THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN
EASTERN GERMANY: POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN THE FORMER GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
AFTER UNIFICATION
Marilyn Rueschemeyer
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH (WZB) Reichpietschufer 50, D-10785 Berlin
Während ihres Gastaufenthaltes ist die vorliegende Studie entstanden.
This paper looks at the difficulties faced by the SPD in the east after unification and focuses on the issues encountered by those who attempt to be active in the party, on the organizations in society that could possibly be supportive of the SPD, and on the divisions within the SPD itself. In contrast to the other major parties, the SPD had no organizational base in the German Democratic Republic. The founders of the new SPD came out o f a different environment than its earlier constituency and were different, too, from the SPD in the west.
Difficulties in recruiting new members go beyond the frustrations with political involvement in the German Democratic Republic and the prevalence of more pressing life concerns. Though the small membership of the SPD is not paralleled in voting patterns, the problems of the transition period since 1989 and the limited responsiveness of the SPD to eastern concerns have affected the perception o f the party and the willingness to actively support it. The ability to form a new constituency is weakened by the fact that there are not enough members to do political work in the communities. Potentially supportive organizations are either weak themselves or keep a distance from parties.
Unions, one o f the traditional bases of support of the SPD have been weakened not only by new developments in the labour force in Germany but also, in the east, by unemployment, by disappointment with the accomplishments of the unions with respect to eastern problems, and by the changing role of works councils and employer associations. The rising support for the PDS in the east and the discussions within the SPD about cooperation with the reformed communists have added to the divisions in the party between the east and west and have resulted in a number of independent initiatives by representatives of the eastern SPD - thus weakening the unity of the party in the country as a whole.
In der vorliegenden Studie wird die Situation der SPD in Ostdeutschland nach der Wiedervereinigung untersucht. Sie befaßt sich insbesondere mit den Problemlagen und Streitfragen, die sich den aktiven Parteimitgliedern stellten;
den Institutionen in der Gesellschaft, die potentiell eine unterstützende Rolle für die SPD wahmehmen können und mit den verschiedenen Richtungen und Lagern innerhalb der SPD. Im Gegensatz zu den anderen großen Parteien hatte die SPD keine Organisationsbasis in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik.
Die Gründer der neuen SPD kamen aus einem anderen gesellschaftlichen Umfeld als ihre frühere Wählerschaft und unterschieden sich auch von der SPD im Westen. Schwierigkeiten bei der Rekrutierung neuer Mitglieder lassen sich durch die Frustration politischen Engagements in der früheren DDR und der gegenwärtigen Überlagerung durch unmittelbar vordringliche Lebens
bedürfnisse erklären. Darüber hinaus läßt sich feststellen, daß die Probleme der Übergangsperiode seit 1989 und das nur partielle Eingehen der SPD auf ostdeutsche Problemlagen die Wahrnehmung der Partei und die Bereitschaft, sie aktiv zu unterstützen, beeinträchtigt haben. Die Fähigkeit, einen neuen Wählerstamm zu bilden, wird durch die Tatsache eingeschränkt, daß es für die politische Arbeit in den Gemeinden nicht ausreichend M itglieder gibt.
Organisationen wie beispielsweise die Gewerkschaften, die traditionell als Basis für die SPD fungieren, sind geschwächt, und zwar nicht nur durch neue Entwicklungen in Deutschland generell, sondern im Osten besonders durch die hohe Arbeitslosigkeit, durch enttäuschte Erwartungen hinsichtlich der Leistungen der Gewerkschaften zur Lösung ostdeutscher Probleme und durch die veränderte Rolle von Betriebsräten und Arbeitgeberverbänden. Die wachsende Unterstützung für die PDS in Ostdeutschland und die Diskussion innerhalb der SPD über die Zusammenarbeit mit den Reformkommunisten haben die Spaltung in der Partei zwischen Ost und West verstärkt und eine Reihe unabhängiger Initiativen von Vertretern der ostdeutschen SPD hervorgerufen - und somit zur Schwächung der Einheit der Partei insgesamt beigetragen.
Introduction 7
The Social Democratic Party and its Appeal in East Germany 11
Difficulties of the Social Democratic Party in East Germany 16
The German Trade Union Federation in the East: Implications
for the Social Democrats 26
The Competitor on the Left: The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) 36
Conclusion 40
Introduction
Political participation and the development of democracy in East Germany share some of the conditions that shape the picture of participation and democratization in other formerly state socialist countries. But to a very large extent, democratic participation in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) is determined by the form unification with W est Germany took: The five new states and East Berlin joined the old Bundesrepublik', they took over its political and institutional structures; and the citizens o f the former GDR became part o f the constituency of the federal government.1
Political participation is quite limited in East Germany, and political alignments are still very much in flux.
Examining the appeal and the difficulties of the SPD in the East seems a useful way of exploring political participation in East Germany after unification for a number of reasons. On the one hand, there was a reasonable expectation that after the collapse of the old system, the SPD would be most successful because it combines an unquestioned democratic orientation with a commitment to social services and protection of socially weaker groups, principles which are to some extent similar to what the population of the GDR had come to take for granted. On the other hand, the SPD was the only party with potential mass appeal that did not
Lack of space prevents me from mentioning all the men and women in the Social Democratic Party, in unions, and in local administrations in Berlin and Rostock who took time out o f their very busy schedules to reflect on the issues discussed in this paper. I am very grateful to them. I would like to especially thank W olfgang Zapf for his invitation to work at the W issenschaftszentrum in Berlin, Rosemarie Gentges - an architect in Berlin and local SPD representative - and Peter Voigt, University of Rostock, for putting so much energy into helping me reach the people I needed for this study, as well as Gero Neugebauer, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Bernhard Wessels for their extensive comments on this project. I conducted approximately forty interviews in Berlin and Rostock. In Berlin I spoke with SPD members of the Bundestag from both east and west Berlin, with a representative to the European parliament from an eastern district, with representatives from the eastern districts to the Berlin parliament as well as with two senators from east Berlin, with members of Bezirk parliaments, and with a number of SPD party activists and union representatives. In Rostock I interviewed members of the city administration, representatives in the councils of two of the new towns (Neubaugebiete), committee members representing the interests of women in a major union, and an official of a major union who is also an SPD representative in the city parliament. I also had the opportunity of participating in two meetings of the SPD party organization at the Landesebene (Land Level) in Berlin and in a conference on women’s issues in East and West Germany organized by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
have an established party organization in East Germany. The former dominant party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), had forcibly absorbed the SPD in the early years after the Second World War, repressing any opposition to this union. Other parties in W est Germany could coopt the satellite parties o f the German Democratic Republic which had been allowed to exist.2 In particular the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Liberals (FDP) thus gained established organizations, even though this move created considerable internal problems for them. The SED transformed itself into the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which was rich in resources, organizational and financial, but at the same time had to deal with the stigma o f representing as successor the rulers o f the failed state socialist system.
