The German Reunification: 25 Years Later

The unified Germany turned into Europe’s geographical center, and several years later, its economic center. The provincial Bonn Republic became Europe’s future leading political power.

Alongside the collapse of the Soviet Union, the German reunification was the culmination of the unexpected turn of events in Europe in the late 20th century. For the West, the victor in the Cold War, the architecture upon which the new pan-European peace was built became a great success. Liberal values, the market economy, the foundations of a law-based state and democracy made their way to Eastern Europe. The US-led NATO became the only bulwark of security in Europe while the European Union linked its economic destiny with America and fully reoriented to trans-Atlantic relations. Russia, the loser in the Cold War, ceased to play its former role.

However, historical reality makes it necessary to admit that the main impetus of the democratic changes in Eastern Europe came from the epicenter of the then communist world. If Gorbachev’s perestroika had not paralyzed the party, the KGB and the army, the peoples of Eastern Europe, including Russians, would hardly have gained freedom so peacefully.

The historical memory of the West forgets the fact that the reunification of Germany became possible due to the consent of the victors of World War II, primarily the Soviet Union. The process of decision-making among the allies was not easy. Great Britain resisted the reunification until the very end; the negative memories of how Germany launched wars in the first half of the 20th century were too fresh. France was also marking time and playing with the idea of the co-existence of two independent states. The United States was ready to accept reunification of Germany only if it remained NATO’s main pillar.

As a price for its consent, the Soviet Union was striving for a separate European security structure without military blocs. This idea of Gorbachev enjoyed broad popularity among the East German peace movement. Negotiations on Germany’s reunification were held for a long time: George Bush Sr. and Helmut Kohl made many attempts to persuade Mikhail Gorbachev that Germany’s NATO membership met Russia’s security interests. At the same time, German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher sympathized with Gorbachev's idea of limited NATO membership for the territory of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Even West Germany had apprehensions that if reunification with the decayed GDR economy happened too quickly, it could weaken the economic power of West Germany. The Kohl government has long promoted the idea of an economic and currency union with the GDR, rather than a political association. During the federal chancellor election campaign in 1990, Oskar Lafontaine supported the principle of the peaceful co-existence of the two states. But when massive demonstrations under the angry slogan ‘‘If the deutsche mark comes, we’ll stay, if not, we’ll rush to you!” began to take place, it was time to act.

Eventually, Gorbachev agreed to everything. His reforms in the USSR wound up in a dead-end, the national economy was falling to pieces and some regions were even suffering from hunger. The political destiny of the Soviet leader began to depend on lavish loans and humanitarian aid from the West. Naturally, Kohl did everything not to aggrieve Gorbachev so as not to prejudice Germany’s reunification. The GDR dispatched trains of grain for Russia, built housing for Soviet officers who left the deployment of the Western Group of Forces and issued billions of loans to keep the Russian economy afloat.

The unified Germany turned into Europe’s geographical center, and several years later, its economic center. The provincial Bonn Republic became Europe’s future leading political power. Not being a nuclear power, Germany hoped to get a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and was disappointed when its expectations did not come true.

For 25 years Germany played a leading economic and financial role in Europe, especially after the successful settlement of the financial crisis. It assumed more responsibility in European security issues, taking part in the war in Kosovo and in the settlement in Afghanistan. German diplomacy played a decisive role in the end of the Russian-Georgian war and in curtailing the conflict in the east of Ukraine. However, Germany did not seem to be independent in all of its actions. Russia believes that Germany’s security actions are designed to please “the American sheriff.”

It is abundantly clear today that 25 years ago all participants in the German reunification made serious mistakes. A strategic union with Russia should have been achieved simultaneously with the decision on the German reunification. Instead, there occurred a historic split between Russia and the West during the Ukrainian crisis, like what happened in 1947. Under the circumstances the split between Moscow and Berlin is especially dramatic. Consolidation of cooperation between Germany and Russia guaranteed reconciliation and stability in Europe, particularly after the end of the Cold War.

The Russian elite considers Germany to be its main strategic partner in the West and believes the Germans should be grateful and should understand Russia’s needs because of Moscow’s role in the German reunification. The senior generation of German politicians acts in this vein but the junior generation does not share this attitude: they did not see the power of the Soviet Union and consider the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact as a matter of course.

During the Ukrainian crisis Russia was most disappointed about Germany’s uncompromising turn to security partnership with the United States, the consolidation of transatlantic Europe by the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement and the simultaneous refusal to revise and continue the German “Eastern policy.”

However, in the summer of 2015 Europe again began to change. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s crude political mistakes provoked an unprecedented wave of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries to Germany and the rest of Europe. Her policy of values, which focuses on tolerance and multiculturism being above real politics, has resulted in EU countries’ social systems and migration services teetering on the brink of collapse. A rift emerged in the EU, especially when Germany started threatening its neighbors with “sanctions" if they did not accept part of the Syrian refugees from Germany.

So now, 25 years after its reunification, Germany may lose its leadership in Europe. It is unclear what country will replace it as the engine of the EU. Britain, for one, wants to leave the EU itself.

For Russia, the time has come for new scenarios and geopolitical arrangements on the European continent. 
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.