THE REUNIFICATION OF GERMANY

1. THE REUNIFICATION OF GERMANY January 1988: Small protest rally in East Berlin May 1989: Dissidents monitor fraudulent municipal elections; Hungary opens its border with Austria Summer 1989: 140,000 East Germans emigrate October 9, 1989: Leipzig authorities capitulate in face of illegal protest march October 17, 1989: Honecker replaced by Egon Krenz November 9, 1989: Fall of Berlin Wall March 1990: East Germany’s first free elections October 3, 1990: The Day of German Unity (the Federal Republic admits five new states)

2. The Brandenburg Gate with guard tower (1974):At least 136 people were killed attempting to cross the Wall

3. The Death Strip at Potsdamer Platz (1982)

4. “On August 13, 1961, the peace of Europe was saved.”(GDR poster from 1986)

5. Leonid Brezhnev agreed at the Helsinki Conference in 1975 to promote “security and cooperation” in Europe Erich Honecker confers with Helmut Schmidt at Helsinki

6. ARTICLE VII OF THE HELSINKI DECLARATION,August 1, 1975 • “The participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion…. • “Within this framework the participating States will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience…. • “In the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the participating States will act in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” {Nobody anticipated that watchdog groups would spring up all over Eastern Europe to monitor compliance, or that the College of Cardinals would elect a Polish pope in 1978.}

7. Erich Honecker,son of a Saarland coal miner,victim of Nazi persecution,East German dictator from 1971 to 1989.

8. THE FAILURE OF HONECKER’S CENTRAL ECONOMIC PLANNING Strip mining for brown coal near Leipzig

9. Erich Mielke’s Ministry of State Security employed 100,000 full time plus 200,000 informants, and maintained files on 6 million of 15 million citizens

10. Prof. Robert Havemann welcomes Wolf Biermann & other dissidents to his apartment(ca. 1970).In 1985 the GDR ransomed 2,500 dissidents

11. Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: The Second Russian Revolution(1987):The new course in the USSR encouraged East German citizens to protest against fraudulent municipal elections in May 1989

12. President Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987:“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

13. The Hungarian and Austrian foreign ministers dismantlethe “Iron Curtain” near Sopron, 27 June 1989

14. East Germans scale the fence of the West German embassy in Prague, 28 September 1989

15. A “Freedom Train” from Prague arrives in Hof, West Germany, on 5 October 1989

16. Honecker and Gorbachev celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, East Berlin, 7 October 1989

17. The Leipzig “Monday rally” of October 9, 1989, when70,000 citizens faced down the security forces

18. Demonstration by 120,000 in Leipzig, 16 October 1989

19. Hope and anxiety at a Leipzig rally, November 1989

20. One million marchers in East Berlin, November 4

21. “SOCIALISM IS ONLY AS SOCIALISTIC—AS ITS DEMOCRACY IS DEMOCRATIC!THEREFORE:SECRET AND FREE ELECTIONS”(Banner at the Berlin rally of November 4)

22. “WE ARE ONE PEOPLE”(A sign from the Leipzig Monday rallies)

23. The youth of Berlin celebrate, 9 November 1989

24. Günter Schabowski and Egon Krenz lead a rousing chorus of the International at an SED rally in East Berlin, 10 November 1989

25. Dismantling the Berlin Wall, 11 November 1989

26. A caravan of Trabis passes through Checkpoint Charlie, November 10, 1989: About 2/3 of all East Germans visited the West in November and December

27. East German sightseers receive a hearty welcome in the city center of Lübeckand at the Rasdorf border crossing in Hesse

28. The New Forum meets in Gethsemane Church, East Berlin, November 10/11, 1989.Most leaders of the protest marches(such as Rolf Henrich, Jens Reich, and Bärbel Bohley in the middle) did not reject the ideals of the old regime but its hypocrisy.

29. Stefan Heym (1913-2001) and Christa Wolf (b. 1929):Authors counted as dissidents but committed to socialism

30. Helmut Kohl in Dresden, December 19, 1989: He promised to redeem savings accounts at an exchange rate of 1:1

31. “Let the Stasi-parasites learn how to work!”(East Berliners invade Stasi headquarters, 15 January 1990)

32. Helmut Kohl and Hans-Dietrich Genscher visit Gorbachev in his vacation home in the Caucasus, July 15, 1990.DM 5 billion secures permission for Germany to remain in NATO

33. Gorbachev deployed on a CDU campaign poster in 1990:“The path is clear!Unity is coming.We are one people!”

34. “I have enough appetite for two!”(French cartoon of Kohl, Mitterand & Thatcher, Nov. 1989)

35. A death camp survivor contemplates German reunification (Ha’aretz, November 1989)

36. Germans before the Reichstag in Berlin celebrate their national reunification on October 3, 1990

37. The Bundestag election of 2 December 1990:Even among East Germans, the organizers of the protest marches only won 5% of the vote.

38. Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, March 1990, as the East German chemical industry was shut down as an environmental hazard.West German administrators eventually closed most state-owned factories in East Germany.Still in 2010, the unemployment rate was 12% in the East and 6% in the West.

39. The “Gauck Authority” controls 115 shelf-miles of Stasi files and 35 million index cards

40. “The Wall Inside the Head” (Hans-Jürgen Starke, 1994): “Easties are lazy, naïve, and hyper-sensitive!” “Westies are arrogant, egotistical, and ruthless!”

41. V. Dubosarkij & A. Vinogradov, “The Eternal Chancellor”(1995)

42. POTSDAMER PLATZ TODAY WITH THE SONY CENTER