Germany Foreign Relations Eastern Europe

Conventional wisdom has it that the Germans may become so preoccupied reconstructing the eastern half of their soon-to-be-unified country that the powerful economic sway they have exercised in the rest of the old East Bloc could suffer. There are strong signs, however, that indicate otherwise. "We're beginning a time when it couldn't be better for us Germans," declared Heinrich Machowski, an Eastern Europe specialist at the German Institute for Economic Research here.

Conventional wisdom has it that the Germans may become so preoccupied reconstructing the eastern half of their soon-to-be-unified country that the powerful economic sway they have exercised in the rest of the old East Bloc could suffer. There are strong signs, however, that indicate otherwise. "We're beginning a time when it couldn't be better for us Germans," declared Heinrich Machowski, an Eastern Europe specialist at the German Institute for Economic Research here.