POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS 75
concrete, but also deceptive, notion of “fl ourishing landscapes” in the
socialist market economy is ignored.
Did the revolution in East Germany ignite a transformation of poli-
tics in the Federal Republic? Even before the fall of 1989, it was readily
apparent that Gorbachev’s reform policies had shaken up the political
sphere in the West. This time around, even the New Left in West Ger-
many succumbed to the illusion of a new “socialism with a human face”
in the Soviet Union itself.^119 This was coupled with the expectation, as
Erhard Eppler put it in 1989 in his speech on 17 June, that the SED lead-
ership would not be able to cling to its rigid stance against the “melting
ice of the Cold War” forever, although he identifi ed concrete prospects
only for reform and dialog, not reunifi cation.^120
The upheavals that came in the weeks and months that followed thus
took the political world of the Federal Republic mostly by surprise. The
diff erent political cultures became clearly manifest through this direct
confrontation. Three major trends were associated with this process,
the most visible of which was the renationalization of politics in the fa-
mous “We are one people” (Wir sind ein Volk) slogan. As the East Ger-
man impulse to quickly discard the GDR as a separate state challenged
the European order that had been established at Yalta, it awakened fears
that the situation might escalate uncontrollably, unleashing a new form
of aggressive nationalism. The conservatives in particular profi ted from
this renationalization. They were able to soften its blow diplomatically
by channeling this energy into the forum of European politics. At the
same time, they successfully funneled what turned out to be a primarily
economically driven impulse into a monetary union and unifi cation treaty
between East and West Germany.
Second, the pro-Western turn after 9 November presented a challenge
to the alternative groups in the West. As they had identifi ed themselves
with the East German civil rights activists in 1989/90, they also suff ered
a defeat during the reunifi cation process. Accordingly, they supported
the ambitions of the central round table to get the ball rolling on a con-
stitution for all of Germany. Many West German left-liberal constitutional
law experts thus wore themselves out working on a draft constitution
that was ultimately cursorily dismissed by the Volkskammer.^121 This was
accompanied by acts of arrogance, such as the famous banana that ap-
peared out of the pocket of the Green-Left politician Otto Schily when he
commented on Helmut Kohl’s victory in the Volkskammer elections.^122
After the SPD under the leadership of Oscar Lafontaine earned only 33
percent of the vote in the Bundestag elections in 1990—which did not
come as a surprise—and the West German Greens did not even get the
5 percent needed to gain any seats, the West German democratic Left