new thinking

When Mikhail Gorbachev assumes the office of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the "new thinking" which enters the halls of the Kremlin is not limited to a mere reorientation of Soviet foreign and security policy. Glasnost and perestroika become key concepts of Gorbachev's program for internal political reforms. They represent the intention to pluralize the formation of public opinion and at least to begin democratizing the political system.

The ripple effect of Soviet reforms in the other Eastern Bloc nations is enormous. Since 1988 official talks have taken place in Poland between government representatives and the outlawed labor union Solidarnosc. In the summer of 1989, Solidarnosc emerges from the country's first free parliamentary elections as the clear victor. At a National Round Table that same year the Hungarian communists strike an agreement with the opposition on the legalization of independent parties and on a democratic election law.

Leaders in Prague, Bucharest and East Berlin, however, reject all reforms in spite of growing discontent in their populations. "Under the banner of 'Renewal of Socialism' there are forces at work," the politburo in East Berlin declares imperturbably in June of 1989, "which are striving for the elimination of socialism." In face of a disinclination to reforms by the SED (East German communist party) leadership, a marked increase is seen in the number of GDR (German Democratic Republic) citizens ready to leave the country. In May of 1989, the government in Budapest opens the Austrian-Hungarian border and, on September 10, 1989, declares an end to the Eastern Bloc's "border security community". That brings down of the "Iron Curtain" which has divided Europe for over 40 years. The previously state-controlled egress now becomes an unstoppable flight of GDR citizens through Hungary. At first, the politburo around Honecker does not react at all, then with mere propaganda phrases and a cynicism detached from reality: No one should "cry any tears" over the refugees, so declares the general secretary of the SED and President of the GDR State Council through a commentary in the party organ "Neues Deutschland".

The narrow-mindedness and deficient awareness of problems by the SED leadership noticeably hastens the decay of state authority. More and more citizens take to the streets to give vent to their discontent. "We are the people" - that phrase becomes the clarion call of the demonstrators, first in Leipzig and East Berlin, then in the entire GDR. It becomes a synonym for the emancipation of society from the SED state, for the rejection and final abolition of the communists' totalitarian pretensions. "'We are the people', with these four simple and great words," the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker observes at the German unity ceremony in October of 1990, "an entire system was shaken and brought down. Those words embodied the will of the people to take the community, the res publica, into their own hands. Thus the peaceful revolution in Germany became truly republican."

The beacon of revolution in the GDR was followed by popular uprisings in Czechoslovakia, in Bulgaria and in Rumania. Vaclav Havel, co-founder of the human rights movement "Charta 77" and a close friend of Willy Brandt, is elected Czechoslovak state President in December of 1989. The democratization of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc creates a favorable climate for negotiations on conditions for re-establishing German unity which now seems more probable since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.

The first free elections to the People's Chamber take place in the GDR in March of 1990. The election results are a clear vote by GDR citizens for a speedy introduction of the market economy and for German unity. The first democratically elected government in the GDR under Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière begins negotiations with the federal administration under Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl for the creation of an economic, monetary and social union. That goes into effect on July 1, 1990. The deutsche mark becomes the legal currency of the GDR. The social market economy becomes the effective economic system of East Germany.

But in the GDR pressure continues to mount for an expeditious unification with the Federal Republic. In the summer negotiations for a treaty of unity are initiated. In the framework of the "Two-plus-Four Talks", the parties negotiate the internal and external aspects of establishing German unity. The "Two" stands for the two German states, the "Four" for the occupying powers after the Second World War. German unification will depend on their consent. At first the USSR expresses misgivings about a united Germany belonging to NATO. Chancellor Kohl finally eliminates these reservations.

On August 23, 1990, the People's Chamber votes to unite the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law. On September 12, 1990, the foreign ministers of the four occupying powers and the representatives of both German states sign the "Treaty for a Definitive Settlement concerning Germany" ("Two-plus-Four Treaty"). The USA, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France grant united Germany full national sovereignty. The Federal Republic recognizes once and for all its existing borders - and therewith the Oder-Neisse-border with Poland. It agrees to a reduction of its armed forces and renounces the possession of ABC (atomic, biological and chemical) weapons.

These agreements free the way for the unification of the two German states. The epoch of German dual statehood ends with the GDR's accession to the jurisdiction of the Basic Law on October 3, 1990. This day becomes the official "Day of German Unity".