1989, he put forward a plan for a ‘confederation’
of the two Germanies. This was not well received
in Moscow, nor was it much welcomed by Mrs
Thatcher’s government. The former Second
World War Allies would in any case have the last
word. Thatcher and Mitterrand advised a cautious
approach; Bush, with better judgement, gave his
full backing to Kohl.
The German people in the end decided the
pace. Once free elections in East Germany had
been conceded, the New Forum, with its objec-
tive of creating a civilised, socialist East German
state, and other spontaneous political groups with
odd labels were all swept aside. The West German
heavyweight parties moved in, the CDU, the FDP
and the SPD. East German party clones of the
Western parties campaigned for control. Kohl and
Genscher, Brandt and SPD politicians were rap-
turously received in the East.
The complete unification of Germany proved
unstoppable and happened much faster than
anyone expected. Kohl carried all before him on
a barn-storming six-city election tour in March
1990, promising currency union and a one-for-
one exchange of East German into West German
marks. The election on 18 March 1990 gave a
landslide victory to the East German CDU, and
its chairman, Lothar de Maizière became the new
East German prime minister. On 1 July, the cur-
rency union was carried through as promised,
with the one-to-one exchange for savings up to
4,000 marks.
Maizière was still hoping for a gradual process
of unification, but the majority of East Germans
wanted no delay. Meanwhile, in July, at a meeting
between Kohl and Gorbachev, agreement was
quickly reached. Gorbachev dropped his objec-
tion to united Germany remaining a member of
NATO; in return Kohl agreed to cut German
troops from 590,000 to 370,000 and renounced
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Gorbachev agreed to pull the Russian troops out
of East Germany by 1994, and Kohl promised to
pay for their rehousing in the Soviet Union. With
the Soviet Union and the US now consenting to
union, the other two treaty powers, France and
Britain, could no longer delay their formal
consent. In the meantime the bankruptcy of the
East German state forced Maizière to give up
negotiating for a gradual unification. On 23
August 1990 the Volkskammer voted to dissolve
the state and for East Germany to become part
of the Federal Republic. Such a suicide was
unique in the history of international politics –
but then the patient was terminally ill.
At midnight, 3 October 1990, to the muted
tones of ‘Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles’
and beneath a sky lit up by fireworks, the most
momentous change in the transformation of
Eastern Europe was consummated. By now, no
one in West Germany any longer believed that uni-
fication would be an easy or cheap or painless
process. Still, Kohl had become the first post-war
chancellor of all Germany, and he reaped the
reward for his skilful leadership, so ably supported
by Genscher, when in the December 1990 all-
German election the SPD was soundly beaten and
the CDU/CSU and its partner the FDP emerged
with a substantially increased majority. Kohl had
promised his country’s neighbours that Germany
would be a good European, democratic and peace-
ful. His sincerity on that point, reflecting the views
of the vast majority of the German people, was not
in doubt. Germany in any case had enough trouble
of its own to discourage even the thought of
adventurism. Here ended the history of a separate
East German state. The history of the old DDR
henceforth was part of Germany’s development.902 GLOBAL CHANGE: FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY