THE STORY OF GERMAN REUNIFICATION

3rd October 1990: End of the struggle for unification, beginning of the struggle for unity

The Past is a Foreign Country is the title of American historian David Lowenthal’s famous monograph. For the generations born during the previous thirty years, East and West Germany are indeed “foreign countries”. From today’s perspective, many would at first glance agree with the statement of (East) German writer Stefan Heym that the German Democratic Republic

BERLIN LIGHTING TODAY

will remain nothing more than a footnote in German and more freedom into demands for, and then negotia and world history. It is today difficult to imagine that tions on, German unity, leading to the reunification of German history could have taken a path that wouldn’t Germany less than a year later. The entire civil, political, have led to not only reunification, but also to the economic and social system of the German Democratic essential dissolving of East Germany into the legal, Republic, which had been built over the course of dececonomic, political and cultural order of the Federal ades, collapsed almost overnight. On 3 rd October 1990, Republic of Germany. the territory of the former East Germany became part However, what seems inevitable from the subsequent of the Federal Republic of Germany, in the form of five perspective could not even have new federal states, while East Berlin been predicted by the politicians “The wall will still be was integrated with West Berlin in or scientists dedicated to the study of the German question just a few months prior to that fateful date of standing in fifty and even a hundred years,” asserted Erich the form of a distinct administrative area. The lightning speed at which events unfolded surprised everyone 9 th November 1989. “The wall will Honecker, General Secretary of who had hitherto researched and still be standing in fifty and even a hundred years,” asserted Erich the East German party, written about the German ques tion. It was a tectonic tremor, in Honecker, General Secretary of in January 1989 the words of Klaus von Beyme, the the East German party, in January “Black Friday” of the social sciences 1989. Historians, sociologists and political scientists and humanities, which had been unable to predict the analysed the foreign policy stabilisation of the German development of happenings. At the same time, it was Democratic Republic in the late 1980s and considered the precisely the strength of the changes that took place possibilities of economic and political reforms, starting that tasked scientists with explaining how they had from the assumption that East Germany would remain come to pass. The consequence was the dominance of an historical reality in the coming years and decades. teleological interpretations of recent German history, Nevertheless, in just a short period of time, the fall according to which German reunification was an inevitaof the Berlin Wall turned demands for political reforms bility, to which all historical processes in the second half

of the 20 th century had striven towards almost linearly. identity. To reduce the history of East Germany to a Under the impression of the almost unrealistically rapid footnote would not only be unjust to the people who collapse and disappearance of the German Democratic lived and worked creatively in that country, and whose Republic, in analysing that country’s past, historians lives would be consigned to oblivion, but would also, first began to identify shortcomings and anomalies from and foremost, be politically perilous. That’s because its inception, the consequences of which “must” have knowing and understanding Germany’s integral past resulted in the collapse of the regime and order. And for is a precondition for understanding the country and a considerable number of historians post-1990, there was only room for Knowing and its society today. The German Democratic Re the history of West Germany in the understanding Germany’s public was smaller than the Federal history of Germany in the second half of the 20 th century. East Germany is integral past is Republic of Germany in terms of territory and population, economicommonly denied any legitimacy, a precondition for cally weaker and politically inferior, with its existence reduced to a kind of provisional entity that is more understanding the country but it was still a state of almost 17 million inhabitants, which existed part of the Soviet past than the and its society today for 41 years and in which two genGerman one. erations of Germans grew up and Still, after the first wave of excitement and euphobrought their experiences into the common state in ria abated, it became clear that the fall of communist 1990. Furthermore, excluding the German Democratic regimes in Eastern Europe did not mark the “end of Republic from modern German history would also mean history”, just as the issue of German reunification may belittling German culture, depriving it of creators like have been concluded on 3 rd October 1990, but that only Bertolt Brecht and Anna Seghers, or Christa Wolf and opened the issue of German unity. Even today, thirty Heiner Müller. Besides that, ignoring East Germany years on, the East-West divide still exists in Germany, would lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of the both economically and financially, but also politically, history of the Federal Republic of Germany, because socially, culturally, demographically and in terms of German-on-German rivalry “hovered” over almost every

social, political, economic and cultural aspect of life in in the years that followed German society and instituboth German states during the second half of the 20 th tions showed a readiness and maturity - through inquiry century. The existence of competing German states commissions, expert groups, school programmes, mucrucially shaped the social and poseum exhibitions, commemorations, litical climate of West Germany, as well as the foreign policy activity of In the years that projects, public debates etc. - to also face elections with those issues and the “Bonn Republic”. followed German society problems that, viewed over the long The history of German reunification was not a success story for every individual. For many inhabitants of and institutions showed a readiness and term, secure German unity. Dominating the work of the Commission on the 30 th Anniversary of the Peaceful the former East Germany, adapting maturity - through inquiry Revolution and German Reunificato the new political and social circumstances was arduous, with many commissions, expert tion, which was established in 2019, are topics related to the contrasting losing their jobs and social security, groups, school experiences of citizens from East while many felt like “second-class citizens” in the reunified Germany programmes, museum and West Germany, with the aim of achieving better mutual understandin the years after 1990. However, exhibitions, commemorations, ing and social integration. Today, it would be a mistake to claim that the history of German reunification is a history of failure. Not only was projects, public debates etc. - to also however, there is no talk of a “crisis of unity”, as was the case during the first decade of the existence of the it the case of a so-called “peaceful face elections with those “Berlin Republic”. revolution”, and one that saw solutions found to numerous extremely issues and problems that, By Natalija Dimić, complex political, diplomatic, legal, viewed over the long term, Associate Researcher, economic and financial issues over the course of just a months in 1990, secure German unity Institute for the Recent History of Serbia