E. Germans Crowd Stores but Buying Is Restrained

EAST BERLIN â€”  East Germany went shopping in the dazzling wonderland of Western consumerism Monday, but the orgy of buying that many had predicted failed to occur.

In part overwhelmed by the spectacle itself, East Germans crowded into department stores and shops in record numbers but seemed reluctant to part with the spanking new deutschemarks they received Sunday as part of the German economic, social and currency union.

Instead, many appeared content to stare, then touch and price the thousands of Western items appearing in East Germany’s retail stores for the first time.

“I think people will hang onto their money for a while,� predicted an East Berlin woman, Luzie Conrad.

She noted that East Germans have an ingrained habit of treating the West German mark as a precious commodity to be used only with care.

The absence of a consumer scramble was greeted with a collective sigh of relief by policy- makers in Bonn, the West German capital. They had been concerned about the inflationary pressures an avalanche of East German consumer buying might bring.

Prices on the Frankfurt stock exchange rose sharply on news of the low-keyed East German consumer reaction, and the deutschemark rose in European trading.

“I’m impressed by the mood of the people and the mood in the stores,� West German Economics Minister Helmut Haussmann told an East German television interviewer during a visit to Dresden. “They are waiting.�

Added West German government spokesman Dieter Vogel, “With the D-mark, they have won their freedom as consumers. They’ll be discerning consumers.�

Initial figures from the West German Bundesbank also indicated that East Germans withdrew only the equivalent of $2.8 billion from banks on Sunday, the first day of the currency union. That figure was nearly a third less than the expected amount of about $3.7 billion.

To head off any possible spending stampede, East Germans have been limited under terms of the currency union to withdrawals totaling no more than the equivalent of $1,250 each during the first week.

Several thousand East German workers in the Berlin area, mainly in the important metalworking sector, staged brief work stoppages Monday to press their demands for higher pay and fewer working hours.

Any major industrial unrest or sharp jump in East German wages in the coming months could endanger East Germany’s economic recovery and add significantly to the cost of German unification, political and economic observers believe.

Monday’s events came as one result of the state treaty between East and West Germany that effectively united the two German economies by extending West German business, financial and social laws, plus the deutschemark, to East Germany. The treaty also ended border controls between the two states and set them on the road to full political unification.

Like stagehands changing sets between acts of a play, East German retailers spent last weekend in a frenzy of remodeling and restocking in advance of the start of the country’s new commercial era.

By the time stores opened Monday, the country had gone through a collective face-lift, with bright Western packaging, creative window displays and colorful products ranging from Reebok shoes to Christian Dior cosmetics that only hard Western currency can buy.

Most retailers in East Berlin seemed to carry stocks consisting of 60% to 80% of Western goods.

At a large stand in East Berlin’s central Alexanderplatz, a young couple wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the Lucky Strike logo handed out packs of the American cigarettes along with a leaflet carrying the words, “Born in the USA.�

Nearby, a van sold Western soft porn magazines.

Consumer caution seems to have been bolstered by uncertainty over jobs, as East Germany’s overmanned industry now will begin to slim down to compete with the West.

Monday, however, East Germans were also curious and occasionally confused as they came to grips with a completely new set of consumer goods most had seen only on television or during brief visits to the West.

At a consumer electronics store in the Alexanderplatz, potential customers seemed to spend most of their energies trying to understand how to operate sophisticated Western television sets and come to grips with items such as a Sony Walkman for the first time.

One customer who had come to buy an electric razor was unable to decide after being confronted with a choice of several brands.

Only at supermarkets and food stores, where East German goods had gradually disappeared in the days before the currency union, were there long lines of active buyers as customers waited to restock their refrigerators.

Here, too, the choices were much greater than the food shoppers were used to, but many of them complained bitterly about the fourfold to sixfold increases in the price of some commodities, the result of the abolition of subsidies for staple products such as bread, sugar and meat.

East German television news Monday night showed a young couple in Leipzig intently discussing for nearly a full minute the pros and cons of buying a single cup of yogurt at a supermarket.