East Germany: Now You See It, Now You. . .

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With the economy in collapse and unification less than two months away, East Germany's government last week began a slide to oblivion. Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere dismissed two leading Cabinet ministers and accepted the resignation of two others, throwing into disarray the broad coalition that has ruled the country since its first democratic elections last spring.

De Maiziere's ousting of his Finance Minister Walter Romberg and Agriculture Minister Peter Pollack, both backed by the rival Social Democrats, was an attempt to shift blame for East Germany's enormous economic woes onto the SPD. But those firings, along with the departures of the Justice and Economics ministers, also reflected the increasing irrelevance of the East German government. "Leading officials are resigning to try for positions at the local and regional levels," says a senior East Berlin official. "They don't want jobs that are about to disappear. Soon there will be no government at all."