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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 1990)
Germanys’ reunification rush ends with blaze of fireworks BERLIN(AP) - The two Gcrmanys ended 45 years of division with a blaze of fireworks and the pealing of church bel Is today, declaring the creation of a new German nation in the heart of Europe. Near the ruins of Hitler’s citadel in the city that symbolized the Cold War division of Eu rope, the German flag was hoisted to crown the dramatic rush to unify a Germany divided by World War II and the Communist Berlin Wall. Rockets burst in the sky over Berlin, illumi nating the war-scarred Reichstag building and the Brandenburg Gate. The shower of fire works also lighted the upturned faces of thou sands of Germans, united in peace but troubled by the political and economic problems facing a united Germany. Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other leaders stood in the glare of floodlights at the Reich stag building and joined in singing the national anthem as a vast party occurred across the land of 78 million residents. Millions of Germans and a watching world joined the ceremony by television. The ceremony marked return of a united Germany built on the ruins of Adolf Hitler’s defeat in World War II and the end of Cold War antagonism that split Europe into competing blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union. It came less than 11 months after the Berlin Wall was opened Nov. 9, 1989, by a tide of democracy that swept away Communist re gimes across Eastern Europe. Fourteen schoolchildren from the former East and West Germanys carried the huge, 72 squarc-yard German flag and hoisted it up the 132-foot-tall mast in front of the Reichstag. Hundreds of thousands of people, waving German flags, crowded along the Unten den Linden thoroughfare and June 17th Street that once were cut by the Berlin Wall. Fireworks exploded over the Reichstag as a replica of the Liberty Bell, donated to Berlin by the American people, pealed. 4 ‘Germany is one again, Germany is sover eign,” said German television. “Forty-five years after the unconditional surrender” of Nazi Germany “the two German states arc united.” Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere said of unification minutes before midnight, “What for most people had been only a dream has become reality.” Then, Kurt Masur directed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as East Germany ceased to exist to the deep chords of the “Ode to Joy.” The new Germany may have to contend with stepped-up violence by radicals at both ends of the political spectrum. Such extremists threatened to disrupt reuni fication celebrations and are being blamed by police for arson attacks Monday night on two department stores that are the largest in East and West Berlin. Police said two incendiary devices were set off at the Centrum-Warenhaus store in East Berlin at Alexanderplatz square about 10 p.m. About 30 minutes later another incendiary device exploded in the Kaufhaus des Westens in West Berlin, police said. There were no reports of injuries. There was also no immediate indication on who carried out the attacks. Hesse state radio said damage was extensive and the liming of the fires indicated radicals were making good on their threats. The mass-circulation Bild newspaper said 10,000 leftists were expected to go on a ram page intended to disrupt festivities, and police feared a clash with rightists who also have vowed to march through Berlin. Germany Continued from Page 1 Mail between the two countries was cen sored and his relatives were not allowed to leave East Germany for a visit, he said. Since the Berlin Wall was taken down last Novem ber, Dunkel’s grandfather has been able to contact the relatives. Economic problems plague the reunifica tion, Dunkcl said. He said West Germany has put ‘‘a lot of money” into the East German economy and not all West Germans are pleased. “When the wall came down, everyone had tears in their eyes,” he said. “But now that money is involved, it is a little different. “Everybody is very foolish who doesn’t want to spend money for East Germany.” Martin Liphardt, an exchange student ma joring in physics, said he docs not know how the reunification will affect him. “I’m 23 years old, and the border was still there when I was bom,” he said. “1 didn’t know the situation before.” One noticeable effect of the reunification will be more East German students in West German universities, Liphardt said. The edu cational system is already overloaded, he said, so the added students could cause a problem. Because Liphardt lives only 30 miles from the East-West border, he saw changes immedi ately after the Berlin Wall came down. “The East Germans came and bought eve rything from our shops,” he said. Dieter Scholz, an architecture exchange student, said he felt the reunification removed an artificial barrier within a nation. “It was an unlogical border line, dividing people with the same language, the same his tory,” he said. “That line is gone now.” Scholz said the East Germans did not know about the bad things, such as unemployment, in West Germany. With their economy changing, East Germans are starting to recognize the problems, he said. Meindl said the reunification has created many problems in Germany. Germany now must solve problems caused by 40 years of bad management by East German leaders, he said. Another problem is the different way East and West Germans look at work, Meindl said. Many East Germans do not realize how hard they will have to work to obtain the high standard of living enjoyed in West Germany, he said. It probably will take 10-20 years for most of them to reach a comparable living standard, he said. The reunification is a positive step toward unification in Europe, Meindl said, and a step toward getting rid of the Cold War between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. Phone Continued from Page 1 Schroedcr said most complaints came when people tried to make long