20 Years Ago... An Inside Look at German Reunification

[BridgeTroll]

If you are a history buff you will find this article fascinating.  If you were politically aware back in 1989/90 you will find this fascinating.  It is pretty long but adds insight to the fall of the Berlin wall and the negotiations to reunify East and West Germany.

Do you remember the players?  Kohl, Gorbachev, Bush, Mitterand, Thatcher...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,719848,00.html

When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, nobody expected Germany to be reunified less than a year later. New documents released by the Foreign Ministry in Berlin shed new light on the dramatic negotiations that led to East and West Germany becoming one.

Six weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall, two people with rich biographies are sitting together at the Kremlin. One is British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was 63 at the time. She is the daughter of a grocer from Grantham in the East Midlands of England. As a young chemist, Thatcher was part of a team that developed soft ice cream. After getting married, she studied law, entered politics and went on to become the British prime minister.

Her host Mikhail Gorbachev, six years her junior, is from a southern Russian farming family. After working as a combine mechanic in his teens, he eventually became involved in politics and gradually rose through the ranks of the Communist Party. Now he is the party's general secretary and head of the Kremlin.

Lick the kink above for the entire article...

[BridgeTroll]

An interview with a a major player... Condoleeza Rice.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,719444,00.html

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, European nations like Great Britain and France were very worried about the prospect of German unification. America was the only country that didn't appear to be concerned. Why not?


Condoleezza Rice: The United States -- and President George H.W. Bush -- recognized that Germany had gone through a long democratic transition. It had been a good friend, it was a member of NATO. Any issues that had existed in 1945, it seemed perfectly reasonable to lay them to rest. For us, the question wasn't should Germany unify? It was how and under what circumstances? We had no concern about a resurgent Germany, unlike the British or French.

Click the link above for the entire interview

[Doctor_K]

Can't believe it's already been 20 years!  It's absolutely amazing how far things have progressed and changed since those waning days of the Cold War.  The paradigm of geopolitics is SO much different now.

Thanks for a phenomenal read!

[uptowngirl]

I remember being sent home from school twice during this time period- once when President Regan was shot, and once  to watch the "wall" come down.  

[fieldafm]

I remember going into the Stein Mart at Roosevelt Mall(which is where Tom n Bettys is now) and buying a certified chunk of cement that was suppposed to be from the Berlin Wall.  Came in a fancy box with a certificate of authenticity.  It's probably in a box in my mom's attic that will never be seen again, lol.

[BridgeTroll]

I remember the entire time... it was pretty unreal.  These days we do not think twice about a unified germany or the Soviet satellite nations trapped behind the Iron Curtain... but it was the reality back in the day.  To think east and west germany would reunite was nearly as unthinkable as a reunification of north and south Korea today.  The wall coming down was just the beginning... it was interesting to read that most of the western European countries were against the reunification... the memories of WWI and WWII still fresh in their minds.

[Dog Walker]

I can even remember when the wall went up!

A week before the wall fell, a family friend called and said that he was going to Germany to watch, that the wall would be coming down any day.  I laughed it off and asked him what he was smoking.  No way it would ever happen in our lifetimes.

He went and took pictures and I watched on television and sucked my thumb in frustration at the opportunity missed.  Still kick myself for not trusting his judgment.