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consists of the American, British and French Zones (without the
Saarland, which later joined West Germany after a referendum), while East Germany is formed from the Soviet Zone (without the western sections of
Berlin).
German reunification () took place on 3 October
1990, when the areas of the former
German Democratic Republic (GDR / East Germany) were incorporated into the
West Germany (FRG / West Germany). The start of this reunification process is commonly referred to as
Die Wende (
The Turning / The Change).
After the GDR's first free elections on 18 March
1990, negotiations between the GDR and FRG culminated in a Unification Treaty, whilst negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" granting full
sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two halves had previously still been bound by a number of limitations stemming from its post-WWII-status as an occupied nation.
The reunified
Germany remained a member of the
European Community (later the
European Union) and
NATO.
Naming
There is debate as to whether the events of 1990 should be properly referred to as a "reunification" or a "unification". Proponents of the former use the term in contrast with the
German Empire of Germany in 1871. Popular parlance, which uses "reunification", is deeply impacted by the 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall (and the rest of the
inner German border) and the physical reunification of the city of Berlin (itself divided only since 1961). Others, however, argue that 1990 represented a "unification" of two German states into a larger entity which, in its resulting form, had never before existed (see History of Germany). For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term "reunification" during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as
die Wende. The most common term in
German language is "Deutsche Einheit" or "German unity"; German unity is the term that
Hans-Dietrich Genscher used in front of international journalists to correct them when they asked him about "reunification" in 1990.
After 1990, the term "die Wende" became more common. The term generally refers to the events (mostly in Eastern Europe) that led up to the actual reunification; in its usual context, this term loosely translates to "the turnaround", without any further meaning. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the cultural connotation of the time and the events in the GDR that brought about this "turnaround" in German history.
Reunification
History
wait for the official opening of the Brandenburg Gate on
22 December 1989.
Germany was officially reunified at 00:00 Central European Time on 3 October 1990, when the five reestablished federal states (States of Germany) of East Germany–Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Saxony,
Saxony-Anhalt,
Thuringia and
Berlin (formed by uniting the two halves of the formerly divided city) –formally joined the Federal Republic of Germany, choosing one of two options implemented in the West German constitution
(Grundgesetz). As these five newly-founded German states formally joined the Federal Republic in accordance with the (then-existing) Article 23, the area in which the constitution served as the constitution was simply extended to include them. The alternative would have been for East Germany to join as a whole along the lines of a formal union between two German states that then would have had to, amongst other things, create a new constitution for the newly established country.
To facilitate this process and to reassure other countries, some changes were made to the "Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany" (constitution). Article 146 was amended so that Article 23 of the current constitution could be used for reunification. After the five "New Länder" of East Germany had joined, the constitution was amended again to indicate that all parts of Germany are now unified. Article 23 was rewritten as keeping it could be understood as an invitation to e.g.
Austria to join. However, the constitution can be amended again at some future date and it still permits the adoption of another constitution by the German people at some time in the future.
On 14 November 1990, the German government signed a treaty with Poland, finalising Germany's boundaries as permanent along the
Oder-Neisse line, and thus, renouncing any claims to
Silesia, Farther Pomerania,
Gdańsk (Danzig), and territories of the former province of
East Prussia. The following month, the first all-German free elections since 1932 were held, resulting in an increased majority for the coalition government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Effects
The cost of reunification came to be a heavy burden to the
German economy, having contributed negatively to Germany’s almost
economic stagnation economic growth in recent years. The total costs of reunification are estimated to amount to over
Euro1.5 trillion, according to the Free University of Berlin. The primary reason for the hefty price tag was the weak East German economy, especially as it stood in comparison to West Germany; further, the exchange rate between the East German and West German currency was artificially inflated to be one-to-one-unit, largely for political reasons, with West Germany footing the bill. In spite of West Germany's large investments, many East German businesses collapsed in the face of West German and European competition. Even today, the German government still allocates over €10 billion to the development of the formerly East German states every year. During the 1980s, the capitalist economy of West Germany prospered, while the communist economy of East Germany declined; subsequently, providing goods and services to East Germany strained the resources of the West. Uncompetitive industries formerly supported by the East German government were to be privatised, often resulting in their stripping or complete dissolution.
As a consequence of the reunification, most of the former GDR has been de-industrialised, causing an unemployment rate of up to 25% in some parts of the country. Thousands of former East Germans continue to migrate to western Germany to find jobs, resulting in the loss of significant parts of the eastern work force, especially highly skilled workers, who have shown themselves to be significantly more willing to move.
According to the German Bundesbank (Central bank), the cause of many problems in the German economy are actually rooted in reunification, rather than the introduction of the
Euro currency in 2002, as suggested by many economists.
References
See also
External links
- Germany's Eastern Burden: The Price of a Failed Reunification
- The End of East Germany
- German Embassy Publication, Infocus: German Unity Day
- The Reunification and Its Aftermath
- Across an Imagined Border A 2002 cross-section trip across former intra-German boundaries.
- The Unification Treaty (Berlin, 31 August 1990) website of european navigator
consists of the American, British and French Zones (without the
Saarland, which later joined West Germany after a referendum), while
East Germany is formed from the Soviet Zone (without the western sections of
Berlin).
German reunification () took place on 3 October
1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR / East Germany) were incorporated into the
West Germany (FRG / West Germany). The start of this reunification process is commonly referred to as
Die Wende (
The Turning / The Change).
After the GDR's first free elections on
18 March 1990, negotiations between the GDR and FRG culminated in a Unification Treaty, whilst negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "
Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" granting full
sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two halves had previously still been bound by a number of limitations stemming from its post-WWII-status as an occupied nation.
The reunified
Germany remained a member of the European Community (later the
European Union) and NATO.
