If you've never heard of or been to the Mokka Milch Eisbar next to the Kino International on Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee just east of Alexanderplatz, you're obviously a foreigner or a West
German (which in East Berlin is one and the same).
Back in the days of the German Democratic Republic it was the place to go between 10 a.m. and midnight, and if you really wanted to impress your date, you bought a gooey sherbet, syrup,
and fruit concoction, topped by chocolate flakes, called "Pittiplatsch." It was East Berlin's--ergo the GDR's--leading ice cream parlor, and even the theme of a hit song that led the top of the East
German charts from the mid-1970s until well into the 1980s. "In der Mokka Milch Eisbar hat sie mich gesehen, in der Mokka Milch Eisbar, da ist es geschehen," went the lines.
But then came the opening of the Berlin Wall, introduction of the D- mark, German reunification, and a slew of McDonalds, Baskin Robbins, and Häagen-Dazs emporiums. Soon the Mokka Milch
Eisbar was as out of fashion as Trabant and Wartburg cars. The plastic-topped tables and rickety chairs were empty, and starting in late 1991, the place had a permanent "Closed" sign on the door. Last
March, however, it reopened with fanfare. Even Thomas Natschinski, the singer whose band had recorded the Mokka-Milch song more than 20 years ago, was on hand for the event. "Pittiplatsch" is again on
the menu, and the place is swinging.
The rebirth of the Mokka Milch Eisbar, "where she first saw me and where it happened" (to paraphrase the song) is symbolic and symptomatic of what is happening in East Germany
merely five years after reunification: a wave of nostalgia for GDR times, a rediscovery of the East German past, a sense of pride in past achievements, all combined with a growing alienation between East and
West and an almost defiant East German, Ossie, resentment of the West and Wessies.
In fact, although the Berlin Wall is long gone, and no one really wants it back, the wall in people's heads is growing taller and thicker, say two-thirds of East Germans, according to a
recent poll by West Germany's Emnid Institute.
The evidence is omnipresent. I hear and sense it during my frequent travels on reporting assignments in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.
Opinion surveys and sociological studies confirm it. So do voting patterns, if you look closer at why 20 to 30 percent of East Germans support the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS),
self-styled reform successor to the GDR's once-ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). Another indicator is the comeback of Communist-era products and brand names on East German store shelves, now that the initial
craze for anything and everything that was or looked Western has subsided.
"Wherever East communicates with West, the conversation is usually full of hidden digs and provocations," says Bernd Okun, an East German management consultant based in
Leipzig. "We are starting to see what really divides us: forty years of completely different lifestyles and experiences."
East and West Germans have entirely different habits, attitudes, and behavioral patterns, rooted in the one having been raised in a collective and mutually cooperative society, the
other in a culture based on competition and personal achievement, say Horst-Eberhard Richter and Elmar Brähler, two West German sociologists, who collaborated with East German psychotherapist Michael Geyer on a
national study.
Ossies, according to their observations, are more social, feel more respected at work, enjoy sex more, are two centimeters shorter, and also die two years earlier than Wessies. They
tend to avoid competing against one another, have closer and more convivial private ties with co-workers, and are generally less reserved and more spontaneous in human relations.
Moreover, they go to bed and get up one hour earlier, prefer higher temperatures--77 degrees to 66 degrees--in their offices, and, for what it's worth, stand closer to each other when
queuing at the bank or post office--maximum 15 centimeters apart, whereas West Germans prefer to keep a distance of 45 centimeters from each other.
They also have different reading preferences, to judge from the bestseller lists published regularly by the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel and the formerly Communist daily Neues
Deutschland. Der Spiegel bases its list on a nationwide survey compiled by the publishing industry magazine Buchreport; Neues Deutschland queries 50 of the largest bookshops in the five new eastern states and
the eastern boroughs of Berlin.
In the last week of July, three of the top ten fiction titles in Neues Deutschland did not even make the Spiegel list, and conversely, three of those in Der Spiegel were not on the
Neues Deutschland list, though all six titles were distributed nationwide by leading publishers.
The discrepancy was even greater on the non-fiction lists. Six of the top-selling ten in Neues Deutschland did not make the Spiegel, among them the newest "Duden," the German
spelling dictionary, whereas six of the ten bestsellers in Der Spiegel failed to make the list of Neues Deutschland.
Although East German newsstands have been inundated with West German magazines and weekly newspapers since reunification, there are a few holdovers from GDR times that are making a
comeback, as well as startups that address East German interests and are virtually unknown in West Germany.
Two weekly newspapers, almost impossible to find in West Germany except at large airport and railway station newsstands, are Freitag and the Wochenpost. Both were launched in East
Berlin after reunification and are edited by and for mainly Ossies, though they also cover international events and global culture.
The most astonishing phenomenon is the survival and revival of Das Magazin, launched in 1954 by Hilde Eisler, wife of Gerhart Eisler, who was chief of East German radio and veteran
Communist propagandist, and made headlines in the United States in 1949 by jumping bail on a contempt of Congress charge, fleeing for East Germany aboard the Polish ship "Batory." Das Magazin, a
piquant monthly grab-bag of erotica, literature, art, culture, science, humor, and fashion news, spiced with a glossy centerspread of a nude, became a GDR version of Playboy.
