NATIONAL REUNIFICATION

National Reunification

National Reunification

1. How was the United States affected by the changes in Eastern Europe that led to the reunification of Germany?

The American poet Robert Frost captured a basic aspect of human nature when he wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The uneasy coexistence of Communist East Germany and liberal and capitalist West Germany reached a confrontation point 16 years after the end of World War II, with the building of a “fence”—the Berlin Wall. In August 1961 the Wall, erected by the East German government under Soviet direction, bifurcated the former German capital and served its intended purpose of keeping East Germans confined behind it.

The United States was not much affected by the changes in Eastern Europe that led to the reunification of Germany because USA had better relations with most of the Eastern European nations. But there were certain factors which may have effected United States politics in the region. It is difficult to point to a single factor or, for that matter, to a combination of factors that were to lead to the reunification. Possibly the armaments race, with its emphasis on high technology, proved too costly to the Soviet Union, causing its economy to become overburdened. Perhaps the changing direction of the Soviet Union through Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika policies produced totally unexpected side effects. However that may be, in early 1989 Gorbachev made the rounds in Eastern Europe, telling its Communist rulers that they would be on their own. In other words, the era of the Brezhnev Doctrine was over. The factor of relative deprivation may also have played a role. (Timothy 2003)

The crumbling cover-up of Communist unity within the Soviet bloc was nowhere more evident than in East Germany. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the German Federal Republic (West Germany), divided by the victorious Allies following World War II, continued to develop after 1968 as two separate countries with different social, economic, and political institutions. On the surface, the differences seemed insurmountable. The erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 cutting the city in two stood as a continual reminder of the ideological divide between East and West.

Germans represent the largest nationality in Europe west of Russia. Other Europeans feared the prospect of a united Germany, although publicly European leaders endorsed the principle of the self-determination of peoples. In addition, western Europeans were troubled by the impact a united Germany ...