Twenty-one years ago today (October 3, 1990) the countries of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany quit existing as East Germany and West Germany. On that evening, the two countries were unified again. Prior to that the last time Germany was united was during what is considered its darkest hour: The Third Reich.
Once the Second World War was over and the victorious allies (US, UK, USSR, & FRANCE) moved in to claim the spoils of war and to begin rebuilding Europe in their image. The only problem is that no one could really decide in whose image Europe was to be rebuilt in. So a line was drawn right down the middle of Germany and it extended beyond the borders and throughout Europe. On the Western side of that line was Democracy and Freedom and on the Eastern side was Communism, Suspicion, Rhetorical Speeches, and Oppression. However, on both sides of that line were rows and rows of soldiers, tanks, airplanes, and bombs, both conventional and nuclear.
For almost 45 years, the country of Germany was not only divided but occupied by those that broke the back of the “thousand year” Reich. During that time tensions all over Europe were high. Brinksmanship became a new word in the Cold War dictionary. It was East versus West, move and counter-move, point and counterpoint, spy versus spy, and the men and women at all levels of all governments did what they could, on a daily basis, to ensure that those "99 Red Balloons" never went up.
When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 things became even more desperate and impassioned, what was once a simple walk across the street quickly became a mad dash between life and death. Those in the East found themselves trapped behind wires, machine guns, and towers with beams of light. They knew that deep inside it was fundamentally wrong to keep people down, it was wrong to keep them from living a life that allowed for basic human rights and freedoms. People on both sides of the Iron Curtain knew it was wrong. That did not stop those in the East from trying to escape the oppression of the Communist Regimes that littered the Eastern European countryside. While many managed to escape some did not. Some were made to die where they were shot only to serve as a horrific reminder to the entire world as to who as in-charge and to what lengths governments would go to impose its will on its citizens.
Then as things started again to look their darkest, a small tide of change was starting to form in Moscow, when a new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was announced. Mikhail Gorbachev brought to the forefront a new way of thinking, living, and (hopefully) thriving: Glasnost and Perestroika (Openness and Restructuring). By having the vision to recognize that as time is changing, the Communist system must change otherwise face implosion because the world changed and the Soviet Union stood by idly wondering why. This spark of change slowly spread throughout Eastern Europe however it did not take the form of Government sponsored or sanctioned reforms.
Quite the contrary, the people saw opportunities to take advantage of some of those Moscow backed changes and use them against their governments. In Poland, the Solidarity Trade Union was born and with it a new name became the face of the Anti-Communist Movement: Lech Walesa. Here was a simple shipyard worker that was now as common as President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The seed was planted and it was starting to take roots and spread.
Even the Catholic Church got in on the act when in October of 1978 the church leaders elected Polish Bishop of Krakow Karol Józef Wojtyła as the head of the Roman Catholic Church who took the name of Pope John Paul II. It was this Polish Pope who is credited as being the spiritual inspiration for the downfall of the Communism in Eastern Europe.
As the late 1980s began, other loopholes in the system were being discovered and exploited. The economies of Communist Bloc nations were being taxed in the sense that it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay in the black as their economic output was greater than the income that was being generated. Something had to happen before the DDR and other eastern nations went bankrupt. Food, materials, basic supply shortages were starting to become commonplace. Thus in desolation and frustration, the hungry made their stand when they would stand for no more. The East Germans were the most obvious when it came to having the hunger, the longing in that they had a common history with their brothers and sisters on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the summer of 1989 East German citizens found their way to Hungary and into Austria by a hole in the Iron Curtain. Then what started as a trickling stream turned into a flood of humanity. The flow of people out of East Germany was starting to tax not only the Eastern Bloc countries that were acting as way-stations but also East and West Germany. East Germany was having a brain drain the likes of which it had not seen since before the wall went up. West Germany was having difficulty processing and assimilating those new comers into West German society, it was not for lack of trying it was due to the sheer number of East Germans transitioning to the west.
Then in early November 1989, the DDR’s leadership met to discuss the question of the emigrating citizens to the West. On November 9, 1989 through a slight error when the announcement regarding when modified travel restrictions between the DDR and FRG were to take effect, the Berlin Wall fell.
Seizing the moment and the opportunity the Federal Republic of Germany and its western allies, US, UK, and France, moved quickly towards unification of the German nation and people and with the work of the politicians, diplomats, and the people (through popular vote) the process was underway. Then with the signing of the Two plus Four Treaty or the more formal, The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, the two nations, with a common people, were unified once again.
Now 21 years later the one German nation continues to thrive. Even as the largest economy in the European Union, the country continues to have growing pains. Then again what is one to expect from a country that is only twenty one years old?
Congratulations to all my Friends and Family in Germany. Keep up the good work as there is a long, hard road ahead but as we did it during the Cold War to get to this place and time, you will carry on to ensure a lasting peace well into the future.
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