Studying the fate of the SPD in East Germany thus allows us to explore
(1) the obstacles to broad political participation in one case that seemed to show special promise,
(2) the difficulties encountered by a new party which has to develop its organization as well as the loyalties and ideological orientations of members and voters from scratch,
(3) the problems deriving from the radical disruption of a political tradition and its rooting in different social milieus over a period of forty years, and, at the same time,
(4) the issues that are associated with transfers from West to East, because inevitably the new eastern SPD had to rely on and cope with the larger party in the West.
This paper, then, focuses on the Social Democratic Party after unification and the difficulties of the party in eastern Germany. It will also sketch the situation o f the
Parties other than the SPD - in particular the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Democratic Farmers' Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the National Democratic Party - were allowed to continue to exist as the SED established its rule. Though they soon became satellites of the SED, they did appeal to particular m ilieus and interests.
labour unions, the greatest potential ally of the SPD, as well as the development of the PDS, its competitor on the left.
Both the position of the SPD in the West and its bases in both East and West, but especially in the East, are important for understanding the dilemmas o f the Social Democrats. The problems of the transition period - since 1989 - and the responses of the Social Democratic Party to eastern concerns have also affected the perception of the party and the willingness to support it. The issues faced by the SPD in building an effective presence and encouraging participation in East Germany must be seen in a broader context. Political participation in general is encountering growing problems in the West and it is far weaker in the East.
Research on West Germany before unification has shown declining participation in parties and unions. The most common explanations, with respect to the parties, are that the population is weary of especially the dominant political parties, the bureaucracy, the corruption; there is a feeling that the dominant parties do not represent people's interests but often just those o f a "political class"; there is an increase in individualism and career orientation, which takes interest and energy away from political involvement. Yet, alongside the frustrations noted, there are also indications that party involvement is not simply being abandoned.3
In the East, political participation is far more limited. Intense participation in a variety of spontaneous groups shot up during the immediate transition period.
But this declined rapidly afterwards.
Under the communist regime in the former German Democratic Republic, there was formal participation in a number of mass organizations, such as the Free German Youth and the labour union. Most of this participation had a different and far more formalist quality than we associate with organizational and group participation in western countries, though there was some genuine participation on
See, for examplej Bernhard Wessels, "Social Alliances and Coalitions: The Organizational Underpinnings of Democracy in W est Germany." Paper presented at the conference on Participation and Democracy: An East-W est Comparison", Uppsala, August 1994. With respect to the SPD, in the first direct election of the party leader by the 900,000 members in 1993, 50 percent of the membership participated!
certain levels, especially at work and in professional associations, where an attempt was made to moderate some of the conditions of the work environment.4 In addition, there was some real involvement and commitment to change within the Free German Youth and even at the lower levels o f the SED, though that did not translate into real reform. And small groups of people committed to activity in the environmental and peace movements found support and shelter in some of the Protestant churches.
The residential areas of the GDR, to very briefly restate some earlier research findings, were a domain left relatively free of political obligations and social participation after initial attempts failed in developing chapters of the mass organizations as well as neighbourhood committees of all sorts to take care o f the various needs of the neighbourhood. In the new towns (Neubaugebiete) where I worked, the goals of these committees were, with some important exceptions, reduced to maintaining cleanliness, order, and a minimum o f services, such as transportation and nurseries. My research during these last years before the end of the regime focused on neighbourhood participation and the reasons why it was so limited.5
During the transition period, many expected that there would be an increase in participation in a democratically based society. There was also an expectation that despite the victory of the Christian Democratic Party in the first elections after unification in 1990, support for the Social Democrats would eventually increase once political and economic unification were firmly established, at least among those who were committed to the Sozialstaat (the welfare state) while rejecting the political system of the former GDR.
The limited participation in the East in parties, unions, and even in the neighborhoods after the unification of the two Germanies, and the disintegration of all sorts of spontaneous groups which had sprung up during the transition were attributed to, firstly, the necessity of dealing with a new institutional system, new
M arilyn Rueschemeyer, "State Patronage in the German Democratic Republic: Artistic and Political Change in a State Socialist Society", in: Journal o f Arts Management, Law, Vol. 20? No. 4, W inter 1991, pp. 31-55 and "Participation and Control in a State Socialist Society", in: East CentralEurope, 1991, pp. 23-53.
5 See "Participation and Control in a State Socialist Society". Op.cit.
schools, new ways of obtaining medical care, insurance, etc., and secondly, and even more importantly, the necessity of finding work. There was an enormous rise in unemployment (the official rate o f 15 percent more than doubles if one also includes those who were forced into early retirement, those who are still on shorttime work, and those on retraining schemes). The reduction o f services provided by the state meant that, thirdly, family responsibilities increased; and these responsibilities were more often than not taken care of by the women, who in any case comprised a higher percentage o f the unemployed than the men (approximately 65 percent during the summer of 1994). And, finally, it was suggested that people were glad to rid themselves of the "political" and concentrate on their own personal lives.
While recognizing the importance of all these factors, my more recent research, in Rostock in 1992 and again in Berlin and Rostock in 1994, indicated an ongoing frustration among people who were interested in being active in their neighborhood or who actually were politically involved: a frustration with their inability to exert significant influence over what was happening in their own community. Expectations about democracy among activists were perhaps unrealistic, incoiporating too idealistic a belief in real influence from below. Yet to many the major parties came to be seen as unresponsive to the central worries o f people; politics as it is being carried out does not, in the eyes of many, work for the people.
It is in this context of reticent participation and pervasive frustration that the development of the SPD in East Germany must be seen - a party of great promise given its basic orientation, but a party that had to start from scratch in the East, building new traditions and developing both its membership and its electoral constituency; and, finally, a party that had its major base in the West.