distance calls on a phone pre-subscribed to one compan y and were blocked from connecting with a different company. This often happened at hotels, air ports and universities, he said. Michalecki said the university uses a multi carrici phone system, which means that the system includes companies such as AT&T, MCI and Sprint. When a student or faculty member places a call, the system selects the best route available at the time. The bills come from one company. Students have no choice about which long distance carrier is used on the call, Michalecki said, but the system saves students money. She said students could access a specific phone carrier by going through a Lincoln op erator. Schroedcr said the purpose of the proposed regulations is to give options. Some students might care more atxwt a service provided by a certain company than about the price charged for a call, he said. Michaiecki said one problem with the pro posed FCC regulations is that they consider universities to be a call aggregator, which puts them in the same class as hotels and airports. “We are protesting violently that we arc put in the category of an aggregate,” she said. One reason universities should not be con-, sidered aggregates is that students arc not a “transient population,” Michaiecki said. Many students are at the university for five years, while hotel customers generally stay only a few nights, she said. The FCC also is trying to crack down on aggregators who receive commissions from phone companies who monopolize their phones. In essence, the hotels and airports receive kick backs for funneling their calls through one phone carrier, Schrocdcr said. Michaiecki said the university receives no such commissions, which is another reason it should not be included in the call aggregator category. “The FCC has put all aggregators into one pot,” she said. “They haven’t correctly de fined aggregator.” WERE FIGHTiNG FOR YOUR LIFE American Heart Association Among the differences between the House and Senate versions of the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act: House version • Would require campuses to report all crimes. • Would require a report on whether the crimes were drug- and alcohol-re lated. • Would require reports of where and when the crime took place. • Calls for campuses’ drug and alco hol policies to be published periodically. • Would require reporting only crimes occurring on campus. • Would require universities to moni tor crime at fraternities and sororities. • Calls for all data to be collected by the Department of Education. Senate version • Would require campuses to report only violent crime. • Would not specify whether crimes were alcohol- and drug-related. • Would not require reports of where and when crimes took place. • Does not call for periodic reports of drug and alcohol policies. • Would require any crime that oc curred to students -- whether on campus or off - to be reported. • Would not require monitoring crime at fraternities and sororities. j Says data should continue to be collected by the FBI. Congress to compromise on campus crime package oy uiunne aearcey Staff Reporter The House of Representatives and the Senate are in the midst of a compromise on a bill to require universities to report crime statistics, a spokeswoman said. The House and the Senate each have passed a version of the bill, the spokes woman for Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Penn., said. The differences between the Senate and House bills must be w orked out by a confer ence committee before Congress adjourns in three weeks, she said. The Crime Awareness and Campus Se curity Act would require each university to prepare, publish and distribute an annual report containing specific information about campus security policies and crime statis tics. The information would be available upon request to current students and employees and to applicants for enrollment or employ ment. Lt. Ken Cauble of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police Department said the bill would not be difficult to follow at UNL. 4 ‘Ten percent of universities in the coun try report them (crime statistics), and we are one of them,” he said. “We’ve done it for years. We’ve never hidden our crime statis tics.’ ’ One difference between the House and Senate versions is that the House has asked that rules and regulations regarding drug and alcohol policies be published periodi cally. The Senate has not. Cauble said UNL’s drug and alcohol policies already are published every year in the Student Code of Conduct. The bill also would require timely re ports to be made on specific crimes reported to campus security or local law enforcement authorities. Such reports then would be dis tributed to students and employees on a regular basis. Schools not complying with the proposed law ultimately would lose eli gibility for student financial aid. If colleges are required to make these reports, the spokeswoman said, security departments “will be more likely to find out where holes in their security system are ... \ W e feel it w ill (reduce crime) if students pay ] attention to it,’* | “Tlie first time I saw a Macintosh, I was immediately hooked. It’s a work of art. I saw the student pricing and my next move was obvious: get one. “Some other computers are cheajxT, but they’re a pain to team, and working on them can lx* a grueling experience. List year, a triend bought another kind of computer against my advice and h;is used it tor maybe 15 hours. What a waste. Why do U\TL Students love Macintosh? Ask them. "Macintosh, on the other hand, is a logical extension of the mind. It lets you concentrate on what’s in your pajxr, not on how to get it on paper. You can create professional-looking documents in minutes, and you lose the fear of learning new prx )grams lx*cause they all \\x)rk in the same way. “Once \x)u've worked with a Macintosh, there's no turning hack? Computing Resource Center Computer Shop University Bookstore Lower Level Nebraska Union 472-57S5 Hours: 8:00am - 5:00pm
