German Unification (1990)
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the United States was the first country that unconditionally supported German unification. President George Bush recognized that a unified Germany, integrated into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), would enlarge the American sphere of interest into east-central Europe and weaken the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact.
Because of rising fears in Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union that a unified Germany could again challenge the security of Europe, Washington emphasized and eventually convinced them that the full integration of a unified Germany would guarantee both the continual relevance of the Atlantic treaty and the established Western security system.After the onset of the cold war, Washington regarded the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) as a Western bulwark against communism. With the foundation of the FRG in May 1949, West Germany became an important partner in the construction of a liberal world economic system and a cornerstone in the security policy within NATO. Unification of East and West Germany was not an intrinsic objective of U.S. foreign policy during the early years of the cold war. Integration of West Germany into NATO and Western Europe was seen as more important than a unified but neutralized German state that would serve as a buffer zone between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Subsequently, Konrad Adenauer was able to convince the American government to reject the offer made by Joseph Stalin in 1952 (the Stalin note), which offered unification under the condition of neutralization (the blueprint followed in the case of Austria just three years later).
The specter of a neutral Germany seemed to reappear after Willy Brandt became the first Social Democrat to be elected chancellor of West Germany (1969). He embarked on a very ambitious Ostpolitik (change through rapprochement) and achieved several agreements between both German states.
It was the Soviet Union, however, that opened the door to a new era of consultations and negotiations when Mikhail Gorbachev was elected leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 and engaged in a large-scale reform of state socialism (perestroika and glasnost). He initiated a policy of personal contacts with Ronald Reagan that culminated in a disarmament treaty governing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in 1987. This policy led to the end of the East-West conflict and the fall of the Berlin Wall.During his speech on June 12, 1987, on the occasion of Berlin’s seven hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrated at the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan called upon Gorbachev “to tear down this wall.” Just two years later, the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) caused the fall of its Communist regime and the opening of the Berlin Wall. The initial demands of East Germans for liberty and democracy soon changed into calls for unification with the prosperous West Germany. Helmut Kohl, taken by surprise by the speed of transformation in East Germany, recognized that the call for immediate unification in the East could provide a chance for his party (the Christian Democratic Union) to win the next elections. On November 28, 1989, Kohl presented his Ten-Point Program to the West German parliament (Bundestag), in which he proposed the incremental creation of a confederation between both states. Kohl did not consult with the Western allies before he presented this plan. However, he immediately became the main protagonist in the process of German unification by setting the terms for the international discussion about the future of Germany. Considering the dangerous destabilizing situation in Europe, President George H. W. Bush met Gorbachev at the beginning of December 1989 in Malta. Both leaders looked for a peaceful solution within the framework of the Helsinki process (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, founded in 1972).
On December 4, 1989, Bush set out four principles for the German unification process during the NATO Summit in Brussels: first, the right for German selfdetermination; second, the membership of a unified Germany in NATO and the European Community; third, that German unification had to be a gradual process; and fourth, the recognition of the Oder/Neisse border with Poland.
Reasserting occupation rights, Moscow called for a meeting of the ambassadors of the World War II Allies on December 11 to emphasize that German unification was neither feasible nor desirable. Just one day later in a speech made in West Berlin, Secretary of State James Addison Baker declared officially that Washington had given a “green light” for German unity, in spite of skeptical objections from London and Paris.On February 7, 1990, the West German government decided that the GDR should be absorbed into the FRG on the basis of Article 23 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz). The speed of German unification caught all former World War II Allies by surprise. During the Open Skies Conference in Ottawa on February 13, the former Allies agreed to start with the Two- Plus-Four Talks, which were to provide the international framework of German unification. Moreover, the occupying powers Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union promised both German states that they would not interfere in their domestic affairs.
The United States saw German unification and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany as an opportunity to enlarge its sphere of influence into eastcentral Europe. However, Gorbachev, afraid of losing too much influence in Eastern Europe, and his Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze demanded that a united Germany would be, at least initially, a demilitarized, neutral country. For a transitional period after unification, Germany would remain in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In February, in a meeting at Camp David, Helmut Kohl and George Bush agreed that East Germany would get a special military status according to the security interests of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the foreign minister of West Germany, assured Gorbachev that NATO troops would not move into the former East Germany.
On March 18, 1990, the first free elections to the East German parliament (Volkskammer) took place.
The Alliance for Germany (which included the Christian Democratic Union, German Social Union, and Democratic New Beginning) won the election by promising a speedy German unification. Gorbachev, who had already denounced the Brezhnev doctrine in July 1989, accepted the outcome of these elections and the subsequent drive for German unification. Eventually, he accepted Germany’s full membership in NATO at the beginning of June 1990. The Nine Assurances, a collection of various guaranteesprovided to Moscow, presented by James A. Baker to Gorbachev in May, convinced him that the newly united Germany would not pose a threat to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Gorbachev considered German integration into the international community as an important condition for further cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States. A first success was the affirmation of the Atlantic treaty partners during the NATO Summit in London in July 1990, in which they promised friendship with the members of the Warsaw Pact (later it was transformed into the “partnership for peace”) and the revision of the nuclear strategy.
Furthermore, Gorbachev believed that the $6 billion paid by the German government, a kind of compensation for the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from East Germany, would help the recovery of the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union agreed with Germany’s membership in NATO in return for Western assurances that no NATO forces and nuclear weapons would be stationed on former GDR territory. The German armed forces had to be reduced to 370,000 within three to four years. Both Germanies agreed that the rivers Oder and Neisse would mark the permanent border with Poland after unification.
On September 12, 1990, the six foreign ministers of East Germany, West Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union signed the Two-Plus-Four Accord in Moscow. On October 1, the status of Berlin was settled in New York when the occupying powers signed an agreement in which they relinquished their rights and responsibilities, and Germany was accorded full sovereignty on October 3.
Thomas Cieslik
See also Berlin Wall; German Unification (1871); Stalin Note; West Berlin
References and Further Reading
Baker, James. The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989—1992. New York: Putnam, 1995.
Rice, Condoleezza, and Philip Zelikow: Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Zoellick, Robert. “Two Plus Four. The Lessons of German Unification.” The National Interest (Fall 2000): 17—28.