The last
East German
Egon Krenz
has a simple message: ‘I told you so.’
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 11/7/19, 4:30 AM CET Updated 11/7/19, 2:05 PM CET
Illustration
by Paul Ryding for POLITICO
BERLIN —
Egon Krenz is sure he’s been here before.
Standing in
the vast lobby of the landmark Hotel de Rome in central Berlin, the last leader
of the German Democratic Republic turns in frustration to a passing employee.
“What was this place?” he asks the young woman.
Unaware of
who Krenz is, she explains that it was originally a private bank and the
central bank of the GDR, the communist East German dictatorship created by the
Soviet Union after World War II.
“I didn’t
come here very often,” he confides to me, flashing his trademark toothy grin.
It’s been a
long time since Krenz, 82, roamed the streets of East Berlin’s former
government quarter, where he spent most of his political career, rising through
the ranks of East Germany’s communist apparatus as the crown prince of the
GDR’s long-time leader, Erich Honecker.
In contrast
to his mentor, Krenz was a strong believer in Gorbachev and immediately
promised “transformation.”
Krenz took
over from his mentor in October 1989, just weeks before the fall of the Berlin
Wall. He spent less than two months in power before his office was abolished to
make way for East Germany’s first free election.
Even if
some of the details of that era have faded with time, Krenz’s take on what
happened remains as sharp as ever. As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the
Wall neared, Krenz, who lives near the Baltic coast, was back in town to hawk
his latest book and set the record straight about the tumultuous events of 1989
and what came after. Wearing a dark sport coat so new he forgot to cut off the
tags, the aging Marxist came to Berlin with a simple message: “I told you so.”
Germany has
turned observance of the Wall’s falling on November 9, 1989 into an annual
ritual to reflect on why the chasm between East and West remains. This year,
the mood has been particularly somber, especially in light of the strong
showing by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a string of states that
once belonged to the GDR.
As the most
prominent living defender of the communist state, Krenz, a large man with a
friendly bulldog face, offers welcome succor to those who feel they landed on
the wrong side of history.
The Berlin
Wall was toppled in November 1989 | Gerard Malie/AFP via Getty Images
“First of
all, the Wall didn’t fall,” Krenz declares after ordering a freshly squeezed
orange juice mixed with soda and ice on the breakfast patio of the old central
bank.
'Gorbi help
us!'
Krenz's
narrative of the dramatic events of 1989 begins in the summer.
Tens of
thousands of East Germans were fleeing the country, most illegally. More than
30,000 left in August alone amid signs the Iron Curtain was cracking from
Poland to Hungary.
By
September, scores of East Germans were taking to the streets in regular
demonstrations to protest against the authoritarian government. Even so,
Honecker, a staunch opponent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika policies,
insisted on holding the line and closed the border to Czechoslovakia, the main
route East Germans were taking to get out.
The move
only intensified the pressure. Even as Gorbachev visited Berlin to celebrate
the 40th anniversary of the GDR’s founding on October 7, the demonstrations
continued, with protesters carrying signs reading “Gorbi help us!”
Ten days
later, the East German politburo forced Honecker to step down, replacing him
with his deputy and protégé, Krenz, then 52. In contrast to his mentor, Krenz
was a strong believer in Gorbachev and immediately promised “transformation,”
including liberalizing travel for citizens of the GDR.
Egon Krenz,
left, with Mikhail Gorbachev in early November 1989 | AFP via Getty Images
Krenz, who
thanks to his relative youth was the only member of the GDR’s senior ranks to
have grown up under communism, says he was convinced the country could survive
with open borders by engaging more with the West. “That was an illusion,” he
says today.
An even
bigger misjudgment, though, was trusting Gorbachev, he now says.
On November
1, as rumors circulated that the Soviet Union would drop its support for the
GDR, Krenz visited Moscow, seeking reassurances from Gorbachev.
“The GDR
was a child of the Soviet Union,” Krenz, who studied in Moscow and speaks
fluent Russian, said. “I asked him, ‘Tell me Mikhail Sergeyevich, do you stand
by your paternity?’”
Krenz said
Gorbachev told him he did and that there would be no reunification.
'Storming
the wall'
Krenz says
that during his trip to Moscow, the head of the KGB warned him there were
reports that protesters might try to storm the Brandenburg Gate during a
demonstration planned for November 4. Krenz says he ordered the area, which is
where the Soviet embassy was located, to be fortified. He issued a separate
order to the border police not to shoot demonstrators “no matter what.”
Several
days later, the East German leadership finalized its plans to lift travel
restrictions. On November 9, Krenz handed the details of the decision to Günter
Schabowski, the politburo official charged with announcing the policy to an
international press conference scheduled for that evening. The new regulations
were supposed to take effect the next day, November 10.
But in a
now famous exchange with reporters, Schabowski falsely claimed the opening was
effective “immediately,” prompting thousands of East Germans to rush to the
border that night.
“Honecker
was right about Gorbachev. I believed in him for much too long" — Egon
Krenz, the last leader of East Germany
“What
really happened is that the border was opened at the invitation of a politician
of the GDR,” says Krenz.
