Map showing the division of East and West Germany, with West Berlin in yellow.

German reunification (German: Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) joined the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG/West Germany), and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die Wende (The Turning Point). The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity (German: Deutsche Einheit), celebrated on 3 October (German Unity Day).^[1]

The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. It caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The Peaceful Revolution, a series of protests by East Germans, led to the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, and to the negotiations between the GDR and FRG that culminated in a Unification Treaty,^[1] whilst negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Two Plus Four Treaty" (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany) granting full sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two parts had previously still been bound by a number of limitations stemming from their post-WWII status as occupied regions. The united Germany remained a member of the European Community (later the European Union) and of NATO.

Naming[link]

There is debate as to whether the events of 1990 should be properly referred to as a "reunification" or a "unification". Proponents^[specify] of the former use the term in contrast with the initial unification of Germany in 1871. Also when the Saarland joined the West German Federal Republic of Germany on 1 January 1957, this was termed the Small Reunification. Popular parlance, which uses "reunification", is deeply affected 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 1945). Others,^[who?] 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 official^[1] and most common term in German is "Deutsche Einheit" (in English "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 turning point", 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. However, civil rights activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SED's Secretary General Egon Krenz.^[2]

Precursors to reunification[link]

In 1945, the Third Reich ended in defeat and Germany was divided into two separate countries, with the east controlled as part of the Communist Soviet Bloc and the west aligned to Capitalist Europe (which formed into the European Community), including a division in military alliance that formed into the Warsaw Pact and NATO, respectively. The capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War.

Into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the "Iron Curtain". In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost (openness), perestroika (economic restructuring) and taken to even more progressive levels by Gorbachev, the Solidarity movement took hold in Poland. Further inspired by other images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West. The turning point in Germany, called "Die Wende", was marked by the "Peaceful Revolution" leading to the removal of the Berlin Wall with East and West Germany subsequently entering into negotiations toward eliminating the division that had been imposed upon Germans more than four decades earlier.

Process of reunification[link]

Police officers of the East German Volkspolizei wait for the official opening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989.

On 28 November 1989—two weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall—West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced a 10-point program calling for the two Germanies to expand their cooperation with the view toward eventual reunification.^[3]

Initially, no timetable was proposed. However, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germany's first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohl's Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification. Second, East Germany's economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the removal of Communist discipline revealed the ramshackle foundations of that system. The East German mark had been practically worthless outside of East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90, further magnifying the problem.

Discussions immediately began for an emergency merger of the Germanies' economies. On 18 May 1990, the two German states signed a treaty agreeing on monetary, economic and social union. This came into force on 1 July 1990, with the Deutsche Mark replacing the East German mark as the official currency of East Germany. The Deutsche Mark had a very high reputation among the East Germans and was considered stable.^[4] While the GDR transferred its financial policy sovereignty to West Germany, the West started granting subsidies for the GDR budget and social security system.^[5] At the same time many West German laws came into force in the GDR. This created a suitable framework for a political union by diminishing the huge gap between the two existing political, social, and economic systems.^[5]

A reunification treaty between West Germany and the GDR was negotiated in mid-1990, signed on 31 August of that year and finally approved by large majorities in the legislative chambers of both countries on 20 September 1990.^[6] The amendments to the Federal Republic's Basic Law that were foreseen in the Unification Treaty or necessary for its implementation were adopted by the Federal Statute of 23 September 1990. After that last step Germany was officially united at 00:00 CET on 3 October 1990. East Germany joined the Federal Republic as the five states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. These states had been the five original states of East Germany, but had been abolished in 1952 in favour of a centralised system. As part of the 18 May treaty, the five East German states had been reconstituted on 23 August. At the same time, East and West Berlin reunited into one city, which became a city-state along the lines of the existing city-states of Bremen and Hamburg.

The process chosen was one of two options implemented in the West German constitution (Basic Law) of 1949. Via that document's (then-existing) Article 23, any new Länder (German federative states), could adhere to the Basic Law by a simple majority vote. Thus the states' parliaments would vote in for their adhesion. The initial eleven joining states of 1949 comprised the Trizone and West Berlin. However the latter was legally inhibited by Allied objection due to the status of the city as a quadripartite allied occupation area.^[7] In 1957 the Saar Protectorate joined West Germany under the Article 23 procedure as Saarland. As the five refounded eastern German states formally joined the Federal Republic using the Article 23 procedure, the area in which the Basic Law was in force simply extended to include them.^[8] 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.

Under the model that was chosen, however, the territory of the former German Democratic Republic was simply incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany, and accordingly the Federal Republic of Germany, now enlarged to include the Eastern States, continued legally to exist under the same legal personality that was founded in May 1949.

