For East German voters, it's not just unification that lies over the rainbow. It's Western prosperity as well. That was the main message from Sunday's historic free elections, which gave the conservatives a huge and unexpected win. Born in church basements where young activists once met to hide from the despised secret police, the peaceful revolution that ousted hard-line Communist rulers five months ago quickly lost its innocence and idealism. After unleashing tens of thousands of people on the streets, the New Forum opposition movement found that the thirst for riches soon drowned out calls to reform socialism for the good of the people. East Germans, many with tears in their eyes, asked over and over again ``what have we been doing for 40 years?'' as they gazed in wonder at the glittering shops of West Berlin after the Berlin Wall crumbled in November. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, spotting the most basic of all election issues, furiously campaigned throughout East Germany with a message of ``prosperity for all.'' Many recalled that that was also a favorite slogan of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, the late West German leader who guided the post-war ``economic miracle.'' Sunday's conservative win, engineered in large part by Kohl, shows that East Germans believe in a second economic miracle. ``The East Germans have voted for the West German mark and for unification,'' commented West Germany's ARD television network. ``It was important for them that Kohl was the one with the keys to the cash box.'' And that, said ARD, set the Christian Democratic chancellor apart from West Germany's opposition Social Democrats, who often lectured East German voters on the need to slow down the pace of unification and curb their expectations. While Poles, Hungarians and Czechoslovaks now enjoy once-unthinkable democracy, it will take them years, if not decades, to reform their economies. The governments will have to attract and compete for Western investment at the same time they learn to cope with multiparty systems. For East Germans, the road to recovery seems much closer. ``The decisive thought for East Germans may have been, `If we vote for Kohl, the money will flow,''' said Oskar Lafontaine, the Social Democrat governor of West Germany's Saarland state who will try to unseat Kohl in December elections. In fact, East German leftists had joined the Communists several times in recent weeks in virtually begging Kohl for billions of dollars in bailout money to save the ravaged economy. Each time, Kohl's heavily publicized answer was ``no'' _ not until the East German voters show they want true economic reform. Even so, it's a long way from voting in the conservatives to accepting the bitter pills Kohl's economic advisers and West German investors are likely to be handing out. East Germans, some still covered with grease and dressed in overalls, had been seizing the microphones at dozens of panel discussions to denounce any reforms that would cost their jobs. But last week's announcement that West German-led economic reforms will cost 100,000 jobs in the East German automobile industry and related sectors is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg. Another potentially destabilizing factor is the continuing hemorrhage of East Germans relocating to West Germany, many of them trying to take a shortcut to prosperity. ``I don't think the results themselves will stop the emigration,'' conceded East German Christian Democratic leader Lothar de Maiziere, the top contender for the premier's post. ``Rather, it's a question of measures that now must be taken.'' With the number of emigrants heading West at up to 2,500 a day, those measures will have to be fast and convincing. Kohl himself used his first post-election statements to plead with East Germans to stay put and help build up their ``beautiful country.'' There was no mention of the country's decaying homes nor of its pollution-choked rivers and air. Left behind with only a few crumbs thrown by loyal voters were New Forum and other leftist groups that had preached the need for East Germans to maintain their own identity and forge a ``new path'' between capitalism and socialism. ``It's not the first time that a people has forgotten its own martyrs,'' commented ARD television, noting that many of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement had spent years in jail working for their cause. Said Stephan Bickhardt of the leftist Democracy Now party: ``The revolution has cast off its children.'' Democracy Now, New Forum and another leftist group had joined together in a much publicized coalition that failed to get even 3 percent of the votes. Other East Germans also see the end of another failed experiment in socialism. ``It's just proof that people really are just looking for riches and a trip to Tenerife,'' complained government worker Elke Heise, naming the Canary Island that's a favorite vacation spot for hordes of sun-hungry West Germans each year. Added East Berlin engineer Fred Mauer: ``The Christian Democrats can now do with us whatever they want.'' And that's likely to include even more shots called by a West German chancellor eager to see his name go down in history books as the man who united a people torn asunder by the crimes and madness of Adolf Hitler.
