German celebration of national rebirth marred by synagogue attack

DRESDEN, Germany - Germany celebrated 10 years as one nation Tuesday in a city rebuilding symbols of its pre-World War II splendor, but the bombing of a synagogue darkened the festive mood.

Thousands of Germans joined dignitaries, including U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and French President Jacques Chirac, to mark reunification in Dresden, a once magnificent city whose devastation by wartime Allied bombers left a potent Nazi-era wound on the nation.

With Dresden landmarks enjoying a post-unification renaissance, the city was an ideal stage for reflecting on the good - and the bad - that followed the Oct. 3, 1990 union of communist east and capitalist west Germany.

During a ceremony at the gilt-columned Semper Opera, Chirac honored the East German pro-democracy demonstrators who brought down the Berlin Wall in November 1989, paving the way for unification only 11 months later.

He and German leaders stressed their countries' commitment to completing the process by bringing the ex-communist nations of eastern Europe into the western fold.

''United Germany has found its place in this Europe,'' said Saxony governor Kurt Biedenkopf, whose state hosted the festivities. ''We are thankful also for that on German Unity Day.''

But after a summer marked by resurgent neo-Nazi violence, the firebombing of a synagogue in Duesseldorf, nearly 500 miles to the west, lent new urgency to concerns about the ugly side of united Germany.

Police said unknown assailants tossed as many as three Molotov cocktails at the synagogue's front door just before midnight Monday.

A prominent German Jewish leader condemned the attack as a sign that far-right hate is not limited to the economically struggling east.

''The Nazis and their violence in both east and west are now also united,'' Michel Friedman said.

In Dresden, musicians dressed in folk costumes serenaded officials as they walked a route lined by thousands of revelers from a church service to the main ceremony at the opera. Watches and mugs marking the unity anniversary were on sale.

Semper Opera is one of several historic buildings refurbished by the former communist regime.

Inside, President Johannes Rau warned fellow citizens to fight ''all forms of anti-foreigner sentiment'' and violence against other minorities.

''We must not allow that people are hunted in the middle of Germany,'' he said, a remark recalling 6 million Jews and many others who died under the Nazis.

Notably absent from the festivities was the main architect of German unity, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Kohl, 70, stayed away after being denied a chance to speak because of his central role in a financing scandal dogging his Christian Democratic party. But Chirac and Rau lavished praise on him for his historic achievement, drawing big rounds of applause.

The national holiday and the celebrations in various towns across the nation offered Germans on both sides of the former divide a chance to reflect on their common achievements - and on what still separates them emotionally and materially.

With its mix of new upscale stores, rotting factories and reviving cultural landmarks, Dresden is still in transition.

Though living standards have largely equalized over the past decade, eastern Germans still earn less than their western counterparts and unemployment in the region is twice the national average.

Even within families, there are disparate views of the 1989-90 changes. Ralf Rudolf, 32, a Dresden native who works for an electronics company in a western city, said he still feels like an outsider.

''There are still borders,'' he said during the festivities. ''Younger people say we are one society, but for older people there is a barrier.''

His 27-year-old brother had a more optimistic view. ''You can't simply speak of east and west,'' said Roland Rudolf, an out-of-work pharmaceutical engineer. ''I think that's just too simple, 10 years after unification.''