Germany 1989: In the Aftermath of the Cold War by Lothar Kettenacker

Author:Lothar Kettenacker [Kettenacker, Lothar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Modern, 20th Century, General
ISBN: 9781317875659
Google: vaasAgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 4255927
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2008-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

The Diplomatic Process

The East-German Volksdemokratie was brought down by its own people who did not want to be dictated to any longer, by ordinary citizens who either turned their backs on the GDR or demonstrated in the streets of Leipzig expressing their desire to be again ein Volk. However, the German Question was not for the Germans to determine alone, as they had in 1871. The Four Powers who had accepted unconditional surrender of the Third Reich in 1945 were, according to international law, responsible for Germany as a whole and still exercised, at least in theory, supreme power in its former capital. The diplomatic process was positively influenced by a strange phenomenon of which historians are seldom aware: the international community found the division of Germany, enforced by a concrete wall across its capital, more incomprehensible, more absurd, than most West Germans who after 40 years got used to this unnatural state of affairs. On the occasion of a German general visiting Washington in early 1989, Rozanne Ridgway, assistant Secretary of State, remarked to a colleague that unification was “the subject that all Americans are interested in and no German cares about”.1 However, it is also true to say that Germans abroad wished to convey the impression that they had learnt their lesson and did not nourish unrealistic hopes. The West Germans were not pressing the issue since they knew that it was a matter of international law as well as of international understanding. No one knew this better than Helmut Kohl who was both a politician and a historian by profession. It was his good fortune that it was the Bundeskanzleramt (Chancellery) and not the Auswärtige Amt (Foreign Office) under Hans-Dietrich Genscher that was in charge of German affairs as a result of the Basic Treaty of 1972.2 For the GDR, West Germany was a foreign country and thus the domain of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Markus Meckel, foreign minister during the final phase of negotiations, were East Germans and as such inclined not to insist on conditions that might have endangered eventual unification. For the Chancellor, however, who more than any of his predecessors felt committed to the legacy of Konrad Adenauer,3 the long-term security of Germany, above all its being firmly embedded in the Atlantic Alliance and the European Community, was more important than speedy unification. Again and again he reiterated his position in his talks with President George Bush and other NATO partners: German unification was the order of the day, but not at any price. It was this crucial understanding that explains the unremitting support he received from the Americans who in turn persuaded the British and French to go along with what in their eyes was a deeply worrying prospect. There was another guiding principle that determined the Chancellor’s approach to the final settlement of the German Question. That was to keep negotiations strictly within limits, i.e. within the realm of the Four Powers who were responsible for Germany as a whole.

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