The aim was to take some of the dullness and drabness out of life and persuade the upper-classless that communism could be more than fulfilling production plans. It became a surrogate
window on the West for East Germans whose press was censored by the regime and who had no access to Western print media. Though Das Magazin had an official circulation of 55,000--substantial in a country of 16
million--issues were almost impossible to get without bribing a news dealer or knowing the friend of a friend with the right connections. For decades, dog-eared copies made the rounds. But when the Wall came
down, the fate of Das Magazin seemed sealed: extinction. After all, who needed or wanted it when newsstand shelves were suddenly bending under the weight of not only the real Playboy but hundreds of other glossy
and provocative journals? At first, of course, no one did.
But Das Magazin is still around and better in content and appearance and more erotic than ever, with a monthly paid circulation of 80,000-- 93 percent of it in East Germany, though it
is owned and edited by a small team of West Germans who bought it in 1993 from the Treuhandanstalt, the federal government agency responsible for privatizing or liquidating formerly state-owned East German
businesses. Moreover, circulation is growing steadily, according to editor Martina Rellin, who operates in the same seedy East Berlin building where Hilde Eisler started Das Magazin more than 40 years ago.
The survival and revival of Das Magazin are not only symptomatic of the mood in East Germany but of the widening gap of perspective and attitude between East and West.
Some 64 percent of East Germans say that life and living conditions during GDR times were better than the "negative descriptions and reports" in today's German media,
according to a comprehensive survey conducted between mid-April and mid-June of 1995 by Emnid, the West German polling institute. Around 79 percent of East Germans said that "the idea of socialism was good,
but the politicians we had were incompetent." Five years ago, in a similar poll, the majority of East Germans were very critical and condemnatory of the GDR and its system. Today, the majority still do not
want the GDR back, but a surprising 15 percent do. An equal number wish there had been no reunification.
Whatever the causes--nostalgia for the "bad old times" or disillusionment with the "good new times" because of the economic strictures in East Germany--attitudes are
increasingly critical of the West and more favorable toward the old East.
In 1990, for example, 91 percent of East Germans regarded the standard of living in West Germany higher than in the GDR and only 2 percent thought it was better in East Germany. Today,
85 percent say life in the West is better, and 8 percent claim it was better in the GDR. In 1990, some 62 percent of East Germans thought the GDR provided better crime protection than West Germany; today 88
percent are of that opinion.
Likewise, five years ago, 67 percent of East Germans thought the GDR offered women more equality than West Germany, today 88 percent say so.
Whereas, in 1990, 87 percent of East Germans thought that West Germany was more advanced in science and technology than the GDR, today only 63 percent hold that opinion, and 6 percent
say the GDR was more developed.
Attitudes about the social-welfare system and education are also undergoing a pronounced revision. Five years ago, for example, 16 percent of East Germans rated West German social
security better than their own, 65 percent thought the GDR's was better. Today only 3 percent prefer the West's; 92 percent favor the East German one. In a similar vein, 65 percent of East Germans in 1990
thought the health- care system in West Germany was better than in the East; today, 57 percent say East Germany's was better. Five years ago, a mere 11 percent rated the GDR's educational system superior to West
Germany's, now 64 percent do.
According to the Emnid survey, there is widespread disappointment in both East and West with the overall development in Germany since reunification. Only 25 percent of Westerners and 13
percent of Easterners say "the situation" is better than they had expected; 28 and 33 percent respectively, believe it is "about" the way they had anticipated five years ago. But 43 percent
in the West and 53 percent in the East feel "matters are worse" than they had anticipated.
Though the German government is still transferring some $150 billion to the new states each year to build up the economy in the east, and will be doing so at least until 2000,
disagreement between Westerners and Easterners about this remains intense. Whereas 25 percent of West Germans think government is doing too much to raise the living standard, only 1 percent of East Germans feel
that way. Conversely, 68 percent of East Germans say government is not doing enough--a view shared by only 9 percent of West Germans.
As the gap between East and West widens (at least in the minds of the country's citizens), East Germans are looking backward and viewing their own past and life experience in the GDR
more benignly and favorably. For example, an overwhelming majority--82 percent--say that "life was easier in GDR times," although they qualify this by adding that it was because one was told what to do
by the regime, needed to think less for oneself, and had fewer choices and decisions to make. Nearly 90 percent note that people were closer to each other and less selfish under communism. They staunchly deny
that they did not and do not work as hard as Westerners, and 87 percent attribute the GDR's low productivity rate to "bad working conditions, supply shortages, and outdated machinery."
As time passes, East Germans are also looking back on their past achievements, under and despite communism, with pride. Simultaneously, they have come to regard West Germans as ignorant
and arrogant judges. According to the Emnid poll, 75 percent say they can be proud of their past life in the GDR because "I made the best of things and cooperated with the regime only insofar as it was
absolutely necessary." And nearly 97 percent say defiantly that "only those who experienced life in the GDR have a right to talk about it."