The Social Democratic Party and its Appeal in East Germany
W ith populations of nearly 65 million in the West and somewhat over 15 million in the East, membership in the Social Democratic Party is about 900,000 in the
W est and only 27,000 in the east.6 Its small - in fact miniscule - membership in the East contrasts with much larger numbers in the competing parties. The reformed Communist party, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), has a membership of 130,000 in the former GDR, while the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) has 100,000 members in its eastern party organizations. Even the small FDP (Free Democratic Party) has more members than the SPD because it - like the CDU - took over satellite party organizations of the former GDR.
The small membership of the SPD is, however, not paralleled in voting. The SPD is, relative to its small size, extremely successful at the polls. It is a voters' party, and it is a party of elected officials. Furthermore, the SPD faces less hostility than any other party in East Germany.7
But its success at the polls still fell short of its expectations. The Christian Democrats, at the helm in Bonn during the unification process, became the strongest party in East Germany. And the transformed Communist party, the PDS, grew stronger rather than weaker as time went on. A brief look at the election results reveals instructive patterns.
In the first unified federal elections of 1990 the CDU received 41.8 percent of the vote in eastern Germany, while the SPD was second with 24.3 percent, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a liberal party in the European sense, achieved 12.9 percent, the PDS 11.1 percent, Alliance 90/Greens 6.0 percent, and the DSU (German Social Union, a conservative, eastern party that was allied to the CDU) and Republikaner (an ultra-rightest party, until recently led by former SS member Franz Schoenhuber) accounted for 3.3 percent.8
6 In the two cities where I worked, Berlin and Rostock, the party had 2,600 members in east Berlin (compared to 23,000 in west Berlin), 400 in Rostock.
7 Eckhard Priller, "Demokratieentwicklung and gesellschaftliche M itwirkung“, in:
Ingrid Kurz-Scherf and Gunnar Winkler, eds...Sozialreport 1994. Berlin, 1994, p. 319, as cited by Gero Neugebauer, "Hat die PDS bundesweit im Parteiensystem eine Chance?" Unpublished paper, February 1995.
g The election results and comparisons are taken and recalculated from Focus: Wahl- Spezial, October 18, 1994 and Bulletin, November 7, 1994, Nr. 102, and material from the German Information Center.
The first state elections yielded roughly similar results. Only in one of the eastern states, in Brandenburg, which surrounds the city state of Berlin, did the SPD become the strongest party and come to rule, albeit in a coalition government.
The local and state elections in 1994 looked somewhat different. The SPD gained, but so did the PDS; and the CDU was not displaced as the leading party.9 In the state elections o f 1994 the SPD gained moderately in two of the five eastern states, and significantly in two; their support was reduced only in Saxony. This latter decline, however, is particularly significant, because historically Saxony had been a stronghold o f the left. The CDU had moderate losses in two of the eastern states, substantial losses in one, and an increase in its support in one, Saxony. The FDP lost significantly in all five eastern states and is no longer represented in parliament, while Alliance 90/Greens lost their representation in parliament in four states. The PDS, the reformed Communist party, substantially increased its support in all five eastern states, and became the third strongest party in eastern Germany! The implications of this result will be discussed in the section on the PDS. Table 1 details the results of the state elections in eastern Germany.
In the federal elections of 1994 the CDU lost votes in four out o f five o f the new German states - Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia as well as in Berlin (east and west Berlin are combined). Again, Saxony, the largest East German state and historically the most left leaning, was the significant exception. Still, the CDU remained the strongest party in all the eastern states except for Brandenburg and Berlin. The SPD gained in all the new states and became the strongest party in Brandenburg and Berlin. The PDS achieved large gains in all five eastern states as well as in Berlin, in contrast to its results in western Germany which were negligible.
In June of 1994 there were elections for municipal parliaments in four of the five East German States. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 33 percent of the vote went to the CDU, 27 percent to the SPD, and 25 percent to the
PDS;
6 percent went to the Alliance 90/Greens, and 5 percent to the FDP. The PDS increased their 1990 municipel election result of 19 percent by another 6 percentage points. In Sachsen- Anhalt the SPD gained 8 points in the 1994 municipal elections ana the PDS 7.9TABLE 1: RESULTS OF THE STATE ELECTIONS IN EASTERN GERMANY, 1990, 1994*
(Percentage of the vote)
Party 1990 1994
SACHSEN-ANHALT CDU 39,0 34,4
SPD 26,0 34,0
PDS 12,0 19,9
FDP 13,5 3,6
MECKLENBURG-
A90/Greens 5,3 5,1
VORPOMMERN CDU 38,3 37,7
SPD 27,0 29,5
PDS 15,7 22,7
FDP 5,5 3,8
A90/Greens 2,2 3,7
THURINGIA CDU 45,4 42,6
SPD 22,8 29,6
PDS 9,7 16,6
FDP
A90/Greens
9,3 4,5
3,2
BRANDENBURG CDU 29,4 18,7
SPD 38,2 54,1
PDS 13,4 18,7
FDP 6,6 2,2
A90/Greens 2,8 2,9
SAXONY CDU 53,8 58,1
SPD 19,1 16,6
PDS 10,2 16,5
FDP 5,3 L8
A90/Greens 5,6 4,1
* Parties with less than 5 percent of the vote do not have representation in the state parliaments.
Source: German Information Center, New York
Table 2 summarizes the election results for Parliament {Bundestag} in the whole Federal Republic. The CDU/CSU/FDP coalition barely held on to its majority, the SPD made some gains as did the PDS and, to a lesser extent, Alliance 90/Greens.
In eastern Germany the results of this election were 38.9 percent for the CDU, 4.0 percent for the FDP (its coalition partner), 31.9 percent for the SPD, 17.7 percent for the PDS and 5.7 percent for Alliance 90/Greens.10
TABLE 2: RESULTS OF THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENTARY
{BUNDESTAG} ELECTIONS IN 1990,1994*
(Percentage of the vote)
Party 1990 1994
CDU (Christian Democrats) 36,7 34,2
CSU (Christian Social Union) 7,1 7,3
FDP (Free Democratic Party) 11,0 6,9
SPD (Social Democratic Party) 33,5 36,4
A90 (Alliance 90/Greens) 5,0 7,3
PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) 2,4 4,4
Republikaner (failed to get
representation in parliament) 2,1 1,9
* The PDS gained representation in Parliament even thought it received less than five percent o f the vote because it won three seats „directly“. In the German system people have two ballots - one for the party and one for the candidates in each district.