Thus, the reunification was not a merger that created a third state out of the two, but an incorporation, by which West Germany absorbed East Germany. Thus, on Unification Day, 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, giving way to five new Federal States, and East and West Berlin were also unified as a single city-state, forming a sixth new Federal State. The new Federal States immediately became parts of the Federal Republic of Germany, so that it was enlarged to include the whole territory of the former East Germany and Berlin.

The practical result of that model is that the now expanded Federal Republic of Germany continued to be a party to all the treaties it had signed prior to the moment of reunification, and thus continued the same membership of the U.N., NATO, the European Communities, etc.; also, the same Basic Law and the same laws that were in force in the Federal Republic continued automatically in force, but now applied to the expanded territory.

To facilitate this process and to reassure other countries, some changes were made to the "Basic Law" (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 and it can still be understood as an invitation to others (e.g. Austria) to join, although the main idea of the change was to calm fears in (for example) Poland, that Germany would later try to rejoin with former eastern territories of Germany that were now Polish or parts of other countries in the East. The changes effectively formalised the Oder-Neisse line as Germany's permanent eastern border. These amendments to the Basic Law were mandated by Article I, section 4 of the Two Plus Four Treaty.^[9]

While the Basic Law was modified rather than replaced by a constitution as such, it still permits the adoption of a formal constitution by the German people at some time in the future.

To commemorate the day that marks the official unification of the former East and West Germany in 1990, 3 October has since then been the official German national holiday, the Day of German Unity (Tag der deutschen Einheit). It replaced the previous national holiday held in West Germany on 17 June commemorating the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany and the national holiday on 7 October in the GDR.^[5]

Foreign opposition[link]

For decades, Germany's allies had stated their support for reunification; Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who speculated that a country that "decided to kill millions of Jewish people" in the Holocaust "will try to do it again", was one of the few world leaders to publicly oppose it. As reunification became a realistic possibility, however, significant NATO and European opposition emerged in private.^[10]

Britain and France[link]

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that neither the United Kingdom nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany. Thatcher also clarified that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it, telling Gorbachev "We do not want a united Germany".^[11] Although she welcomed East German democracy, Thatcher worried that a rapid reunification might weaken Gorbachev,^[12] and favoured Soviet troops staying in East Germany as long as possible to act as a counterweight to a united Germany.^[10]

Thatcher, who carried in her handbag a map of Germany's 1937 borders to show others the "German problem", feared that its "national character", size, and central location in Europe would cause the nation to be a "destabilizing rather than a stabilizing force in Europe".^[12] In December 1989, she warned fellow European Community leaders at a Strasbourg, France summit Kohl attended, "We defeated the Germans twice! And now they're back!"^[13][10] Although Thatcher had stated her support for German self-determination in 1985,^[12] she now argued that Germany's allies had only supported reunification because they had not believed it would ever happen.^[10] Thatcher favoured a transition period of five years for reunification, during which the two Germanys would remain separate states. Although she gradually softened her opposition, as late as March 1990 Thatcher summoned historians and diplomats to a seminar at Chequers^[12] to ask "How dangerous are the Germans?"^[13] and the French ambassador in London reported that Thatcher had told him, "France and Great Britain should pull together today in the face of the German threat."^[14][15]

Similarly, a representative of French President François Mitterrand reportedly told an aide to Gorbachev, "France by no means wants German reunification, although it realises that in the end it is inevitable."^[11] At the Strasbourg summit, Mitterrand and Thatcher discussed the fluidity of Germany's historical borders.^[10] On 20 January 1990, Mitterrand told Thatcher that a unified Germany could "make more ground than even Hitler had".^[14] He predicted that "bad" Germans would reemerge,^[13] who might seek to regain former German territory lost after World War II^[12] and would likely dominate Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, leaving "only Romania and Bulgaria for the rest of us". The two leaders saw no way to prevent reunification, however, as "None of us was going to declare war on Germany".^[10] Mitterrand recognized before Thatcher that reunification was inevitable and adjusted his views accordingly; unlike her, he was hopeful that participation in a single currency^[12] and other European institutions could control a united Germany. Mitterrand still wanted Thatcher to publicly oppose unification, however, to obtain more concessions from Germany.^[13]

The rest of Europe[link]

Other European leaders' opinion of reunification was "icy". Italy's Giulio Andreotti warned against a revival of "pan-Germanism", and the Netherlands' Ruud Lubbers questioned the German right to self-determination. They shared Britain and France's concerns over a return to German militarism and the economic power of a reunified nation. The consensus opinion was that reunification, if it must occur, should not occur until at least 1995 and preferably much later.^[10]

