Voices Of East Berlin

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On this night she is one of only half a dozen men and women in the disco on the 37th floor of the Hotel Stadt Berlin in Alexanderplatz -- the modernistic public square where most of the demonstrations in East Berlin for this new, democratic way of life have taken place. "People are exhausted," says the bartender. "It is too much to comprehend."

"We are reading too much," Astrid says. "Everyone is reading everything now -- five newspapers a day. Never before, because it was all the same. It was only good things in the newspaper -- every plan 100%, 130%. Now we read about problems. Now it is possible to say what you are thinking.

"We learned in school that in the capitalist countries the boss makes the money from the workers. And now we know our leaders are the same. That is why we are so sad." She is chagrined at the signs all around her that ordinary East Germans -- including the bartender in the disco -- are playing currency- exchange games with visitors from the West.

"On Nov. 9 there was dancing on the Wall," she notes. "Not since." She fears unity with West Germany, though not close relations. "Keep the Wall," she says. "If they make some problems, we can close the border. We hear there are neofascists in West Germany. We know this from their own news. We have no fascism, and people here will never accept it.

"Now maybe there will be some mixed economy. But not if there will be more poor. We will not accept unemployment. Democracy and socialism. That is the goal."

Midmorning. "It has been a quiet revolution," the woman is saying. She is sixtyish, an actress in the Berliner Ensemble, the repertory theater founded by Bertolt Brecht. In the corner of the room, images flicker on the television screen. The pictures are of villas and hunting dachas and the commentator is talking about hundreds of millions of deutsche marks smuggled out of the country and into Swiss bank accounts.

Erich Honecker's picture flashes on the screen. "We knew our leaders were old and stupid and reactionary -- but not this. It's like people living next to Auschwitz who said they didn't know. If you had told me about this a couple of months ago, I'd say it was American propaganda. It's as if you were suddenly told that your grandmother was a thief, your mother was a whore, your father was a drug dealer."

She and her daughter, an actress in her mid-20s, have been active in the opposition. She recites a litany frequently heard: kindergartens, excellent schools and libraries; this is not the Soviet Union with bread shortages, this is not Poland with its Catholic Church, this is not Hungary with its historic antipathy to the Russians and socialism . . .

"This all should have happened long ago. Now if we can make this into a democracy and get some of the money back, this could be one of the most pleasant places to live. Give us a few years. Nobody here gets sad watching Dallas on West Berlin TV and says, 'I wish I had a dress like that.' We don't want to be the Taiwan of Europe."

"Yes, the future is socialism. But not the old socialism. We need a new socialism. But how? It is only possible with young people. Young people in new structures. The old structures are death. The challenge is to create these new structures."