Source: Focus: Wahl-Spezial, October 18, 1994, pp. 7, 8.
0 These calculations are based on the percentages in the five new German states and Berlin (now united, with both east ana west included). If one just calculated the votes in east Berlin, thepercentages especially for the CDÜ and PDS would be substantially different. In east Berlin, the CDU/CSU received 19.5 percent of the vote (compared to 38.7 in west Berlin) and the PDS received 34.7 percent of the vote (compared to 2.6 percent in west Berlin). Focus: Wahl-Spezial, October 18, 1994, pp. 24, 25.
In sum, then, the SPD is far stronger in its appeal to the voters than as a membership organization. It gradually gained in elections, but it was not able to displace the CDU as the strongest party, its lack of success in Saxony being particularly puzzling as well as significant. Its competitor on the left, the reformed communist PDS, gained rather than lost in voter appeal, paralleling the resurgence of communist parties in several eastern European countries, though to a more limited extent. This last development constituted a significant limitation in the electoral success of the SPD.
Difficulties of the Social Democratic Party in East Germany
The SPD's efforts to build a strong viable organization must be seen in the context of people hesitating, in both parts of Germany, to become actively involved in political work. This reluctance was and is, however, far greater in the East than in the West. The experience o f trying to effect change in the old GDR - when such efforts did take place - was frustrating and typically unsuccessful. Since unification many people are not yet committed to a particular party and are still evaluating the political scene, so to speak. And, as mentioned above, the efforts needed to adjust to a new regime are enormous, even when work is available.
But even if we focus on those few who are interested and who are willing to become involved, it has not been easy to create a Social Democratic party organization that could support the SPD programme. First, it is never easy to develop a party organization from scratch, especially not if one has to contend immediately with organizationally stronger competitors. Secondly, in its new incarnation in the East, the SPD became associated with groups and milieus that are quite different from its old social bases. Thirdly, as a newcomer, the party had no strong connections to other organizations that might constitute a network of support for the party - to cooperatives, to welfare institutions, and even to unions;
I will return to the problems encountered by unions and their relationship to the SPD below. Fourthly, the SPD as a whole had its centre of gravity in the West. It was in this sense, too, a "party of the West", and not only because it had been excluded from the East German political scene.
A good part o f the original GDR leadership of the SPD came from the environment of the Protestant church. Protestant ministers were - and still are - often found in prominent positions in the party, though others also joined, typically teachers and academics, many of whom had been active in the church or citizen movements.
This initial association with church-related groups was not without problems for a broader appeal. Although at first the politically active part of the church represented an alternative to the political system, the generally secular East German population increasingly distanced itself from this leadership. In contrast to W est Germany, the majority of people in East Germany do not have any religious affiliation.11 Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, the initial core o f the party in the East did not have easy access to the traditional constituencies of the Social Democrats.
Older sympathizers and activists from the time before the SPD was forcibly incorporated into the SED also returned to the party after 1989. However, according to some of the SPD respondents I spoke with in East Germany, they were excluded from leadership positions, which were controlled at the beginning by those active in the church opposition. These respondents maintained that the frustration of not being able to take on leadership roles led to the withdrawal of quite a few of these SPD veterans.12
Workers, the core constituency of the Social Democrats before 1933, are under-represented in the East German SPD, even though their participation has increased since 1989/1990. Neugebauer estimates that of those members who are
1 Seventy percent of east Germans are unaffiliated to any religious organization, 25 percent to the Protestant church, 4 percent to the Catholic church, and 1 percent to other religious groups. See W olfgang Zapf, "Einige M aterialien zu Gesellschaft und Demokratie im vereinten Deutschland" in Hansgert Peisert und W olfgang Zapf, eds., Gesellschaft, Demokratie und Lebenschancen, Festschrift für R alf D ahrendorf, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart, 1994, p. 299.
12 There are, not surprisingly, divergent interpretations of what happened during the early organization of the party in 1989 and 1990. For the backgrounds of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in the East, see the interviews and analysis by W olfgang Herzberg and Patrik von zur Mühlen, A u f den Anfang kommt es an. Bonn, Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachfolger, 1993.
currently employed, about one in five is a worker, while more than two in five are white-collar employees.13
The proportion of blue-collar workers voting for the SPD in 1990 was lower than in the West; more than half voted for parties to the right of the SPD.
However, in a study of east and west Berlin, at the beginning o f the formation of the party in East Germany, some groups did view the SPD as a workers’ party; in the East this was true especially of workers and those with a low formal education (in contrast to W est Berlin where those with "postmaterialist" values and a high education dominated), whereas the highly educated and politically interested in the East were attracted to the PDS.14 In the federal elections of 1994 the SPD gained substantially among east German workers, though even then the CDU did slightly better in this traditional Social Democratic constituency.15
It is possible to argue that the old constituency o f the labor movement was profoundly transformed during the past forty years and cannot serve any more as the m ajor base of the party. There is above all, first, the fact that the technological, educational, socioeconomic and political changes of the last forty years have reduced the blue-collar labor force, transformed its character, and levelled the differences between working and middle-class cultures. In addition, the hegemonic system o f the SED's state socialism, which initially may have had some appeal, later discredited its own goals in the eyes of many. And, finally, for more than a generation the SPD did not have a chance to generate and sustain supportive social and political milieus through related organizations such as welfare associations, cooperatives, and unions. These factors may well have been more important than the particular character of the early core of the SPD in East Germany. They certainly may constitute an explanation for the fact that Saxony,
3 Gero Neugebauer, "Die SPD: Im Osten auf Neuen Wegen?" Berliner Arbeitshefte und Berichte zur Sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung, Nr? 86, Freie Universität Berlin, Zentralinstitut für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, May 1994, p. 39. Members who are not employed could not be allocated to occupational categories.
14 See Bernhard Wessels, "Interessenvermittlung im Umbruch: Wandel im Westen, Etablierung im Osten" in Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Lutz Erbring, Nils Diederich, eds.
Zwischen Wende und Wiedervereinigung, Opladen, W estdeutscher Verlag, 1995, p.