The next
day, he wrote a telegram to Gorbachev telling him that of the 60,000 GDR
citizens who crossed the border that night, 45,000 had already returned home
and to their workplace. “Those were very disciplined people storming the wall,”
he jokes.
He remains
convinced that most of his countrymen at the time didn’t really want
reunification but rather a reformed GDR. But the demonization of the communist
regime and promises made by Kohl set a process in motion that couldn’t be
stopped, he said.
Krenz
points out that most of the pictures people associate with the fall of the
Wall, Berliners standing atop the barrier with sledgehammers, were taken well
after November 9. That matters, he argues, because in his mind it was he and
his politburo colleagues who paved the way for a peaceful transition by
suspending the order to shoot and lifting the travel restrictions.
"No
one in a position of power spoke back then of the "fall of the Wall,"
he said.
To
underline his point, he cites a telegram he received shortly afterward from
U.S. President George H.W. Bush congratulating him for “opening” the border.
Footage of
Egon Krenz is projected on the Humboldt Forum building in Berlin, as part of
the festival week to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall | John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images
The glow
didn’t last long.
In early
December, Krenz was forced to resign along with the entire politburo. In
January, he was kicked out of the party, which by then was crumbling. Less than
a year later, Germany would be reunified.
“Honecker
was right about Gorbachev,” he said. “I believed in him for much too long. My
relationship to Honecker was destroyed because he knew how much I admired
Gorbachev. Today I know more than I could have then.”
'Everything
would have been different'
Like most
failed communists, Krenz insists that the GDR’s problems weren’t ideology but
execution. “The logic and analysis of Marx’s 'Das Kapital' make it clear that
capitalism cannot be the last word of history,” he says, sipping his third
orange juice and soda.
He's
convinced that what East Germans really wanted wasn’t Western-style democracy
but to be able to travel, own cars and buy electronics. “If we managed to
achieve that on the economic side, everything would have been different,” he
says.
That's why
he's a big fan of the Chinese model. Though not perfect in a socialist sense,
China's communist system has pulled millions out of poverty, he argues.
But what
about the crises of leftist regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea? All the
result of American efforts to undermine them, he insists.
As a
Soviet-trained politician, Krenz still knows how to parry critical questions
with a flurry of moral relativism and whataboutism.
“I operated
in accordance with the laws of the GDR" — Egon Krenz
The Stasi?
“The CIA has engineered wars,” he says, before citing the revelations of U.S.
spying detailed by WikiLeaks and others.
The GDR’s
infamous prisons? “Up until 1989, no one complained about the conditions
there.”
The scores
of East Germans killed trying to get past the Wall? “I regret every death, but
it was a military zone, there were laws.”
In 1997, a
German court sentenced Krenz to six and a half years in prison, on the grounds
that as a member of the GDR leadership he bore a share of the responsibility
for some of the deaths. Krenz, who served about four years before being
released, still considers the decision “absurd.”
“I operated
in accordance with the laws of the GDR,” he says.
'Reunification
failed'
As one of
the last living links to a country and system that shaped generations of East
Germans, Krenz is not without his admirers. Many former East Germans knew him
from a young age because he was in charge of the communist youth organization.
Krenz says
he receives a regular stream of requests from the children and grandchildren of
GDR old-timers asking him to congratulate their loved ones on a big birthday or
anniversary.
Over the
summer, hundreds of people convened on Berlin’s Russia House, a cultural
center, for the presentation of his latest book, “We and the Russians,
Relations between Berlin and Moscow in the fall of ’89.”
The book
has been a bestseller. It’s easy to see why: Krenz tells East Germans they have
nothing to be ashamed of. Even on the rare occasion when he acknowledges that
the GDR “sinned,” he qualifies the admission by stressing it happened a long
time ago.
“Large
numbers of East Germans feel like second- or third-class citizens,” he says,
referring to a series of recent polls.
He says
that in 1991, he sent Helmut Kohl a study by a Leipzig professor warning that
attitudes in the East were turning and that if the former GDR citizens weren’t
treated with more respect the East-West divide would never be overcome.
“Reunification failed,” he tells me.
That
failure, he says, is largely to blame for the rise of the AfD in the East,
where many Germans, frustrated by a sense that they’ve been left behind, turn
to the populists.
Krenz sees
the answer to most of Germany’s woes, not unsurprisingly, further to the East.
“What we really need to do is to get closer to Russia again,” he says. “Germany
has done best when it’s close to Russia.” (Krenz has never visited the U.S. and
doesn't speak English. He was invited in 1990 but balked when he was asked to
fill out a form that included the question: "Are you a communist?")
Krenz, who
last month celebrated the 70th anniversary of the GDR’s founding with a group
of several hundred comrades, sees his continued allegiance to the ideals of
East Germany as a sign of “character,” not delusion.
“I’m not
sitting here pouting,” he says at the end of our long exchange. “Thirty years
have passed. The GDR is gone and won’t return. I’m a realist. Open wounds? Yes.
It was my life.”
This
article has been updated.
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