Reunification began in Gdansk
I recall a scene many years ago. The train from Paris to Warsaw arrives at Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof in Berlin. GDR border soldiers are waiting on the platform with dogs, you can hear the steps of guards walking on the roof of your carriage and there are a large number of other armed officials in the station observing the inspection of the train. Inside the carriages, checks are carried out on the luggage of people travelling to Warsaw. Prohibited goods, including western periodicals, are confiscated. That applies not only to Der Spiegel, but also to Le Point. Anyone who experienced this could have no illusions about what kind of country the GDR was. After all, you could read Der Spiegel in Warsaw free of charge in the reading rooms for the foreign press, and institutions of that kind even existed in Moscow. This was also one of the reasons that the German workers’ and peasants’ state, one of Poland’s allies, was the subject of considerable ridicule: the GDR was a little country cut off from the rest of the world.
There was great jubilation in Poland about the fall of the Berlin Wall and it came from the heart. The prime minister of the time was Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who came from the ranks of Solidarnosc. The Solidarnosc opposition leaders had declared very early on that they had nothing against the reunification of Germany, since the GDR cut off Poland from the west, to which Poland always felt it belonged. The collapse of the GDR was viewed as a favourable opportunity to release Poland from the domination of the Soviet Union.
A piece of the wall from Gdansk Shipyard has now stood in front of the Reichstag building for a year. Legend has it that this is exactly the piece of wall that Lech Walesa jumped over to organize the historic strike. Without that jump, the Berlin Wall would certainly have remained in place beyond 1989. However, it is Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, the chancellor of reunification, who are celebrated today for their contributions to the unity of Germany and Europe. Several years ago, a plaque was hung at the Reichstag building thanking Hungarians for cutting through the barbed wire on the border to Austria in spring 1989, thereby triggering the wave of refugees from the GDR. The Germans only remembered Walesa again not so very long ago. Should we expect greater sensitivity or even gratitude from the Germans? Perhaps only in the area of political symbolism. When it comes to real policy, Germany did a lot for Poland when it supported Warsaw in its efforts to achieve Poland’s accession to the European Union.
After reunification it was the eastern Germans especially who had reservations about the Poles. In turn, the Poles, anti-communists by nature, cannot understand the popularity of the post-communists and the Left party in Germany. On the other hand, people are amazed about the autobahns in eastern Germany and the splendid stations. These are gifts from the “old” Federal Republic for which the Poles really envy the former GDR citizens. Meanwhile, however, Poles are receiving similar gifts from the EU – also thanks to reunified Germany.
Piotr Jendrosczyk has reported from Berlin for the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita for the last four years as its Germany correspondent. Rzeczpospolita is one of the largest national daily newspapers in Poland.
Europe must grow into a “European federal state”
Germany has changed. When the world congratulated Germany on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in November 2009, many drew attention to the great role that Germany is playing in deepening European integration. At the official celebration in front of the Brandenburg Gate, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “We are brothers, we are Berliners” and was greeted with tumultuous applause. The mood has cooled. Because of the chaos on financial markets, people now have fears about the future of the monetary union, which has also fallen into a state of crisis as a model for a future Asian monetary community.
There is now only one solution: as much effort as was put into overcoming east-west inequality must now be applied in relation to southeastern Europe. The 750-billion-euro rescue package combined with consolidation measures was the right decision. Measures to overcome the euro crisis have been agreed – the question is now how they will be implemented. The German population must overcome its antipathy to the feeling that it is the “paymaster”. It is difficult for a country like Germany that is administered in a strongly decentralized way to increasingly hand over powers to Brussels. The government has frequently declared its strong willingness to be an engine of European integration – although its advance also requires the acceptance of the population. In Germany’s recent history there have been turning points in the “people’s mood” every ten years: following the division of Germany, a kind of “mourning” prevailed during the 1950s, which West Germany was able to overcome in the 1960s with its “economic miracle”. Reunification gave Germany a strong boost during the 1990s – and after monetary union a feeling of angst has once again spread since 1999. People must now accept this feeling of apprehension and show tolerance in order to further advance European integration.
If Germany does not contribute to this, it will disappoint its neighbouring countries – equally, it should also not express its views too strongly. Without German approval and without European solidarity it will not be possible to regulate the unpredictable financial markets and European integration will not be able to progress. Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said, “If the euro fails, then Europe will fail.” Just as Germany evolved from a multitude of small states into a federal republic, the task now for Europe is to develop into a European federal state.
Shogo Akagawa is chief correspondent of the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei; he analyzes German and European economic and financial policy.
There is a lot of admiration for the reunification process
In France 3 October 1990 is a largely unknown date. French colleagues are often amazed that 3 October is a public holiday in Germany and do not know about its significance. You can assume that the 20th anniversary of German reunification in October 2010 will go practically unnoticed in my country.
On the other hand, almost everyone in France knows 9 November 1989. Everyone can remember the jubilant crowds of East Germans who streamed into West Berlin. The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall was also acknowledged correspondingly in France last autumn: special supplements appeared in all the newspapers, there were extensive radio and television reports and even a celebration at the Place de la Concorde in Paris with a transmission of the festivities in Berlin. Nothing appeared too extravagant to celebrate the end of the Cold War and divided Germany. It was as if the French wanted to gain a new perspective on the events – or still had unfinished business.
French politicians were probably compensating in a way for the scepticism that prevailed in France during the first weeks and months after the fall of the Wall. Although the French president of the time, François Mitterrand, raised no objections to German reunification in public, it is now known that behind the scenes his enthusiasm was limited. The French president’s journey to the GDR in December 1989 also appeared strangely anachronistic. Old French fears about the return of a large, too powerful Germany were revived. I can still remember the covers of many French newspapers featuring a threatening German eagle. In the end, however, Paris accepted the perspective of reunification.
People now admire how the former GDR was integrated into the Federal Republic. You often hear politicians say that such an effort would not have been possible in France. People tend to forget or play down the remaining difficulties of the eastern German Länder. Since Germany is reunified and Berlin is once again the capital, the country’s image in France has changed. The association of Germany with the Second World War is slowly fading, while the new German cinema is becoming well-known and some artists and directors are celebrated more in Paris than at home. People took a sympathetic view of Germans’ joyful expression of patriotism during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. German journalists who asked me for my opinion seemed relieved when I welcomed it.
At the same time, Germany’s behaviour during the euro crisis repeatedly gave rise to heated reactions in France. The fact that Germany no longer accepts paying without argument, as it used to, is viewed with scepticism by its French partner. Some commentators accuse Berlin of no longer being interested in Europe – and only because it has a different opinion on the stability pact. This tension will not contribute to France celebrating the 20th anniversary of reunification with the same degree of enthusiasm as it did the anniversary of the fall of the Wall in 2009.
Cécile Calla has lived in Berlin since 2003. She was correspondent of the French daily newspaper Le Monde from 2006 until March 2010. Today she reports for various French dailies and magazines as a free-lance author. In 2009 she published a book, Tour de Franz, about her experiences in Germany.