The four powers[link]

The victors of World War II—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France, comprising the Four-Power Authorities—retained authority over Berlin, such as control over air travel and its political status. The Soviet Union sought early to use reunification as a way to push Germany out of NATO into neutrality, removing nuclear weapons from its territory. West Germany interpreted a 21 November 1989 diplomatic message on the topic, however, as meaning that only two weeks after the Wall's collapse the Soviet leadership already anticipated reunification. This belief, and the worry that his rival Genscher might act first, encouraged Kohl on 28 November to announce a detailed reunification plan (10-Point Plan). While his speech was very popular within West Germany Kohl's speech caused concern among other European governments, with whom he had not discussed the plan.^[10]

The Americans did not share the Europeans' and Russians' historical fears over German expansionism, but wished to ensure that Germany would stay within NATO. In December 1989, the administration of President George H. W. Bush made a united Germany's continued NATO membership a requirement for supporting reunification. Kohl agreed, although less than 20% of West Germans supported remaining within NATO; he also wished to avoid a neutral Germany, as he believed that would destroy NATO, cause the United States and Canada to leave Europe, and Britain and France would form an alliance. The United States increased its support of Kohl's policies, as it feared that otherwise Oskar Lafontaine, a critic of NATO, might become Chancellor.^[10]

Helmut Kohl became first chancellor of a reunified Germany.

Horst Teltschik, Kohl's foreign policy advisor, later recalled that Germany would have paid "100 billion deutschmarks" had the Soviets demanded it. The USSR did not make such great demands, however, with Gorbachev stating in February 1990 that "The Germans must decide for themselves what path they choose to follow". In May 1990 he repeated his remark in the context of NATO membership while meeting Bush, amazing both the Americans and Germans.^[10]

Conclusion[link]

During a NATO-Warsaw Pact conference in Ottawa, Canada, Genscher persuaded the four powers to treat the two Germanys as equals instead of defeated junior partners, and for the six nations to negotiate alone. Although the Dutch, Italians, Spanish, and other NATO powers opposed such a structure, which meant that the alliance's boundaries would change without their participation, the six nations began negotiations in March 1990. After Gorbachev's May agreement on German NATO membership, the Soviets further agreed that Germany would be treated as an ordinary NATO country, with the exception that former East German territory would not have foreign NATO troops or nuclear weapons. In exchange, Kohl agreed to reduce the sizes of both Germanys' militaries, renounce weapons of mass destruction, and accept the postwar Oder-Neisse line as Germany's eastern border. In addition, Germany agreed to pay about 55 billion deutschmarks to the Soviet Union in gifts and loans, the equivalent of eight days of the West German GDP.^[10]

Mitterrand agreed to reunification in exchange for a commitment from Kohl to the European Economic and Monetary Union.^[17] The British insisted to the end, against Soviet opposition, that NATO be allowed to hold maneuvers in the former East Germany. After the Americans intervened,^[10] both the UK and France ratified the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in September 1990, thus finalizing the reunification for purposes of international law. Thatcher later wrote that her opposition to reunification had been an "unambiguous failure".^[12]

Aftermath[link]

On 14 November 1990, the united Germany and Poland signed the German–Polish Border Treaty, finalizing Germany's boundaries as permanent along the Oder-Neisse line, and thus, renouncing any claims to Silesia, East Brandenburg, Farther Pomerania, and territories of the former province of East Prussia.^[18] The treaty also granted certain rights for political minorities on either side of the border.^[19] 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.

On 15 March 1991, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany entered into force, putting an end to the remaining limitations on German sovereignty that resulted from the post WWII arrangements.

Inner reunification[link]

Vast differences between the former East Germany and West Germany (for example, in lifestyle, wealth, political beliefs and other matters) remain, and it is therefore still common to speak of eastern and western Germany distinctly. The eastern German economy has struggled since unification, and large subsidies are still transferred from west to east. The former East Germany area has often been compared to the underdeveloped Southern Italy and the Southern United States during Reconstruction after the American Civil War. While the East German economy has recovered recently, the differences between East and West remain constant.^[20][21]

Reenacting noted Alfred Eisenstaedt V-J Day photo at 12:01 am on Reunification night in Cologne, Germany.

Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989

Placard found in all roads between Western and Eastern Germany that were blocked during division. Text reads: "Here, Germany and Europe were divided until 10 December 1989 at 10:15 am". The date and time vary according to the actual moment when a particular crossing was opened.

Politicians and scholars have frequently called for a process of "inner reunification" of the two countries and asked whether there is "inner unification or continued separation".^[22] "The process of German unity has not ended yet", proclaimed Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, in 2009.^[23] Nevertheless, the question of this "inner reunification" has been widely discussed in the German public, politically, economically, culturally, and also constitutionally since 1989.