5 Focus: Wahl-Spezial, October 18, 1994, p. 26. 53.7 percent of all workers in the West voted for the $PD compared to 36.1 in the East; 13.4 eastern workers voted for the PDS. Focus: Wahl-Spezial, October 18, 1994, p. 24.
where historically the left had the strongest position in eastern Germany, is now a stronghold of the CDU.
Clearly, the fact that there are only few members means that if someone is interested in running for office or in volunteering for work in the party, there are good chances of being nominated or appointed. In Marzahn, for example, a large apartment house community outside of Berlin, where the SPD has about 180 members out of a population of more than 150,000, one in every six members is an elected official. For the whole party in the East, this figure is even higher - on average it is one in three.16
This has consequences for the public profile o f the party. On quite a few occasions, people are recruited to run for the party who are not even (yet) members. And there are instances where no candidates are found. On the one hand, some people withdraw when they realize the complexities of running for election; on the other hand, a number of people who run or take on responsibility in the organization are not as qualified as they might be. O f course, they have reputations in their communities, and the party is judged accordingly.
The small membership has other consequences, too. Party activities tend to be centralized. Funding becomes a major difficulty. The Western SPD, itself more centralized than other parties,17 offers help, but since support from this comer is limited, funding problems make for even more centralization in the East. Party politics are not shaped in the local SPD organizations in the neighborhoods and communities. In turn, the presence of the party in the communities is thinly spread. Often, there is no one in the SPD neighborhood office and there is no one to call for information. True, there are meetings of SPD associations o f all sorts, the women's association, the association of employees, etc., and there are events to which non-members are also invited, but I think it is fair to say that in most
6 See Gero Neugebauer, "Die SPD: Im Osten Auf Neuen W egen?", p. 42-43. This study offers many details on the development of the SPD in the East, together with a number of texts ana documents.
17 Josef Schmid, "Parteistrukturen nach der Einheit - am Beispiel des Indikators Parteifinanzen“, in Josef Schmid, Frank Loebler and Heinrich Tiemann, eds., Organisationsstrukturen und Probleme von Parteien und Verbänden, Marburg, Metropolis, 1994, pp. 55-74.
neighborhoods the SPD is not active, neither as a local party organization nor indirectly through participation of its members in neighborhood associations, welfare associations, etc.
The very fact, then, that there are so few members means that it is more difficult for the party to recruit additional members and explain its political strategies to supporters. It is judged by its stance in local, state, and federal parliaments, by its public face, so to speak, not by its local organizations and their members. And that stance, as we have seen, is often still in flux, diverse, and not yet consolidated because o f the recruitment problems that result from the contradictions of a party that has very broad appeal but whose organization, membership, and local presence in the East are still small and new.
Small size does not mean unity. Within the eastern SPD, tiny as it is, there are deep divisions. There are, to name only a few contrasting positions, theologians disappointed with the pragmatic approach of the party, easterners frustrated with the left wing of the Social Democratic Party in the West, and yet other elected representatives who see themselves to the left of the SPD and are interested in directing the party in a more leftist direction. There are divisions over the relations to party headquarters in the West, over the articulation of the particular problems o f east Germans, and over the degree of possible cooperation with the reformed Communist party. These divisions are found in the party itself as well as in its youth organization. Political divisions are, of course, not unusual in any party. In the eastern SPD, however, they seem both deeper and less clearly definable than usual. They indicate perhaps the peculiar state of flux and the lack of consolidation that seem to characterize much of the new politics in eastern Europe as a whole.
There are, of course, active representatives who have clear-cut goals and work hard for them, at the municipal and county as well as state levels. From the point o f view of these officials, they not only have difficulty achieving something for their communities, but even when they do, the gratitude is short-lived and the change soon taken for granted - cleaning and really revamping a community park, bringing in some institution that provides jobs or business in the community, etc.
That in itself is not a problem peculiar to the SPD. But if the Social Democrats are in coalition with the CDU, as they are in Berlin and Rostock (the communities where I worked) as well as in the eastern states of Thuringia and Mecklenburg-
Vorpommern, they share responsibility for problematic decisions and do not get special credit for achievements.
There are perceptions of the party in the East that define it as western dominated and concerned with western interests. The present organizational structure was set up by the western Social Democratic Party, its finances are sustained by the party in the West, and its political positions are strongly influenced by the towering Social Democratic Party of western Germany. Largely a party o f white collar-workers, even when in coalition with the Christian Democratic Party, the SPD is seen as sharing responsibility for the problems of the transition process, the forced sale of thousands of apartments, the dissolving of public property, and high unemployment.18 Because the SPD has the realistic possibility o f actually governing the nation, its public pronouncements are more
"responsible" than those of its main competitor on the left, the PDS, and its criticism o f dominant policy is not as oppositional as some people might wish.
Indeed, increasingly, workers and others who are sympathetic to the SPD view it as a party that no longer represents their interests, though they may vote for it as the best alternative.
The SPD was extensively damaged in the 1990 campaign. Chancellor Kohl focused on the SPD as a party of the left, a party that emphasized the problems involved in unification, a party with a tradition o f contact to the East, which in the 1980s included meetings of leading members of the SPD and the Communist party - members of the SPD's Basic Values Commission wrote a position paper with SED officials on a number of ideological issues. These are issues that are particularly irksome to people who were active in opposition groups in the former GDR. Some of them accuse the SPD and even CDU of policies and negotiations with the East that helped to sustain the communist regime.19
8 The perception is somewhat different in Brandenburg, where the SPD governed in coalition. This is due in part to the popularity of Prime M inister Stolpe (whose role as a leading representative of the Protestant church before 1989 made him controversial in the eyes of some, and an object of identification for others) as well as to the success of ministers such as Regine Hildebrandt (SPD, minister for social policy, labor, families and women) who is famous for her outspokenness and for her efforts at acquiring apprenticeships for young people and other policy initiatives. In 1994 the SPD won a majority o f the votes in Brandenburg.
19 For a good overview in English, see Gerard Braunthal, The German Social Democrats since 1969, W estview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1994.
But perhaps most potentially damaging for the SPD is the perception that the party elites and their western representatives lack an understanding of life in the East.
