Chapter 398: Between the Cradle and the Grave

Chapter 398 -43: Between the Cradle and the Grave

Werner stood at his office window, watching the flow of traffic on Bodhi Tree Street below.

Those brand-new West German cars—Audis, Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs—glinted harshly in the sun, like a flock of arrogant conquerors crushing the city’s forty years of dignity.

He thought back to three months ago, right after the Wall fell.

The streets of East Berlin were still full of Trabants and Wartburgs, those boxy little cars that spewed black smoke and made a rattling sound. Back then, everyone had still been proud—’These are the cars we built ourselves.’

‘And now? Now the streets are full of West German cars.’

Those Trabants and Wartburgs were either abandoned on the roadside to rust or treated as a joke.

Last week, Werner had passed a used car lot and seen a like-new Wartburg priced at five hundred Marks, and still, no one wanted it. Next to it, a beat-up West German Volkswagen Golf was priced at five thousand and sold in three days.

The phone rang.

“Mr. Werner?” A man’s voice with a West German accent came from the receiver. “This is Klaus Heinz from the Strategic M&A Department at Volkswagen Headquarters. We’d like to speak with you about the acquisition of the Leipzig Automobile Plant.”

Werner lit a cigarette and leaned against his desk. “Mr. Heinz, regarding the matter of the Leipzig Plant, you should be talking to the Trust Agency.”

“The people at the Trust Agency suggested we contact you.” The man’s tone held a hint of impatience. “They said you know the factory’s actual situation best, and as for the workers… it’s said you’re the only one they’ll listen to.”

Werner exhaled a puff of smoke, watching it slowly dissipate in the sunlight.

‘He knew why the Trust Agency had pushed this onto him—those West German bureaucrats were afraid of taking responsibility, afraid of causing a scene.’

“The Leipzig Plant,” Werner said. “That’s a tricky business.”

“We are willing to offer a very reasonable price,” Heinz said. “Based on the Trust Agency’s asset valuation, we’re prepared to bid thirty million Marks to acquire the core production lines and—”

“Mr. Heinz,” Werner interrupted. “The price isn’t the main issue. You have over eight thousand workers. What’s your plan for them?”

The other end of the line was silent for a few seconds.

“According to our production plan, we only need to keep about two thousand people,” Heinz said, his voice lowering slightly. “As for the rest… we will provide reasonable severance pay and transitional arrangements in accordance with the Labor Promotion Act.”

“Reasonable compensation,” Werner repeated, a bitter smile touching the corners of his mouth.

‘He knew exactly what those workers would think. ‘Reasonable compensation,’ ‘transitional arrangements’—to them, it would all mean just one thing: get lost.’

“Mr. Heinz, to be blunt, you don’t understand the situation,” Werner said. “You’re sitting in your office in Wolfsburg, looking at production analysis reports, calculating labor productivity—I understand all that. But you don’t understand what those workers are thinking.”

He walked to the window and looked down at the street scene. “The Leipzig Automobile Plant isn’t just a workshop that produces Wartburgs. It has a company kindergarten where the workers’ children go to school from the age of three. It has a company clinic, staffed with five general practitioners and two obstetricians. It has a company resort on the coast in Rostock, where workers can take their families for a two-week vacation every summer for just a few symbolic Marks.”

“It’s not a factory, Mr. Heinz,” he continued. “It’s an entire community. And now you’re going to tell them that this community is being dismantled, that only a quarter of them will keep their jobs, and the rest will get a bit of money and be left to fend for themselves. How do you think they’ll react?”

Again, there was silence from the other end of the line.

“Then… Mr. Werner, what do you suggest?” Heinz finally asked.

Werner flicked the ash from his cigarette. “Tomorrow, two o’clock in the afternoon, the conference room at the Leipzig Grand Hotel. We’ll talk face-to-face. We can’t solve this over the phone.”

**************

The conference room of the Leipzig Grand Hotel was thick with smoke.

On one side of the long table sat five West Germans: Heinz at the head, flanked by two lawyers and two financial advisors. They all wore sharp, dark suits with impeccably tied ties, their briefcases placed neatly in front of them. They had that professional air about them that immediately marked them as coming from Frankfurt or Munich.

On the other side, Werner sat alone.

He wore a plain gray jacket with no tie, looking more like an ordinary East German technician than a man of importance.