Politically, since the fall of the Wall, the successor party of the former East German socialist state party has become a major force in German politics. It was renamed PDS, and, later, merged with the Western leftist party WASG to form the party Die Linke (The Left).^[24]

Constitutionally, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the West German constitution, provided two pathways for a unification, the first including an implementation of the constitution in the East, the second the implementation of a new all-German constitution, safeguarded by a popular referendum. While the former option was chosen as the most feasible one, the latter option was partly regarded as a means to foster the "inner reunification".^[25][26]

A public manifestation of coming to terms with the past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) is the existence of the so-called Birthler-Behörde, the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, which collects and maintains the files of the East German security apparatus.^[27]

The economic reconstruction of former Eastern Germany following the reunification required large amounts of public funding which turned some areas into boom regions, although overall unemployment remains higher than in the former West.^[28] Reunification did, however, lead to a large rise in the average standard of living in former Eastern Germany. Between 1990 and 1995, gross wages in the east rose from 35% to 74% of western levels, while pensions rose from 40% to 79%.^[29]:209

In terms of media usage and reception, the country remains partially divided especially among the older generations. Mentality gaps between East and West persist, but so does sympathy.^[23] Additionally, the daily-life exchange of Easterners and Westerners is not so large as expected.^[30][31] Young people's knowledge of the former East Germany is very low.^[32] Some people in Eastern Germany engage in "Ostalgia", which is a certain nostalgia for the time before the wall came down.^[33]

Today, there are several prominent East Germans shaping the image of Germany at home and abroad, including Kurt Masur, Michael Ballack, Katarina Witt, and Angela Merkel.

Reunified Berlin from an Urban Planning Perspective[link]

While the fall of the Berlin Wall had broad economic, political and social impacts globally, it also had significant consequence for the local urban environment. In fact, the events of 9 November 1989 saw East Berlin and West Berlin, two halves of a single city that had ignored one another for the better part of 40 years, finally "in confrontation with one another".^[34] As expressed by Grésillon^[35] "the fall of the Berlin Wall [marked] the end of 40 years of divided political, economic and cultural histories" and was "accompanied by a strong belief that [the city] was now back on its 'natural' way to become again a major metropolis"^[36] In the context of urban planning, in addition to a wealth of new opportunity and the symbolism of two former independent nations being re-joined, the reunification of Berlin presented numerous challenges. The city underwent massive redevelopment, involving the political, economic and cultural environment of both East and West Berlin. However, the "scar" left by the Wall, which ran directly through the very heart of the city^[37] had consequences for the urban environment that planning still needs to address. Despite planning efforts, significant disparity between East and West remain.

Planning issues facing reunification[link]

The reunification of Berlin presented legal, political and technical challenges for the urban environment. The political division and physical separation of the city for more than 30 years saw the East and the West develop their own distinct urban forms, with many of these differences still visible to this day.^[38] East and West Berlin were directed by two separate political and urban agendas. East Berlin developed a mono-centric structure with lower level density and a functional mix in the city's core, while West Berlin was poly-centric in nature, with a high-density, multi functional city centre.^[39] The two political systems allocated funds differently to post-war reconstruction, based on political priorities,^[40] and this had consequences for the reunification of the city. West Berlin had received considerably more financial assistance for reconstruction and refurbishment.^[41] There was considerable disparity in the general condition of many of the buildings; at the time of reunification, East Berlin still contained many leveled areas, which were previous sites of destroyed buildings from World War II, as well as damaged buildings that had not been repaired.^[42] An immediate challenge facing the reunified city was the need for physical connectivity between the East and the West, specifically the organisation of infrastructure.^[43] In the period following World War II, approximately half of the railway lines were removed in East Berlin.^[44]

Policy for Reunification[link]

As urban planning in Germany is the responsibility of city government ^[45], the integration of East and West Berlin was in part complicated by the fact that the existing planning frameworks became obsolete with the fall of the Wall.^[46] Prior to the reunification of the city, the Land Use Plan of 1988 and General Development Plan of 1980 defined the spatial planning criteria for West and East Berlin, respectively.^[47] Although these existing frameworks were in place before reunification, after the fall of the wall there was a need to develop new instruments in order to facilitate the spatial and economic development of the re-unified city. The first Land Use Plan following reunification was ultimately enacted in 1994.^[48] The urban development policy of reunified Berlin, termed "Critical Reconstruction", aimed to facilitate urban diversity by supporting a mixture of land functions.^[49] This policy directed the urban planning strategy for the reunified city. A "Critical Reconstruction" policy agenda was to redefine Berlin's urban identity through its pre-war and pre-Nazi legacy. Elements of "Critical Reconstruction" were also reflected in the overall strategic planning document for downtown Berlin, entitled "Inner City Planning Framework".^[50] Reunification policy emphasised restoration of the traditional Berlin landscape. To this effect, the policy excluded the "legacy of socialist East Berlin and notably of divided Berlin from the new urban identity".^[51] Ultimately, following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic on 3 October 1990, all planning projects under the socialist regime were abandoned^[52]. Vacant lots, open areas and empty fields in East Berlin were subject to redevelopment, in addition to space previously occupied by the Wall and associated buffering zone.^[53] Many of these sites were positioned in central, strategic locations of the reunified city. The removal of the Wall saw the city's spatial structure reoriented.^[54].