This is changing very slowly, but in the meantime, it turns voters, and even more so potential activists, away from party involvement. As several respondents indicated, "Every time Scharping or western representatives turn up, it costs us votes." There is a failure to recognize the complexities of the old system, whether it is past involvements of GDR citizens with the regime, or the values developed with respect to work, child-care, or what it means to be an independent woman and what kind of system supports an egalitarian society as most GDR women understand it.20
Party policies, then, are often a disappointment to many different groups of actively involved people, and sometimes for most people working in the eastern part of the party. Representatives in both Rostock and east Berlin were disappointed with the new, more conservative school system which separates children at a younger age. (Yet, they noted that even parents on the left, including Wolfgang Thierse, the most prominent eastern SPD member of the Bundestag and deputy chair of the party, send their children to the gymnasium in order to insure their future prospects.) There was disappointment with the level o f support for cultural institutions, child-care services, and the drastic privatization of medical practice. One respondent maintained: "They will come back to some form of polyclinic to provide medical care in the neighborhoods." The problem o f publicly supported work programs (Arbeitsbeschaffungsmassnahmen - ABM) was mentioned by several o f the people I spoke with, who were opposed to public employment in the short run instead of the creation of real jobs which would insure greater commitment on all sides.
More broadly, there has been enormous frustration with respect to the handling of abortion legislation, and the failure of SPD candidates, including Wolfgang Thierse, also an active member of the Catholic community, to show up for an important vote on abortion in the Bundestag. The absent SPD members of parliament (about 40) "would have been shot if they showed up at our meeting“,
0 See my chapter, „Women in the Politics of Eastern Germany" (pp. 87-116) and Eva Kolinsky, 'W om en and Politics in Western Germany" (pp. 63-86) in Marilyn Rueschemeyer, ed., Women in the Politics o f Post-Communist Eastern Europe, London and Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 1994.
complained an eastern member o f the Association of Social Democratic Women (ASF), who were at a gathering with western representatives not long after the voting had taken place.
In commentaries on recent constitutional reforms (at the end of June 1994), great anger was expressed at the lack of even declaratory goals with respect to interests particularly important to east Germans. The statements that were issued declared it the obligation of the government to pursue equality between men and women, protect the environment and protect the disabled. Other provisions for which there were considerable sympathies in East Germany, especially on the left, were rejected as they had been in the original negotiations between the two German states - provisions furthering referenda and broader co-determination rights in corporations as well as declarations making social rights to housing and work constitutional goals. These rejections were discussed in the media and in some Berlin papers as another indication of the lack of concern with eastern Germany.21
I return to the issue of what happens to those who decide to be active because of questions that arose in interviews with a number of people who ran for election and were elected, and who evaluated their experiences during this process. Those who are active and who are interested in remaining in political positions are involved in complex processes of decision-making, and they gain experience in conducting their own negotiations with their western and eastern colleagues. The kinds of convolutions that occur may be unexpected.22 But the ideological debates
In an earlier study of members of the parliament of Berlin, Robert Rohrschneider found that over one third of East Berlin MPs argue that guaranteeing a ju st standard of living or providing social security for everybody ought to be an important obligation o f a democracy, in contrast to only 7.9 o f the western MPs. "Regime Exposure and E lites’ Values: How Can Berlins’ Parliamentarians Ever Get Along?" Paper presented at the Slavic Studies Meeting, Hawaii, 1993, p. 9.
22 The debates on changing the constitution on asylum-seekers (opposed narrowly in the Berlin SPD and then agreed to by the Berlin elected delegation to the Federal Party meeting on the basis or i mixture of other interests which were also being negotiated) as w elt as the Heckelmann affair (concerning a CDU minister in charge or internal security whose press speaker attended meetings organized by the far right Republikaner) are examples o f issues that causea great agitation within the entire Berlin party (as well as within its youth organization, the Jusos, who rejected the compromise with the CDU on Heckelmann and advocated pulling out of the coalition with the CDU). Here, too, the different perspectives of east and west and within the west Berlin SPD itself were, for a variety of complicated reasons, causing tension and extensive debate.
and the kind of negotiating that goes on around them are, I believe, for the most part perceived as a normal part of democratic governing. More problematic, it seems to me, is the underhandedness of what is taken for granted as politics as usual.23
A special source of frustration derives from administrative decisions that, often under tremendous financial pressure, preempt and displace various forms of democratic participation. In earlier work24 25 I described how the Rostock city administration tried to balance the changes they were pressured to introduce with policies they and perhaps many in the East are sympathetic to, such as keeping the residential areas class mixed. States and local governments in the East are obliged to borrow three to four times as much per year and per head of the population as in W est Germany. While this follows from the huge investment needs, it cramps city budgets. Cities try to save money by cutting down on social services, and even on the city's administrative offices in the communities. Again, to take Rostock as an example, there are, in addition to administrative offices in the city districts, neighborhood councils with local representatives sitting in proportion to the percentage their parties received in the election. The councils' role is to alleviate neighborhood problems and integrate the concerns o f the citizens into the city's policies. The administrative offices, which attempt to become integrated in the community and which are also available for all sorts of meetings for people who work in the community and try to attract residents to meetings, are being reduced in the city, thus distancing the residents even further from policies that are being developed. As it is, according to my respondents, people are already annoyed because not enough is being done in their communities. "After four years of trying“, as one of the local administrators put it, "they would like to get rid o f all the local offices, even though they know they deal with a lot of local problems and
23 In a recent election to the Rostock parliament (Bürgerschaft), the PDS received 20 of the 53 seats, yet none of the ministers appointed was PDS. Though this is a matter of majority rule, it was seen by many as undemocratic. The new city government, whose mayor is SPD and from the west, made some agreements, which, according to people I spoke with, were later broken. Furthermore, the state of M ecklenburg-Vorpommern changed the municipal government structure such that, it was claimed, the mayor has more authority than previously. All this is sceptically evaluated as part of the democratic system introduced into the East.
24 M arilyn Rueschemeyer, "East Germany's New Towns in Transition: A Grassroots View of the Impact of Unification", in: Urban Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, April 1993, pp.
495-506. F
25 "The Financial Position of East German State and Local Government", Em ployment Observatory: East Germany, No. 11, May 1994, p. 9.
think they are an important basis for democracy." This reduction is also not particularly helpful for the SPD because here the party is represented in the neighborhood.
