Hans Modrow … and me. Obituary of Hans Modrow Brings Back Memories … May His Memory Endure!

East Berlin – late March, 1990 – celebrating the Berlin Wall coming down.  (R. Prince photo)

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What stands out even all these years later from that trip to Germany were the contradictory insights: how well seemingly everyone I met could, with accuracy, explain Communism’s short comings on the one hand. It was as if the entire population of the GDR with only a few exceptions could detail what was “wrong” with Communism. On the other hand I was equally astounded – remain so until today about how naive, ignorant so many of these same people were about the societal brick that was about to hit them in the head … called capitalism.

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Knowing it would interest me – and it did – Nancy pointed out an obituary of former East German (German Democratic Republic) head of state, Hans Modrow who died on February 11 in Berlin. The obituary appeared in the Sunday, February 12 edition of the Denver Post. It was lifted entirely from the Associated Press (AP). There is one line, even in an AP story that range particularly true: “The entire peaceful course of establishing German unity was precisely a special achievement of his; that will remain his political legacy.” Agreed. It (German reunification) could have been a violent and messy affair had Modrow not seen the writing on the wall and did what he could to ease the process of the implosion of East German communism.

The Washington Post ran Modrow’s obituary too but as the result of a paywall I could not read it. I did fine a useful – for a Western capitalist news source – piece however in the English edition of French newspaper, Le Monde by Thomas Wieder. Expect something will appear in the NY Times but I could not find it as of yet.

So, why the title “Hans Modrow and me?” Did I ever meet with him – NO. Did I know him or anyone close to him personally? No. It is only that for a few hours in late March of 1990 – I am uncertain of the exact date – I was in the same room as he. as were hundreds of other people, almost all of them (minus yours truly) members of the Socialist Unity Party. Modrow was explaining to an unruly and angry audience – angry at him – why they, the Socialist Unity Party – and the people of the GDR in general had to accept defeat, the defeat a result of the vote in which East Germans overwhelming voted for reunification with the Federal Republic of Germany.

More on Modrow’s remarks that day, below.

How was it that I was there in the first place?

Commemorating the 1848 Revolution in Germany

I had come to visit what was left of East Germany, to see for myself. Events had moved so quickly between mid 1989, when the Poles had voted overwhelmingly against their Communist government , to November 0 of that years when the Berlin Wall came down. A flood of East Germans in one fell swoop swamped the west. By the time I reached Berlin and found lodging in an apartment in the Pankow neighborhood, reunification had not taken place but was well on its way. Berlin was in a festive mood, especially East Berlin. Wherever I went there were festivals, parties, concerts celebrating the end of the Communist era. My contacts in the GDR Peace Committee, whom I visited at the time, blamed it all on the C.I.A. and West German intelligence. They had a point up to a point; no doubt Western, particularly U.S. intelligence was actively involved in the GDR’s collapse, but there were other internal factors – the suffocating role of the STASI – East German intelligence, the failure of East German youth to participate in constructing the future of their own country and other, today well known, factors that led to the collapse. The bottom line was not that complicated: the people of the German Democratic Republic, in their great majority, had rejected Communism as it existed in the GDR. It had failed them – not so much economically as commentators in W. Europe and the USA say – but on other levels. Of this I had no doubt at the time. Thirty Three years later, the assessment remains the same.

The bottom line was not that complicated: the people of the German Democratic Republic, in their great majority, had rejected Communism as it existed in the GDR. It had failed them – not so much economically as commentators in W. Europe and the USA say – but on other levels. Of this I had no doubt at the time. Thirty Three years later, the assessment remains the same.

