“With the raising of the German flag from the historic building of the German parliament, the Reichstag, the birth of the unified German state was hailed at midnight yesterday,” Kathimerini wrote on its front page on October 3, 1990. After 41 years, the two Germanys, which had emerged after the end of World War II, were reunited as the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany.
“In his televised message last night, Chancellor Helmut Kohl thanked the three Western victors of World War II for their support of the country’s unification prospects. The West German leader made special mention of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the role he played in German unification. “He recognized the right of every nation to go its own way,” he pointed out, adding “without Gorbachev’s contribution, the day of unification would not have come so soon,” the newspaper continued.
The path to unification was opened by the decision of the East German cabinet, according to which East Germans were now allowed to move freely to the countries of Western Europe without special permission from the authorities. It was preceded, on September 10, 1989, by the opening of Hungary’s border with Austria, thus triggering the mass exodus of East Germans to the West, which was the first serious blow against the regime of Erich Honecker. After mass protests and pressure, the Honecker regime collapsed.
Not long after, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the Cold War, followed. Two weeks later, Helmut Kohl announced a 10-point program aimed at expanding cooperation between the two Germanys with a view to reunification. In February 1990, on the sidelines of the Open Skies conference in Ottawa, Canada, the four victors of World War II accepted this prospect. The following month, the first free East German elections took place, and in the summer it was decided that the West German mark would be the official currency of the two states.
Finally, on August 23, after intense party and political confrontations, centered on the electoral law, the two Germanys agreed to define the 3the December 1990 the date of the first pan-German elections. After a few days, the USA, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and France signed an agreement in Moscow with the two German states, which fully restored Germany’s national sovereignty.
“Our country will work for world peace and for European unity,” declared Helmut Kohl on the day of reunification. “In the future, only peace will begin on German soil. We understand that the inviolability of borders in Europe is a fundamental condition of peace and we will never in the future make territorial claims against any state,” concluded the German chancellor.
As “Kathimerini” wrote on October 4, “tribute to all those who did not give in to prejudices and fears in Germany and the USSR and worked looking towards the future and achieved the solution of the German problem, it is in the message sent to Chancellor Kohl , the president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev”, while the president of the USA, George Bush, emphasized in his related message, “No wall can crush the soul of a people”.
From 1990 until today, the 3the October is Germany’s national holiday, known as the Day of German Unity (Tag der Deutschen Einheit).
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigone-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