The SPD could potentially could be very attractive to women, especially since it has a system of encouraging representation of women in public life that took years and great energy to implement. In the new parliament, 33.7 percent of the Social Democrats are women (compared to 13.9 percent o f the CDU, 19.2 percent o f the FDP and 50 percent or more in the Greens and PDS). But in the East, the SPD is criticized for its failure to support arrangements that allow both women and men to remain in the workforce. For example, the SPD along with the CDU is seen as supporting child-care only after the age of three, even if certain members in the SPD think differently about it. Leaving the decision to the community is problematic, because the community does not have sufficient funds for contributing to child-care, and does not see the need for it if present facilities are not used to capacity. In Rostock, to take one example o f a new development, there was a women's list in the local elections. Even though this was not successful, it indicated profound dissatisfaction with the present political developments, not nostalgia for the old GDR.
Any party draws strength from being embedded in the associational life of a society. Successful parties thrive on a supportive social environment. Here again, the Social Democratic Party is at a distinct disadvantage in East Germany because it is a new presence. Limitations in penetrating civil society are in fact part of the explanation for the perception of the SPD as a party of the West and for its difficulties of finding the right tone in addressing the particular political issues of the East.
To explore these problems further, I will now turn to the unions and their relation to the Social Democratic Party. Unions could constitute a major pillar of support for the SPD. And they could, as well, provide by themselves an arena for political activity and participation. Here, too, the transformations worked out differently than initially anticipated.
The German Trade Union Federation in the East: Implications for the Social Democrats
The W est German Federal Trade Union Federation (DGB) was faced with serious problems even before the developments that resulted from the unification o f the two German states. By 1991 the number of wage earners in Germany had decreased to 43 percent of the work force, while the less easily organized salaried employees represented approximately 50 percent and civil servants 7.4 percent. At the same time, the union membership was comprised of 70 percent wage earners and 23.6 percent salaried employees. As a consequence, the unions not only were weakened by membership loss but forced to respond to a different kind of membership than in the past.
In view of the economic crisis in Germany and abroad, the unions were also occupied with trying to maintain the benefits they had achieved over the years. As a result of both of these developments, there was a great deal o f discussion about reforming their internal structures and reducing leadership and administrative positions.
In 1989, when the regime in the GDR began to fall apart, the unions in the W est were still concentrating for the most part on these complex issues, generally not anticipating that they would soon have to establish union structures in the East. But by 1990, with unification accomplished and legal as well as administrative structures transferred wholesale to the East, the unions were faced with having to extend their organizational structures very rapidly to the former GDR. The alternatives were not so much having to deal with independent unions in the East; the greater threat was to have an unorganized labor force in East Germany undercutting the position of organized labor in the West.
Their membership drive met with tremendous success. Even though most unions refused - in contrast to the parties - to take over the union organizations of the old regime and insisted on people deciding individually whether to join the newly established unions, organization rates in East Germany soon far surpassed those in the West. East Germans hoped that the unions would secure their jobs and give them legal and financial protection. About four million workers and employees (out of a total population of some fifteen million) joined, believing that
in the long run the unions would, even moreso than the political parties, represent their interests. The complications that resulted - and that ultimately affected membership in unions as well as active participation - are related to the way in which unification took place, the state of the economy in the GDR. and the ability o f the unions to deal with the number of problems with which they were confronted. These complications also had an impact on the unions’ relations to the Social Democratic Party.
The unions built a very thin and bureaucratic organization in East Germany, in several cases simply extending a regional western organization into a part of the former GDR. Despite the strong popular interest in membership, they faced complex problems from the beginning. One such problem were the unclear boundaries on "turf" between the different confederated industrial unions that are characteristic o f the German pattern of union organization. These lines were less well established in the East than they are in the West, so that different unions began competing against each other for certain segments of the labor force.
More importantly, in the East the unions are seen as being run by the W est and as showing less interest in the problems of eastern workers and unemployment than in the issues that concern the western membership.26 The unions in unified Germany have to balance interests that are difficult to reconcile:
wages and fringe benefits in the West are very high by international standards and are threatened by competition from the East; in the East, the primary concern is unemployment, yet this is coupled with a strong desire for improvement in living standards, that is, for higher wages in spite of more limited productivity.
The difficulties of the unions are further compounded by the establishment of Betriebsräte, works councils comprised o f representatives for workers and employees, as well as of boards of directors with representatives of workers, management, and owners. Both works councils and the new boards were introduced as part of the overall transfer of the west German legal and institutional
For discussions of the consequences of different membership compositions and influence patterns in the unions of East and W est Germany, see Heinrich Tiemann,
"Gewerkschaften in Ost Deutschland." In: Deutschland Archiv, 27, 2, 1994, pp. 155- 163, and M ichael Fichter, „Was ist/ist was im Osten los?" in: Gewerkschaftliche M onatshefte, 45, 6, June 1994, p. 375.
26
structure. But the meaning of an institution inevitably depends on its context. The works councils, in their role as representative structures of workers' interests, meant to East Germans independence with respect to the old union leadership as well as a vehicle for incorporating employee interests in the firm. It is not surprising, then, that the new councils were reluctant to see themselves simply as extensions of another national union. By contrast, in W est Germany works councils are better integrated with union organizations and policies.
The interests o f the works council in one enterprise may be well at odds with the interests o f another enterprise in the same industry. W ith both managers and workers struggling to create or maintain a successful enterprise, the union, being organized in an industry-wide and fairly centralized fashion, can easily come into conflict with the interests of its members as represented by the works councils.
This is aggravated by the number of employers who opted out of their associations and the collective bargaining arrangements. The union is put in the awkward position of having to mediate between conflicting interests of its members or give up attempts at coordination, thus possibly weakening the collective contract.27 28
Works councils have frequently depended on advice from the West. Yet one often hears that the unions do not have a deep understanding of the East and that easterners have not been appointed to the highest decision-making positions in the union hierarchy nor are they even represented among union officials at any level in proportion to the number of east German members. In that sense, integration has not taken place.