Naming
There is debate as to whether the events of 1990 should be properly referred to as a "reunification" or a "unification". Proponents of the former use the term in contrast with the German Empire of Germany in 1871. Popular parlance, which uses "reunification", is deeply impacted by the 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall (and the rest of the inner German border) and the physical reunification of the city of Berlin (itself divided only since 1961). Others, however, argue that 1990 represented a "unification" of two German states into a larger entity which, in its resulting form, had never before existed (see
History of Germany). For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term "reunification" during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as
die Wende. The most common term in
German language is "Deutsche Einheit" or "German unity"; German unity is the term that Hans-Dietrich Genscher used in front of international journalists to correct them when they asked him about "reunification" in 1990.
After 1990, the term "die Wende" became more common. The term generally refers to the events (mostly in Eastern Europe) that led up to the actual reunification; in its usual context, this term loosely translates to "the turnaround", without any further meaning. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the cultural connotation of the time and the events in the GDR that brought about this "turnaround" in German history.
Reunification
History
wait for the official opening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989.
Germany was officially reunified at 00:00 Central European Time on 3 October
1990, when the five reestablished federal states (
States of Germany) of East Germany–
Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Saxony,
Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and
Berlin (formed by uniting the two halves of the formerly divided city) –formally joined the Federal Republic of Germany, choosing one of two options implemented in the West German constitution
(Grundgesetz). As these five newly-founded German states formally joined the Federal Republic in accordance with the (then-existing) Article 23, the area in which the constitution served as the constitution was simply extended to include them. The alternative would have been for East Germany to join as a whole along the lines of a formal union between two German states that then would have had to, amongst other things, create a new constitution for the newly established country.
To facilitate this process and to reassure other countries, some changes were made to the "
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany" (constitution). Article 146 was amended so that Article 23 of the current constitution could be used for reunification. After the five "
New Länder" of East Germany had joined, the constitution was amended again to indicate that all parts of Germany are now unified. Article 23 was rewritten as keeping it could be understood as an invitation to e.g. Austria to join. However, the constitution can be amended again at some future date and it still permits the adoption of another constitution by the German people at some time in the future.
On 14 November
1990, the German government signed a treaty with Poland, finalising Germany's boundaries as permanent along the
Oder-Neisse line, and thus, renouncing any claims to
Silesia,
Farther Pomerania,
Gdańsk (Danzig), and territories of the former province of East Prussia. The following month, the first all-German free elections since 1932 were held, resulting in an increased majority for the coalition government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Effects
The cost of reunification came to be a heavy burden to the
German economy, having contributed negatively to Germany’s almost economic stagnation economic growth in recent years. The total costs of reunification are estimated to amount to over
Euro1.5 trillion, according to the
Free University of Berlin. The primary reason for the hefty price tag was the weak East German economy, especially as it stood in comparison to West Germany; further, the exchange rate between the East German and West German currency was artificially inflated to be one-to-one-unit, largely for political reasons, with West Germany footing the bill. In spite of West Germany's large investments, many East German businesses collapsed in the face of West German and European competition. Even today, the German government still allocates over €10 billion to the development of the formerly East German states every year. During the 1980s, the capitalist economy of West Germany prospered, while the communist economy of East Germany declined; subsequently, providing goods and services to East Germany strained the resources of the West. Uncompetitive industries formerly supported by the East German government were to be privatised, often resulting in their stripping or complete dissolution.
As a consequence of the reunification, most of the former GDR has been de-industrialised, causing an unemployment rate of up to 25% in some parts of the country. Thousands of former East Germans continue to migrate to western Germany to find jobs, resulting in the loss of significant parts of the eastern work force, especially highly skilled workers, who have shown themselves to be significantly more willing to move.
According to the German
Bundesbank (Central bank), the cause of many problems in the German economy are actually rooted in reunification, rather than the introduction of the Euro currency in 2002, as suggested by many economists.
References
See also
- History of Germany since 1945
- Reunification
- Stalin Note - 1952 German reunification proposal
- Berlin Wall
- Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
- Transitology
External links
- Germany's Eastern Burden: The Price of a Failed Reunification
- The End of East Germany
- German Embassy Publication, Infocus: German Unity Day
- The Reunification and Its Aftermath
- Across an Imagined Border A 2002 cross-section trip across former intra-German boundaries.
- The Unification Treaty (Berlin, 31 August 1990) website of european navigator
German reunification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
German reunification (German: Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on 3 October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic (GDR / East Germany) established five states which ...
Category:German reunification - Wikimedia Commons
Media in category "German reunification" The following 10 files are in this category, out of 10 total.
Witness seminar on German Reunification
Edited by Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck. Published ICBH, 2003. ISBN: 1 871348 78 1. CD-ROM: £8 plus ...
Intute: Arts and Humanities - Limelight - German Reunification
Limelight article: German Reunification ... Limelight: German Reunification. Date: 3rd October 1990 Type: Events By Christina Siggers Manson, University of Kent
DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES
F15, N94 and O18 Keywords: economic geography, German division, German reunification and market access Stephen Redding Centre for Economic Performance and Department of Economics London ...
The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and ...
The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and reunification. Redding, Stephen and Sturm, Daniel M (2005) The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and ...
Literature and German Reunification - Cambridge University Press
Library of Congress. Dewey number: 830.9/358; Dewey version: 21; LC Classification: PT405 .B684 1999; LC Subject headings: German literature--20th century--History and criticism ...
The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and ...
This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the ...
CEPR Discussion Paper Abstracts
DP5656 The Caring Hand that Cripples: The East German Labour Market after Reunification
German Reunification Day Anniversary
Presidential Libraries celebrate 15th Anniversary of German Reunification Day. ... Exhibit Photos. President Kennedy Visits Berlin President Kennedy viewing the Berlin Wall and the ...
