beneficiaries of the improving East-West climate are ordinary Germans, who are increasingly able to travel, trade and exchange cultural assets across their border. Honecker may have spoken for both leaders a few years ago when, at a meeting with West German parliamentarians, he plaintively asked, "Must we do everything through our big brothers?" As Honecker revisits his homeland next week, many Germans will be hoping that the answer is no, not everything.

With reporting by Robert Ball/Bonn and William McWhirter/East Berlin