After the Fall of the Wall[link]

Berlin's urban organisation experienced significant upheaval following the physical and metaphorical collapse of the Wall, as the city sought to "re-invent itself as a 'Western' metropolis".^[55]

Redevelopment of vacant lots, open areas and empty fields as well as space previously occupied by the Wall and associated buffering zone^[56] were based on land use priorities as reflected in "Critical Reconstruction" policies. Green space and recreational areas were allocated 38% of freed land; 6% of freed land was dedicated to mass-transit systems to address transport inadequacies.^[57]

Reunification initiatives also included construction of major office and commercial projects, as well as the renovation of housing estates in East Berlin.

Another key priority was reestablishing Berlin as the capital of Germany, and this required buildings to serve government needs, including the "redevelopment of sites for scores of foreign embassies".^[58]

With respect to redefining the city's identify, emphasis was placed on restoring Berlin's traditional landscape. "Critical Reconstruction" policies sort to disassociate the city's identity from its Nazi and socialist legacy, though some remnants were preserved, with walkways and bicycle paths established along the border strip to preserve the memory of the Wall.^[59]In the centre of East Berlin much of the modernist heritage of the East German state was gradually removed^[60]. Reunification saw the removal of politically motivated street names and monuments in the East (Large 2001) in an attempt to reduce the socialist legacy from the face of East Berlin.^[61]

Immediately following the fall of the Wall, Berlin experienced a boom in the construction industry.^[62] Redevelopment initiatives saw Berlin turn into one of the largest construction sites in the world through the 1990s and early 2000s.^[63]

The fall of the Berlin Wall also had economic consequences. Two German systems covering distinctly divergent degrees of economic opportunity suddenly came into intimate contact.^[64] Despite development of sites for commercial purposes, Berlin struggled to compete in economic terms with key West German centres such as Stuttgart and Düsseldorf.^[65][66] The intensive building activity directed by planning policy resulted in the over-expansion of office space, "with a high level of vacancies in spite of the move of most administrations and government agencies from Bonn"^[67][68]

Berlin was marred by disjointed economic restructuring, associated with massive deindustrialisation.^[69][70] Hartwich asserts that while the East undoubtedly improved economically, it was "at a much slower pace than [then Chancellor Helmut] Kohl had predicted"^[71].

Facilitation of economic development through planning measures failed to close the disparity between East and West, not only in terms of the economic opportunity but also housing conditions and transport options.^[72] Tölle states that "the initial euphoria about having become one unified people again was increasingly replaced by a growing sense of difference between Easterners ("Ossis") and Westerners ("Wessis")"^[73] The fall of the Wall also instigated immediate cultural change^[74]. The first consequence was the closure in East Berlin of politically oriented cultural institutions.^[75]

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the factors descibed above led to mass migration from East Berlin and East Germany, producing a large labour supply shock in the West.^[76] Emigration from the East, totaling 870,000 people between 1989 and 1992 alone^[77], led to worse employment outcomes for the least-educated workers, for blue-collar workers, for men and for foreign nationals^[78]

At the close of the century, it became evident that despite significant investment and planning, Berlin was a yet to retake "its seat between the European Global Cities of London and Paris."^[79] Yet ultimately, the disparity between East and West portions of Berlin has led to the city achieving a new urban identity.

A number of locales of East Berlin, characterised by dwellings of in-between use of abandoned space for little to no rent, have become the focal point and foundation of Berlin's burgeoning creative activities.^[80] According to Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, "the best that Berlin has to offer, its unique creativity. Creativity is Berlin's future."^[81] Overall, the Berlin government's engagement in creativity is strongly centered on marketing and promotional initiatives instead of creative production.^[82]

Creativity has been the catalyst for the city's "thriving music scene, active nightlife, and bustling street scene"^[83] all of which have become important attractions for the German capital. The industry is a key component of the city's economic make-up with more than 10% of all Berlin residents employed in cultural sectors.^[84]

See also[link]

• History of Germany since 1945
• Reunification
• Stalin Note – 1952 German reunification proposal
• Transitology
• Goodbye Lenin!

