The reunification process
Contrary to the expectations of the new Prime Minister H. Modrow, who hoped to negotiate an agreed unification with the Federal Republic to safeguard the specificity of the GDR, Bonn, through Chancellor H. Kohl, left no doubt that any aid to the Germany Orientale was subordinated to the prospect of his rapid absorption into the state structures of the FRG.
The opening of the Berlin ‘wall’ and the start of free movement between the two Germany (9 November 1989) had rapidly transformed the peaceful November revolution into a pure and simple request for the adoption of the Western model. The elections of March 1990 for the new Volkskammer (the Parliament of the GDR) saw the victory of the conservative parties, which more decisively aimed at the annexation of the eastern Germany by the RFG. The GDR, with the agreement for monetary and economic unification (1 July 1990), effectively sacrificed its sovereignty to that of the Federal Republic, which imposed the immediate transition from the nationalized economy to the market economy, opening a unprecedented crisis in the social fabric of the eastern regions. July 1, 1990 was the decisive stage in the process of absorption of the GDR, formalized with the political union of the following October 3. A fundamental assumption of the latter had been the definition with the powers, and in particular with the Soviet Union, of the new international statute of Germany, in fact replacing a peace treaty that after the Second World War had never been concluded. In this context,
The united Germany
Kohl and the construction of the new national entity The most important political act that accompanied the formal completion of the unification was the Pant-German elections of December 1990. The decline in electoral participation indicated the existence of reservations in the population of both parts of the country: in the West the fear of compromising with the costs of unification the well-being achieved, in the East the distrust of a rapid recovery of the economy and the fear of remaining second-class citizens for a long time. The CDU-CSU retained the relative majority; the SPD suffered a new defeat, which confirmed in particular the poor consensus enjoyed in the eastern part. The developments of the united Germany were marked by the difficulty of truly unifying the two parts of the Germany, with the absorption of the former GDR into the legal, political and social order of the Federal Republic, aggravated by the economic imbalance, by the persistence of different political cultures, by the disappointment of many expectations. The purge of the public administration and the lack of an Eastern ruling class contributed to accentuate the problems of unification.
In the early 1990s, the coalition government between CDU, CSU and FDP, led by Kohl, privileged internal problems, partially limiting Germany’s action on the international scene. Only after a heated political debate, the Bundestag authorized participation in the naval blockade against Serbia and Montenegro (1992), the sending of airplanes to Bosnia and joining the UN mission in Somalia (1993). On the European level, the Community commitment, sanctioned in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, materialized in the construction of the European Monetary Union: despite the fear of the disappearance of the mark, a symbol of fifty years of prosperity and freedom, it united in a critical attitude towards Kohl different classes and political groups, Germany joined the ‘euro in 1998.
In internal politics, measures were taken to contain the social tensions exacerbated by unification: ban on neo-Nazi organizations, limits on the granting of the right of asylum and increased penalties for acts of racism. Despite the difficulties, the CDU and its leader Kohl maintained a solid basis of consensus: in 1994 the presidency of the Republic, R. von Weizsäcker (CDU), in office since 1984, was succeeded by R. Herzog, also from the CDU, while the elections reaffirmed the primacy of the CDU / CSU and FDP coalition. The last British, French and US military contingents left Berlin, destined to become the capital in 1999. But unemployment had exploded, especially in the East, with dramatic growth rates; nor did the policy of rigor to face the deficit produced by the transfer of resources from the West produce the desired results. Kohl’s long government gradually weakened, despite the successes achieved internationally and the ability to absorb the most dangerous socio-political effects of unification.