Yet with him sitting there, the five men in their tailored suits across from him actually seemed a bit uneasy.

Heinz cleared his throat, trying to take control of the meeting. “Mr. Werner, thank you for making the time. We know you worked at… ah… Koko for many years, so you’re very familiar with the industrial situation in East Germany.”

He paused, choosing his words carefully. “We’ve also heard that, during this transitional period, you’ve helped some people… who were treated unjustly. This leads us to believe you are a principled businessman.”

Werner nodded but didn’t reply.

‘He knew what the man was alluding to—he had funded dissidents and helped secure release papers for political prisoners. The West German media had romanticized these acts, dubbing him “East Germany’s Schindler.” The label, it seemed, was now coming in handy.’

“So, we were hoping,” Heinz continued, “that you could help us engage in… constructive dialogue with the workers.”

“First, tell me your plan,” Werner said, lighting a cigarette.

Heinz opened his folder and adjusted his glasses. “According to our due diligence, the Leipzig Automobile Plant currently has eighty-two hundred employees, but the actual production only requires a workforce of no more than two thousand.”

“Why?” Werner asked.

A financial advisor spoke up. “East German enterprises, in order to maintain ‘full employment,’ created a large number of positions in the factories that weren’t actually needed. For example, a production line that requires only eight workers in West Germany would be staffed with thirty here. Then there are the large numbers of political cadres, Party officials, and employees in social function roles—”

“None of whom create actual value,” another lawyer added. “Our investigation found that the labor productivity of the Leipzig Plant is only twenty-five to thirty percent of our Wolfsburg factory. This means for the same wage cost, the output is only a quarter of what it should be.”

Werner exhaled a plume of smoke.

‘Of course, he knew all this. It was a chronic problem of the Soviet-style planned economy—stuffing factories with people to create the illusion of zero unemployment, all to trumpet the superiority of the system. The result was low efficiency and rampant overstaffing.’

‘It was exactly the same as the state-owned enterprises in Northeast China from his past life’s memories.’

‘Back then, a state-owned enterprise might have three thousand official workers when it only needed one thousand. The other two thousand would either be reading the newspaper in the gatehouse, playing cards in the cafeteria, or drinking tea and chatting in various ‘offices’.’

“So you’re going to lay off six thousand people,” Werner said.

“In accordance with the Labor Promotion Act,” Heinz said, “we will give every laid-off employee severance pay, calculated as one month’s salary for every year of service. We will also assist them in applying for unemployment benefits—”

“It’s not enough,” Werner cut him off.

Heinz was taken aback. “What?”

“I said, it’s not enough.” Werner tapped his ash into the ashtray. “Your plan is legally sound, and it makes sense on paper. But in the real world, it won’t fly.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t understand these workers.” Werner leaned back in his chair. “They’ve worked at this plant for twenty, thirty years. This plant has a kindergarten where their kids go from age three until they graduate elementary school. It has a company clinic with its own doctors, and the maternity ward is better equipped than the district hospital. It has a culture palace that shows movies every week and has a workers’ band. It has a resort on the coast in Rostock.”

He looked at the confused expressions on the West Germans’ faces and continued, “In West Germany, your factories are just for production. Employees have to sort out schooling, healthcare, and recreation for their kids on their own. But it’s different in East Germany. These factories are little societies. They take care of you from cradle to grave.”

‘Werner thought of the memories from his past life, of those state-owned enterprise compounds—they were just like this, with their own schools for employees’ children, workers’ hospitals, clubs, bathhouses, everything you could possibly need. A worker could live their entire life without ever having to leave the compound.’

‘It was all part of that Soviet ‘work-unit system’.’

“And now you’re coming in to tear this little society apart,” Werner went on. “You’re telling them that from now on, they have to pay for their kids’ schooling, wait in line to see a doctor, and figure out vacations on their own. And on top of that, six thousand of them are being laid off, handed a little severance, and told to go home. Do you think they’re going to accept that?”

The conference room was silent for several seconds.

A financial advisor muttered, “But… we don’t have a choice. If we don’t make cuts, the factory is impossible to run. After the one-to-one currency exchange between the two Germanys, wage costs skyrocketed several times over, and nobody is buying the Wartburg cars they produce—”

“I know,” Werner said. “So layoffs are necessary. The question is how you do it, so that the workers don’t end up seeing you as the enemy.”

“Then what’s your solution?” Heinz asked.