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Charles S. Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton University Press, 1997).
• Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Harvard University Press, 1995 & 1997).

Primary sources[link]

• Jarausch, Konrad H., and Volker Gransow, eds. Uniting Germany: Documents and Debates, 1944–1993 (1994), primary sources in English translation

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: German reunification

• Germany's Eastern Burden: The Price of a Failed Reunification
• Problems with Reunification from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
• The End of East Germany
• German Embassy Publication, Infocus: German Unity Day
• The Unification Treaty (Berlin, 31 August 1990) website of European navigator
• An Inside Look at the Reunification Negotiations

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2008)

Kai Diekmann.

Kai Diekmann (born June 27, 1964 in Ravensburg) is a German journalist. From 1998 until 2000 he was editor of Welt am Sonntag (English: World on Sunday). Since January 2001 he is chief editor of Bild. He is also a member of the executive board of the Turkish daily Hürriyet.^[1]

Life[link]

Diekmann grew up in Bielefeld. After his Abitur (roughly equivalent to high school graduation) and mandatory military service, which he completed on the editorial staff of a military newspaper, he studied at the University of Münster. There he became a member of the Burschenschaft Franconia. He interrupted his studies in 1985 when he began his Volontariat (roughly: traineeship) at the Axel Springer AG through the Axel Springer Journalist School, from which he quickly began a career for the publisher, beginning as a correspondent in Bonn.^[2]

From 1989-1991 he was the chief reporter for the Hubert Burda Media-published illustrated Bunte, a weekly featuring articles on celebrities, gossip, and lifestyle. After a short detour at the Ullstein-Verlag-published tabloid B.Z., in 1992 he transferred to Bild, a daily newspaper whose status as best-selling daily in Germany in large measure depends on sensationalist news stories. In 1992, he became editor of Welt am Sonntag, and in 2001 returned to Bild where he became editor. Since 2004, in addition to being editor, he is also the publisher of Bild as well as Bild am Sonntag. In March 2004, the first volume of the definitive memoirs of former Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl was published, edited by Diekmann.

As editor, Diekmann is responsible for the journalistic quality of the newspaper's work, which in the recent past has been the subject of several negative media reports.^{[citation needed]} Recently, Bild has allegedly been in violation of basic journalistic principles more often than other German media. The claim that the Bild's offenses against the German Press Codex has increased since Diekmann took over is supported by the clear rise in the number of rebukes from the German Presserat (Press Council) during this time.^{[citation needed]}

Diekmann is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke, an organization that aims to further relationships between Germany and especially the United States.^[3]

Lawsuits[link]

Kai Diekmann sued the Berlin daily die tageszeitung, after, on May 8, 2002, the paper's satire page "Die Wahrheit" (The Truth) claimed that he had sought an operation to use parts of corpses to enlarge his allegedly extremely small penis.^[4] Diekmann sued the tageszeitung for 30,000 Euro in damages for illegal violations of his privacy as well as libel and defamation of character.^[5] A Berlin court ruled that there was indeed negligence on the part of the tageszeitung, but denied the monetary compensation demanded by Diekmann saying that, as editor of Bild, he "consciously seeks economic advantage from the violation of others' privacy" and therefore "is less heavily burdened by the violation of his own privacy," and furthermore that he should "assume that those standards that he lays on others are also of importance for himself."^[6] An appeal against the ruling was given no chance of success by the higher court and both sides withdrew their appeals.^[7]

Family[link]

From 1995 until 1997 Diekmann was married to Jonica Jahr, the daughter of Hamburg publisher John Jahr, Jr. On January 28, 2002, he married Bild columnist Katja Kessler, with former Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl serving as his best man. Diekmann and Kessler have four children.

Publications[link]

• Kai Diekmann, Hat die christliche Botschaft keinen Platz mehr in den Medien? Referate und Stellungnahmen bei einer Medientagung zum 25jährigen Jubiläum der Nachrichtenagentur Idea. Wetzlar: Evangelische Nachrichtenagentur, 1995. ISSN 1614-502X
• Helmut Kohl (Kai Diekmann, Ralf G. Reuth, eds.), Ich wollte Deutschlands Einheit. Berlin: Ullstein, 2000. ISBN 3-548-36264-8
• Kai Diekmann, Der große Selbstbetrug: Wie wir um unsere Zukunft gebracht werden. 3rd ed. Munich: Piper, 2007. ISBN 978-3-492-05122-4
• Kai Diekmann, Süper Freunde: Was Türken und Deutsche sich wirklich zu sagen haben. Munich, Piper, 2008. ISBN 978-3-492-05255-9
• Kai Diekmann, "Die Mauer - Fotografien 1961 - 1992." Fackelträger, 2009. ISBN 978-3-7716-4430-7
• Kai Diekmann, "Die längste Nacht, der größte Tag: Deutschland am 9. November 1989." Munich, Piper, 2009. ISBN 978-3-492-05336-5