After the initial success in enrolling members, the unions were reduced in numbers by the enormous lay-offs29 that occurred in eastern Germany the takeover
27 See Kathleen A. Thelen, Union o f Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1993.
28 In the works councils of the East, the proportion of white-collar workers and scientific and technical personnel is higher than in W est Germany. Though they have been elected by the whole work force - a new element of democratic representation from the shop-floor - it has been suggested that these councillors may be seen by blue-collar workers as a group with which it is difficult to identify and this is likely to affect union work in the plant. Birgit M ahnkopf, "The Impact of Unification on the German System of Industrial Relations." Discussion Paper. W issenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (Social Science Research Center Berlin) August 1993, p. 11.
29 The number of persons in paid employment has fallen from just under 10 million to around 6 million, „Unemployment in East Germany - Problem Groups Already Emerging“, Employment Observatory: East Germany, No. 9. 1993, p. 6.
of and dismantling of enterprises as a result of privatization by the Treuhand (the federal agency responsible for this). Though nearly 4 million workers and employees joined the DGB in East Germany, within two years the unions lost 1.5 million of these.' Unemployment appears as the primary reason for this decline.
And unemployment has not only reduced membership numbers but also the confidence people placed in the unions. Some critics see the lack of integration of the unemployed into the unions as a serious political problem, undercutting the unions’ role as an important counterpower in society.31 Even if a number of unemployed workers remained members of the union, they were not able to contribute to the enormous finances needed for administration and the many legal initiatives the union undertakes in eastern Germany with respect to job loss and illegal managerial actions at the workplace.
Enrolling members in large - even though later declining - numbers is one thing; winning people for active participation is another. It is not easy to get members to volunteer for union work. The member-strong unions in East Germany face problems very similar to those faced by other organizations and the parties when it comes to active participation.
This is perhaps even aggravated in the case of unions because they operate in a field of conflict. Members o f a union, even of a works council, may be afraid of allying themselves too openly with the union, and thereby alienating management.
The jobs of works conncillors are secure for as long as they remain on the works council. Not surprisingly, then, it is much easier to get members to serve on the works council than to take on other volunteer jobs that are not protected from the possible wrath of management. In my talks a number o f people mentioned that potential employees were asked if they belonged to unions. In previous research
0 In Rostock, for example, the ÖTV. the Public Employees and Transport Workers' Union, had 40,000 members in 1991 and 23,000 in 1994; 15,000 of the members are women.
By 1993 union membership had declined by nearly 50 percent. W olfgang Zapf,
"Einige Materialien zu Gesellschaft und Demokratie im Vereinten Deutschland“, in:
Hansgert Peisert and W olfgang Zapf, eds., Gesellschaft, Demokratie und Lebenschancen, Festschrift für Ralf Dahrendorf, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlass-Anstalt,
1994, p. 299. S S
See M aria Kurbjuhn and Michael Fichter, „Auch im Osten brauchen die Gewerkschaften Gestaltungskompetenz“, in: Gewerkschaftliche M onatshefte, 1, 1993, p. 39.
women reported that they didn't dare even let anyone know they attended union meetings. At a recent meeting with women from the East representing a variety of occupational levels, it was reported that people were being fired for taking sick leave. The long work hours without compensation is another openly discussed problem; workers are reluctant to protest for fear of losing their jobs. The carefully crafted relationships that developed between managers and workers in the W est are taking on other forms as they are transferred to the East.
Many easterners believe that with respect to the workplace, they have lost some o f the power they previously had to regulate their own lives! On the one hand, this kind of reaction may be surprising to those familiar with the close link between the union and the party in establishing authority and policy in the former GDR. On the other, in the former GDR there were changes over the years in what could be effected at various levels, and - at the very bottom of the union structure - the work collective, if functioning well, could more than occasionally modify workplace demands, in addition to providing emotional support. Now, new institutional arrangements and organizational traditions are being transferred from the W est into the quite different and constantly changing scene in East Germany, further transforming authority relations.
Above all, however, power relations on the job have shifted because o f the new threat o f unemployment. This threat has an all-pervasive effect. An "eastern"
union official from IG Metall whom I interviewed was interested in developing a more cooperative and comradely atmosphere at work, but this is made difficult by the lack of job security. The possible loss o f work is more frightening than poor relationships at the workplace. Many people in eastern Germany defined themselves through their work. In meeting after meeting I heard of the break of friendship ties between those who had work and those who did not, because o f the shame o f not having a job. So that the loss o f work and the work community is compounded by the loss of good friends.32
2 The value put on the importance of work that had become very apparent in my research over the years has been substantiated in a number of polls comparing the importance of work in the East and the West. See for example, W olfgang Zapf.
"Einige M aterialien zu Gesellschaft und Demokratie im vereinten Deutschland' op.cit., p. 198: 37 percent of the westerners polled compared to 58 percent of the easterners evaluated work as an area of one’s life as very important. Although this finding is open to a number of interpretations because of the high level of job insecurity in the East, the loss of work has a number o f ramifications, as indicated above.
Union solidarity, according to this official, is also adversely influenced by the different wage structure for white-collar employees and workers, which affects their general status in the organization and ultimately their willingness to work together.
One eastern SPD member, now in the European parliament, noted that relations to the organizational hierarchy are different in the West, where the levels are more strictly separated. In this new context, he suggests that the authority of the Communist Party and the union hierarchy is gone, but the high unemployment, the lack of commitment to the ethos underlying labor-management relations on the part of many managers in the East, and the formalized different relations in the organizations themselves result in feelings of exploitation and powerlessness. The problem is especially severe among young people.33
It is true that those few who manage to become active in the union and accomplish something do feel they have more control over their work lives than ordinary union members. Though women members of the ÖTV (Public Employees and Transport Workers' Union) I spoke to in Rostock were discouraged by the fact that the same people are always active, they were very proud o f the fact that as a result of a concentrated effort on Women's Day, they had a number o f Senatoren (members of the city government) promise to respond to a set o f issues the women asked them to consider: unemployment among women, cutbacks in social services, and the difficulties confronting single parents and senior citizens. The officials were then invited to address a meeting two months later. “At least we're introducing these issues into the political debate. All the senators turned up; they didn't dare miss the meeting“, remarked one of the representatives. Two older women who do volunteer work for the DGB and who also supported the women’s initiative said it gave them enormous personal satisfaction to be sent to conferences where they met others who were active in the union and with whom they could discuss problems. One of the women mentioned that she voted PDS.
33 Tiemann reports that two thirds of the members under 25 who have left the DGB unions in 1991/2 live in east Germany, in: Deutschland Archiv, op.cit., p.160.