That was a hard pill to swallow for a Marxist who had dedicated his life up until them (and I might add, continues to do so, today) to building a socialist future. Hard pill or not, the realities were clear enough, and not just in East Germany, but throughout Eastern Europe. Besides I had seen enough of the seamy side of Eastern European and Soviet Communism repeatedly in the nearly five years of living in Finland working at the World Peace Council. Yes, of course there was the other side of the coin and I still appreciate its accomplishments, especially the Soviet role in defeating German and Italian fascism and the punishing, overwhelming sacrifices that victory entailed. What stands out even all these years later from that trip to Germany were the contradictory insights: how well seemingly everyone I met could, with accuracy, explain Communism’s shortcomings on the one hand. It was as if the entire population of the GDR with only a few exceptions could detail what was “wrong” with Communism. On the other hand I was equally astounded – remain so until today about how naive, ignorant so many of these same people were about the societal brick that was about to hit them in the head … called capitalism.

Back to Hans Modrow …

Odd. It was just a few months ago after a meeting in our backyard here in Denver that with two local socialists – one about my age, an elderly (I suppose that is the proper word for both of us) man of Iranian-Jewish background and a younger friend of Colorado’s dynamic Ethiopian community, that from out of somewhere in the depths of my mind, the essence of Modrow’s March, 1990 speech, came flowing to the surface. The elder of the two commented that he would love to actually read Modrow’s remarks that day. I have no idea if such a transcript exists. If it does I would like to see it too, even in German which I can scrape through.

I am trying to remember, with no success, the German friend who took me to Modrow’s talk that day in East Berlin that March cold day so that I can publicly thank him for the kindness he showed me in simultaneously translating Modrow’s remarks from German to English but for the life of me I cannot, even though this same friend later visited me – I believe twice!! – at home in Denver later in the 1990s. In any case, I have never forgotten the gist of Modrow’s remarks, what even then I

April, 1988 – me, in a forum with German peace activists, Bonn, Germany

understood as his extraordinary courage to

face reality head on and his vision for the future of Marxism.

He spoke of the importance of Marxism listening to the voice of the people, to their concerns, their problems, their hopes and that often (to put it mildly) the Socialist Unity Party had failed in this very fundamental chore, that “the party” was better at ordering people around, top down, then listening and that had the party leadership done so, that perhaps the results would have been different. Then Hans Modrow openly and candidly said what everyone in East Germany knew to be true: that the people of East Germany in their great majority had rejected Communism and that the government had, and this long before, lost public support, that this was tragic … but true and that as Marxists one must always reject delusions and begin one’s analysis based upon objective reality.

He suggested that an in depth, honest critical analysis of the collapse of Communism was necessary, important, if Marxism and the struggle for socialism were to re-emerge as a global force, which it has. Such a self-criticism was not meant to throw the whole idea of socialism out the window, but to learn from its shortcomings as it had existed in fact. I know of only one communist party that had the courage and foresight to undertake such an analysis – the South African Communist Party; If others attempted it, I am unaware.

Modrow speculated that it would take time, perhaps 25, 30 years before a renewed socialism stripped of its dogmatism, its fawning attitude towards foreign examples be they Soviet, Chinese, Cuban or whatever, would reemerge and give voice to the working classes, oppressed groups everywhere. He was spot on on this point. I hope that before he died, he understood that now, once again in 2023 that the world was changing again and that Fukuyama was wrong that 1989 marked “the end of history” (and the eternal continuation of capitalism).

His voice spoke to me – both in its tone and its content; it helped me understand “the bigger picture” as they say and he did so, without knowing it at a time of turmoil, both personal and global in nature. I have read in preparing this blog entry that Modrow has published memoirs. I would like to read them.

Not long before his death, just after the Russian Special Military Operation opened in Ukraine when the anti-Russian hysteria was at its height, Modrow, showing the same courage he had shown in March, 1990 when I listened to a simultaneous translation of his speech commented, “”The question of whether the war in Ukraine is an invasion by Russian troops or an internal civil war between the forces of the new republics in eastern Ukraine and the fascist elements in the west of the country is still open,” Forty-two years after his Berlin remarks, he still had not “swallowed the Kool-Aid”.

Thank you Hans Modrow.

In Memorium Hans Modrow

Hans Modrow – a man of the people