Two Is Better Than One

By DAVID ELLIS/

Before it disappeared into the mists of cold war history, East Germany believed it had found an unlikely ally in extremis: the World Jewish Congress. History professor Michael Wolffsohn of Munich's Bundeswehr University says records of private meetings held between East German leaders and W.J.C. delegations before the Communist regime collapsed show that a representative of the Jewish group expressed support for keeping East Germany a separate state. "Reunification is not on the agenda," Maram Stern, an aide to W.J.C. president Edgar Bronfman, was quoted as telling the East Germans. "The W.J.C. will do everything it can so that it should not come about." Wolffsohn examined the East German documents last summer, but they won't be seen again soon. After unification, the archives came under federal German rules and were sealed for 30 years. Elan Steinberg, W.J.C. executive director, calls the East German version of the meeting "rubbish. The credibility of the source of those records is not very great." And in May 1990, Bronfman said the W.J.C. viewed German unification as inevitable.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen