German Unification: Expectations and Outcomes

198 Pages·2011·2.33 MB·English

by  Peter C. Caldwell, Robert R. Shandley (eds.)

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German Unification: Expectations and Outcomes
edited by Peter C. Caldwell and Robert R. Shandley
German Unification
Expectations and Outcomes
Edited by
Peter C. Caldwell
and
Robert R. Shandley
GERMAN UNIFICATION
Copyright © Peter C. Caldwell and Robert R. Shandley, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-12075-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
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ISBN 978-1-349-29884-6 ISBN 978-0-230-33795-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230337954
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
German unification : expectations and outcomes / edited by
Peter C. Caldwell and Robert R. Shandley.
p. cm.—(Studies in European culture and history)
1. Germany—History—Unification, 1990. 2. Germany—Politics and
government—1990– 3. Germany—Economic conditions—1990–
4. Germany—Social conditions—1990– I. Caldwell, Peter C.
II. Shandley, Robert R.
DD290.25.G469 2011
943.087(cid:2)8—dc23 2011026987
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: October 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
James A. Baker, III, 61st Secretary of State
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
Introduction 1
Peter C. Caldwell
One German Unification, Western Order, and the Post–Cold
War Restructuring of the International System 15
G. John Ikenberry
Two Between Euroland and Abendland? Opportunities and
Challenges for German Foreign Policy since Unification 41
Mary N. Hampton
Three Rethinking Reunification: German Monetary
Union and European Integration 61
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Four The Quest for Freedom and Stability: Political
Choices and the Economic Transformation of
East Germany 1989–1991 99
Wolfgang Seibel
Five A Splendid Failure: Reflections on Two
Decades of East German Economic Reconstruction 121
Irwin L. Collier
Six Political Institutions and German Unification 137
Ulrich K. Preuss
Seven German Unification and the Federal Constitutional
Court: A Retrospective View after Twenty Years 153
Peter E. Quint
vi / contents
Epilogue The End of Dictatorship and Its Aftermath:
Personal Reflections of the Federal Commissioner
for the Records of the State Security Agency of the
German Democratic Republic 173
Marianne Birthler
Index 183
Preface
James A. Baker, III, 61st Secretary of State
On November 9, 1989, I was hosting a lunch in honor of Philippine presi-
dent Corazon Aquino when an aide handed me a note saying that the East
German government had announced that it was opening its borders to the
West. Like hundreds of millions of others around the world, I would later
watch East and West Berliners taking sledge hammers to a wall that had
divided their city since 1961.
It had been a tumultuous summer and fall across Central and Eastern
Europe. The Soviet Empire created in the wake of World War II was
clearly crumbling. East Germany itself had been the scene of ever larger
public demonstrations. Still, I was astonished by the speed and scope
of change that swept the former Soviet Bloc following the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Germany would be reunified within a year. The Warsaw
Pact would be formally disbanded in July 1991. The Soviet Union itself
would cease to exist in December of the same year. The Cold War that
had shaped German, European, and, indeed, world history for nearly
fifty years was over.
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the James A. Baker III
Institute for Public Policy and Rice University’s History Department
cohosted a conference to celebrate the anniversary. I participated on the
first day of the event, which featured policymakers who had been deeply
involved in the diplomacy surrounding German reunification. I was
joined by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former foreign minister of the Federal
Republic of Germany; Roland Dumas, former foreign minister of France;
Markus Meckel, former foreign minister of the German Democratic
Republic; and Charles Powell, former private secretary to British prime
minister Margaret Thatcher. Eduard Shevardnadze, former foreign min-
ister of the Soviet Union, took part in our discussion by satellite from
Tbilisi, Georgia.
The second day of the conference shifted the focus in a more schol-
arly direction. Political scientists, economists, and historians discussed a
viii / preface
wide range of issues related to the complex interplay of international and
domestic forces that drove German reunification. Marianne Birthler, once
a leading East German human rights activist and now commissioner for
the archives of the East German secret police, played a key role in leading
the day’s discussion.
This volume represents the work of the first-rate scholars, German and
American alike, who participated in the conference. Chapters address the
diplomatic, political, and economic issues associated with reunification.
This book may not represent the last word on any of these topics; we may
be confident that they will be the subject of scholarly interest for decades
to come. But I do believe that this book makes an important contribution
to the study of one of the most significant events of the twentieth century.
I am proud that the Baker Institute is associated with it.
Let me conclude with a personal observation. There are many who
deserve credit for the peaceful reunification of Germany: the Soviet
Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, who was wise enough to forgo the use of
force; West Germany’s Helmut Kohl, who was single minded in his
pursuit of reunification; and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the
United Kingdom, President Francois Mitterrand of France, and particu-
larly President George H. W. Bush of the United States, who put the full
power and prestige of America behind a process that would ease the path
to a single Germany firmly anchored in Europe and the West. I myself
take what I hope is pardonable pride in the modest part I played, as do the
other foreign ministers involved, including Eduard Shevardnadze of the
Soviet Union, Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany, Douglas Hurd
of the United Kingdom, Roland Dumas of France, and Markus Meckel of
East Germany. But the true heroes of reunification were the people of East
Germany. They kept the faith during long years of oppression. And, when
a moment of historic opportunity arose, they were determined and brave
enough to seize it.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the James A. Baker, III Institute for Public
Policy at Rice University for its generous support for the conference on
October 21, 2009, where the first versions of the chapters in this volume
were presented.