Awards[link]

• Goldene Feder 2000, 2005
• World Media Award 2002
• Blogger Newcomer of the Year, 2009,^[8]
• Media Man of the Year, 2009,^[9]

See also[link]

Friede sei mit Dir

This article incorporates information from the revision as of September 4, 2007 of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.

References[link]

Axel Springer
Born	(1912-05-02)May 2, 1912 Altona, German Empire
Died	September 22, 1985(1985-09-22) (aged 73) West Berlin, West Germany
Occupation	Business, Publishing
Spouse	Martha Else Meyer (1933-1938) divorced Erna Frieda Berta Holm (1939-)divorced Rosemarie Alsen (1953-1961) divorced Helga Alsen(1962-) divorced Friede Springer (1978-1985)
Children	Barbara (born 1933) Axel Springer jun. (1941-1980) Raimund Nicolaus (born 1962)
Parents	Hinrich Springer

Axel Cäsar Springer (May 2, 1912 – September 22, 1985) was a German journalist and the founder and owner of the Axel Springer AG publishing company.

Early life[link]

Springer was born in Altona near Hamburg, where his father worked as publisher. As a young man, from July 1941, Springer acted as projectionist at the Waterloo cinema, near the Dammtor railway station, which presented American films for the well-to-do youth of Hamburg until Germany's declaration of war against the United States in December 1941.^[1]

Journalist career[link]

Springer's career started as an apprentice compositor and publisher at the publishers Hammerich & Lesser-Verlag, his father's company. After that, he received practical training in the news agency "Wolff's Telegraphisches Bureau" and worked as a local reporter for the newspaper Bergedorfer Zeitung.

Starting in 1934, he worked as a journalist with Altonaer Nachrichten until the compulsory closure of the newspaper in 1941. From 1941 to 1945, he published literary works in Hammerich & Lesser Verlag.

Publisher[link]

He founded his own publishing company Axel Springer GmbH in Hamburg in 1946. He published the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper, preceded by some magazines, including the popular radio and TV programm magazine Hör zu. In 1952, Springer started the publication of the tabloid Bild, becoming the daily newspaper for millions in Germany and an important influence on public opinion.

He went on to launch and acquire a string of papers and magazines characterised by entertainment and conservative politics, Die Welt among others. The Axel Springer AG today is one of the major magazine, newspaper and online media companies in Europe with over 230 newspapers and magazines as well as more than 80 online offerings.

Contention[link]

In the late 1960s, Springer was attacked by the radical-leftist, communist and anarchist student movement for the political opinion pushed forward via Bild and the other Springer media and became a goal of their protest marches and direct actions. Springer was swift to denounce those who questioned the economic miracle of the fifties and sixties. The attempted assassination of Rudi Dutschke has by some been connected to Bild's condemnation of the protesters.^{[citation needed]}

Conservative view[link]

Springer's political views and that of his publications are often characterized as conservative by German standards: Part of the articles of association of Axel Springer AG are the five socio-political preambles that were written by Axel Springer in 1967, amended in 1990 following German reunification and supplemented in 2001, one day after 9/11. They represent a world view that they themselves label as liberal.

1. To uphold liberty and law in Germany, a country belonging to the Western family of nations, and to further the unification of Europe.
2. To promote reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support the vital rights of the State of Israel.
3. To support the Transatlantic Alliance, and solidarity with the United States of America in the common values of free nations.
4. To reject all forms of political extremism.
5. To uphold the principles of a free social market economy.

The corporate constitution defines fundamental sociopolitical convictions but does not offer opinions.^[2]

Springer's Bild newspaper was attacked most famously in 1974's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll.

Death[link]

Springer died in West Berlin in 1985.^[3] His heiress is his fifth (and last) wife Friede Springer (born 1942).

