German partial unification

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World War II Allied occupation Zones of Germany from 1945.

German partial unification (German: Deutsche Teilvereinigung or Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on 3 October 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (DDR/GDR / Middle Germany, although often titled "East Germany") were incorporated (through accession) into the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD/FRG / West Germany). The start of this reunification process is commonly referred to as Die Wende (The Turning/The Change).

Until the late 1950s, nearly 90 per cent of Germans gave the answer NO! when asked if their country should recognise the Oder-Neisse line border with Communist Poland.[1] For decades after 1945 all the major German political parties sought recovery of their stolen eastern provinces.

History

Poster protesting against the illegal Oder border
Map showing Middle Germany which was united with West Germany. The eastern provinces (coloured pink) remain under foreign occupation.

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" sometimes known as the "Two Plus Four Treaty", allegedly granting full sovereignty to a unified German state of the former West Germany and the German Democratic Republic, but still being bound by a number of limitations stemming from the post-WWII-status as occupied territories. This was meant to be the World War II Peace Treaty. However the CDU and SPD political parties had campaigned since before 1950 for the return and inclusion of the eastern provinces from the Soviet zones of occupation, almost all illegally administered by their communist puppet-state, Poland. The Federal Government were told by the western plutocratic Allies this could not happen, and that if they persisted in these claims there would be no treaties and the two German states would not be reunited. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl quickly caved in and dropped these rightful claims.

Although the English-speaking world tends to refer to the reunification of East and West Germany as 'Reunification of Germany', German politicians at the time called it 'Die Wende' (The Turning Point), and the 1990 Treaty titled the event 'Deutsche Einheit' (German Unity).

Today, torso-Germany is still occupied by the western Allies in a variety of ways, such as membership of the USA's proxy force, NATO.

EU

The new partially-unified Germany became a full member of the European Union.

Timeline

  • 1943 – Tehran Conference, the dismemberment of Germany was first discussed[2]
  • 1944 – Morgenthau Plan
  • February 4, 1945 – The Yalta Conference. It was decided that post-war Germany would be placed by the four Allies in their respective zones of occupation.[3][4]
  • July 17 to August 2, 1945 – Potsdam Conference. Stalin announced to the Western Allies that he had illegally placed the Soviet Zone east of the Oder-Neisse (minus Kaliningrad exclave) under communist Polish 'Administration' without consulting the Allies.
  • May 23, 1949 – The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was created, the constitution dictated by the western allies.
  • October 7, 1949 – German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR) was founded by the Soviets in central Germany.
  • June 17, 1953 – Soviet troops quell workers’ uprising with military force.
  • November 12, 1955 – West Germany becomes part of NATO
  • January 18, 1956 – DDR army (Volksarmee) established, and the DDR joins the Warsaw Pact soon after.
  • August 13, 1961 – Berlin Wall is erected.
  • March 19, 1970 – DDR and West German leaders meet for first time in Erfurt, East [central] Germany.
  • May 3, 1971 – Erich Honecker replaces Walter Ulbricht as DDR party chief.
  • December 21, 1972 – Basic Treaty signed between the two Germanys, paving way for diplomatic recognition.
  • November 16, 1976 – Poet and singer Wolf Biermann stripped of DDR citizenship, prompting many artists to emigrate in disgust.
  • September 7, 1987 – Erich Honecker visits West Germany.
  • January 17, 1988 – Demonstration at official march sparks major Stasi crackdown on dissent.
  • May 7, 1989 – Communists and their allies score nearly 99 per cent in local elections, later shown to have been rigged.
  • July/August 1989 – Would-be emigrants pack West German embassies across the DDR seeking exit papers.
  • September 10, 1989 – Hungary opens its border to Austria, allowing thousands of DDR Germans to reach the West.
  • October 18, 1989 – After unrest across the DDR, including huge demonstrations in the city of Leipzig, and the continued exodus, Honecker quits. Egon Krenz replaces him.
  • November 9, 1989 – Berlin Wall partially opened in a few places.
  • March 18, 1990 – DDR’s first free elections. Voters opt for centre-right pro-unity government.
  • July 1, 1990 – DDR and West Germany merge economies, with the DDR adopting the Deutschmark as its currency.
  • July 22, 1990 – The freely elected People's Chamber of the DDR decides to form the five states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony. East Berlin becomes part of the state (Bundesland) of Berlin. With the formation of the new states, the DDR abolished a centralized state and transforms into a federal state. The structure therefore corresponds to the order of the Basic Law.
  • September 12, 1990 – World War Two allies and the two German states sign treaty restoring sovereignty to a united Germany, an Allied condition of which was acceptance of the Soviet-imposed eastern border, and with it the loss of the German eastern provinces.
  • August 23, 1990 – The Volkskammer, the Parliament of East Germany, passed a resolution declaring the accession (Beitritt) of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany, and the extension of the field of application of the Federal Republic's Basic Law to the territory of East Germany as allowed by Article 23 of the West German Basic Law, effective 3 October 1990.
  • October 3, 1990 – DDR formally unites with West Germany.[5]
    • The "new federal states" of Germany (die neuen Bundesländer) are the five re-established states of the former DDR that unified with the Federal Republic of Germany with its 10 (or eleven, when including West Berlin) "old federal states": Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia, now counting 16 German federal states or Bundesländer.
  • October 14, 1990 – After the state elections, the new German states adopted their own constitutions.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Exit the Fatherland, Aeon, 3 June 2021
  2. ↑ Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume I
  3. ↑ USA Department of State Historical Policy Division, Agreements reached at the Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences - Implementation and US Policy, Research Paper no.80, September 1948, p.10.
  4. ↑ Balfour, Michael & Mair, John, Four-Power Control in German and Austria 1945-1946, Oxford University Press, U.K., 1956.
  5. ↑ TIMELINE: East Germany - From wartime ashes to unity (Reuters)
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