ABSTRACT

Pious wishes, Pia desideria, were, when people were still pious, actually just that and therefore not without effect, at least upon the wishers themselves; only later, in impious times, in which people no longer believed in their power, did pious wishes come to be unfulfillable ones. Even political wishes in times of upheaval have their value, independently of their practicability, in and of themselves. Such wishes breed prophecies of salvation and party programs, all of which have goals that lie in the realm of the unattainable, but are nevertheless useful. When Egon Krenz assumed his high office as a consequence of the double protest movement of emigration and revolt, it became clear from his first utterances that he meant to appear as the personification of a turn, but a turn that belonged to a GDR-conservatism. All the changes that he permitted served the preservation of the status quo, and were therefore not fundamental changes but only modifications.