This sense of pride--linked, no doubt, with a certain amount of nostalgia for less trying and challenging times when everyone was more or less equal, nobody got very rich but also no
one was poor-- has led to a surprising rediscovery of past values and symbols. The most significant symptom is the return to products and brand names of GDR times, even those that are now manufactured by
formerly state- owned companies that have been taken over by West German or multinational corporations. The days right after the opening of the Berlin Wall and the July 1990 currency unification, when East
Germans gobbled up Western products, are long gone. Indeed, 45 percent say they try to buy only East German products or as many as possible.
Though West German, West European, and Japanese cars seem to dominate the streets and highways of East Germany, the Trabant--once the apple of every Ossie's eye and the brunt of every
Wessie joke--is still around. Of the 3.2 million that were built in Zwickau over a period of more than 30 years, because production started in 1958, 1.5 million are still put-putting their way around Central and
Eastern Europe--900,000 of them in East Germany. Trabbie rallies are the rage.
As an old GDR hand, traveling in and reporting on that country for many years, I could never help chuckling over the dowdy ads for and packaging of "Florena" cosmetics. I was
certain they would disappear along with the red banners and other symbols of communism in no time. The dowdy ads and packages did, but "Florena," a 75-year-old company and brand name from Waldheim in
Saxony that had been expropriated by the GDR regime, is back almost as strong as ever. By 1991, sales volume had dropped from a 1989 high of about $200 million to around $12 million, and more than 500 of the
original 700 workers had been laid off. In 1992, finally, the Treuhandanstalt agreed to a management buyout of three of the executives. The company now employs 200 people and is hiring more, sold more than $32
million worth of cosmetics in 1994 (making a profit of around $540,000), and expects a 10 percent increase in sales and earnings for 1995. In West Germany, the brand name is virtually unknown, but in East
Germany, it is the market leader for shaving soaps, skin lotions, and skin creams. More than 80 percent of its products are sold there, the rest being exported to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Before 1990, there was hardly an East German woman who didn't use "Indra" or "Koivo" lipsticks, produced by state-owned Berlin Kosmetik. They were virtually the only
lipstick brands available. After reunification, the bottom fell out and the brands almost disappeared. By 1992, sales had dropped to a mere $4 million and staff had been reduced from 900 to 110 people. In 1993,
an American, Raymond J. Learsy, bought the plant. Last year, sales topped $17 million, there was a small profit, and 30 people were rehired. But most importantly, East German women are again buying
"Indra" and "Koivo" lipsticks. The brands, unknown in West Germany, have recaptured 8 percent of the market in the eastern states.
Except for imported bubbly from Crimea, practically the only sparkling wine in the GDR was a brew named Rotkäppchen--Little Red Riding Hood. No party or celebration was complete without
it. Even East Germans--because of the odd name--thought that it was some kind of Communist invention, though the brand, from the wine-growing town of Freyburg on the Unstrut, has a pedigree more than 100 years
old. In 1949, the winery became state-owned. After the opening of the Berlin Wall, because of the flood of Western wines, Little Red Riding Hood took a very big fall. Sales plummeted from an average 15 million
bottles a year to 2.9 million in 1991. In 1993, Rotkäppchen Sektkellerei was privatized. Co-workers bought 60 percent of the shares, and Harald Eckes, a West German spirits maker, 40 percent. Sales have soared
ever since: 17 million bottles in 1994 (only 50,000 in West Germany). The brand has an overall 20 percent share of the market; 60 percent for semi-dry varieties.
Similar "Buy East" success stories can be told for a number of wine, spirits, and beer brands, no matter whether West German giants or East German entrepreneurs are behind
them. Even "Club Cola," a concoction launched by the GDR regime in 1969 as a deliberate ploy to take people's minds off evil capitalist drinks such as "Coke" and "Pepsi" that they
saw being imbibed on West German TV, is back in the running: with a slightly modernized label and clever commercials using old newsreels of GDR events and celebrities, Erich Honecker and East German Cosmonaut
Sigmund Jähn among them.
RFT-Rundfunk-Fernseh-Telekommunikation, the GDR's monopoly TV maker (500,000 sets a year), is also back, thanks to its 1994 privatization and a contract with Luigi Colani, who
redesigned the top-of-the-line models. The company, now owned by 3,000 retail dealers, has 12 percent of the East German TV-set market; Sony has 15 percent. They're billed by the company as "our TVs."
Like East Berlin's Mokka Milch Eisbar, these are symptoms of the East-West divide getting bigger, and of East German society starting to move full circle.
Not all too far from that again-popular ice cream parlor, in Berlin's Friedrichshain borough, there's a supermarket where 50 percent of the products are East German made, with brand
names familiar only to Ossies. One of the proprietors, 34-year old Harald Kujus, is as typical an Ossie as one can find. He was born a couple of weeks after the Berlin Wall was built, and opened his shop a few
weeks after it came down. "The only way we're going to make progress, " he says, "is by going back to the old products and to what traditionally is ours."
Kujus named his store "Zurück in die Zukunft"-- "Back to the Future."
Munich-based John Dornberg is a regular contributor to German Life.