References[link]

Adolf Hitler
Hitler in 1937
Führer of Germany
In office 2 August 1934 – 30 April 1945
Preceded by	Paul von Hindenburg (as President)
Succeeded by	Karl Dönitz (as President)
Chancellor of Germany
In office 30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945
President	Paul von Hindenburg
Deputy	Franz von Papen Position vacant
Preceded by	Kurt von Schleicher
Succeeded by	Joseph Goebbels
Reichsstatthalter of Prussia
In office 30 January 1933 – 30 January 1935
Prime Minister	Franz von Papen Hermann Göring
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Personal details
Born	(1889-04-20)20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
Died	30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 56) Berlin, Germany
Nationality	Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925[1] German citizen after 25 February 1932
Political party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945)
Other political affiliations	German Workers' Party (1920–1921)
Spouse(s)	Eva Braun (29–30 April 1945)
Occupation	Politician, soldier, artist, writer
Religion	See Adolf Hitler's religious views
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire
Service/branch	Reichsheer
Years of service	1914–1918
Rank	Gefreiter
Unit	16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
Battles/wars	World War I
Awards	Iron Cross First Class Iron Cross Second Class Wound Badge

Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.

Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including nearly six million Jews.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned.

Early years[link]

Ancestry[link]

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Alois's birth certificate did not name the father, so the child bore his mother's surname. In 1842 Johann Georg Hiedler married Anna. After she died in 1847 and he in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.^[2] It was not until 1876 that Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest before three witnesses.^[3] While awaiting trial at Nuremberg in 1945, Nazi official Hans Frank suggested the existence of letters claiming that Alois' mother was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois.^[4] However, no Frankenberger, Jewish or otherwise, was registered in Graz during that period.^[5] Historians doubt the claim that Alois' father was Jewish.^[6][7]

At age 39, Alois assumed the surname "Hitler", also spelled as "Hiedler", "Hüttler", or "Huettler". The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Hütte), "shepherd" (Standard German hüten "to guard", English "heed"), or is from the Slavic words Hidlar and Hidlarcek.^[8]

Childhood[link]

Adolf Hitler as an infant (c. 1889–1890)

Hitler's mother, Klara

Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen,^[9] a village annexed in 1938 to the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl (1860–1907). Adolf's older siblings – Gustav, Ida, and Otto – died in infancy.^[10] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.^[11] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech all of his life.^[12][13][14] In 1894 the family relocated to Leonding (near Linz), and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld, near Lambach, where he tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. Adolf attended school in nearby Fischlham. Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.^[15][16]

The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Adolf's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.^[17] Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. Hitler attended a Catholic school in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister, the pulpit of which bore a stylized swastika symbol on the coat of arms of Theodorich von Hagen, a former abbot.^[18] The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even entertained thoughts of becoming a priest.^[19] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.^[20]

Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.^[21] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.^[22][23][24] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 Alois sent Adolf to the Realschule in Linz.^[25] (This was the same high school that Adolf Eichmann would attend some 17 years later.)^[26] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf revealed that he did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream."^[27]

Hitler became obsessed with German nationalism from a young age.^[28] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically-variegated empire.^[29][30] Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.^[31]

After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated. His mother allowed him to quit in autumn 1905.^[32] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904; his behaviour and performance showed some slight and gradual improvement.^[33] In the autumn of 1905, after passing a repeat and the final exam, Hitler left the school without showing any ambitions for further schooling or clear plans for a career.^[34]

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich[link]

From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture,^[35] but he lacked the academic credentials.^[36] On 21 December 1907, his mother died aged 47. After the Academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße.^[37] At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and 19th-century racism.^[38] Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor, Karl Lueger, exploited the rhetoric of virulent antisemitism for political effect. Georg Schönerer's pan-Germanic antisemitism had a strong following and base in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived.^[39] Hitler read local newspapers, such as the Deutsches Volksblatt, that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews.^[40] Hostile to what he saw as Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.^[41]

The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate.^[42] Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna.^[43] His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz.^[44] Kubizek's account has been challenged by historian Brigitte Hamann, who writes that Kubizek is the only person to have said that the young Hitler was an antisemite.^[45] Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler during this period.^[46] Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that if Hitler had made such remarks, they may have gone unnoticed because of the prevailing antisemitism in Vienna at that time.^[47] Several sources provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in Vienna.^[48][49] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany’s defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid 'stab-in-the-back' explanation for the catastrophe".^[50]

Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich.^[51] Historians believe he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army.^[52] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of "races" in its army.^[51] After he was deemed unfit for service—he failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914—he returned to Munich.^[53]

World War I[link]

At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, likely as the result of a clerical oversight—he was still an Austrian citizen.^[54] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),^[55][54] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,^[56] spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.^[57][58] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.^[59]

Hitler with his army comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (c. 1914–1918)

He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.^[59] Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,^[60] a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's rank (Gefreiter). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.^[61] Though his rewarded actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.^[62] He also received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.^[63]

Adolf Hitler as a soldier during the First World War (1914–1918)

During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area^[64] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.^[65] Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.^[66] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.^[67] While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,^[68] and—by his own account—on receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.^[69]