Post Wall, Post Square: Rebuilding the World after 1989

Modrow had made the first official statement from either the FRG or the GDR on how to move forward on relations between the two Germanies. He had beaten Kohl to it and, furthermore, clearly sought to stall the drive towards unification. West German criticism of the chancellor became more strident. The editor of Die Welt asked on 19 November, ‘Are we letting others dictate the blueprint for unity?’[85] And the co-founder of the extreme-right Die Republikaner party Franz Schönhuber saw in Kohl’s silence the chance to raise his party’s profile, putting top of the list in his election programme ‘reunification’ and ‘regaining’ the Eastern territories.[86]

Yet Kohl still held back. On Monday 20 November a worried Teltschik noted in his diary: ‘international as much as domestic discussion over the chances of German unity has fully erupted and can no longer be stopped. We are more and more conscious of this, but the chancellor’s directive remains the same: to exercise restraint in the public discourse. Neither within the coalition, and therefore domestically, nor on the foreign plane, does he want to open himself to attack.’

Teltschik saw this as a decisive moment for Kohl, at home and abroad. Chewing things over with Kohl’s inner circle that evening, with an eye on the ‘election marathon’, they concluded: ‘The high international reputation of the chancellor should be used more in domestic politics, and the German question could serve as a bridge to improve his image.’ The opposition should be confronted ‘head-on’.[87]

With all this still swirling around in Teltschik’s head, next day in the early-morning briefing with Kohl, they took in the implications of Monday’s mass demonstrations across East Germany with the unmissable new slogan ‘Wir sind ein Volk’. ‘The spark has ignited,’ he thought. He was also turning over in his mind a line from Augstein’s column, echoing a famous phrase from Adenauer, ‘der Schlüssel liegt im Kreml’ – the key to unity lies in the Kremlin.[88]

The first big item on his diary that day, 21 November, was a meeting at 10.30 a.m. with Nikolai Portugalov, on the staff of the Central Committee of the CPSU, with whom he had meetings fairly frequently. Although finding Portugalov rather foxy, even slimy, Teltschik respected his intellect and grasp of the German scene and always relished such opportunities to get news directly from Moscow and not via arch rival Genscher’s Foreign Ministry. On this occasion, however, Portugalov’s manner was unusually grave. He said he was conveying a message for the chancellor himself and then handed over a set of handwritten pages about Soviet thinking on the German question.

One paper was entitled ‘Official Position’. This mostly reaffirmed the pledges made by Kohl to Gorbachev about non-interference in GDR affairs, and included references to their 12 June summit. For now, it stressed, there ought to be a modus vivendi between the two German states, and envisaged Modrow’s proposal of a treaty union as the way forward. Otherwise the GDR would find itself existentially threatened. Significantly, the paper also declared bluntly that an all-European peace order was an ‘absolute prerequisite’ for resolving the German question.[89] Such a peace order would, of course, take years to establish but the document showed some signs of movement. It indicated that the idea of German–German rapprochement through a confederation was something the Soviets were already discussing at the Politburo level and were prepared to accept in principle. Indeed it echoed a message received in Bonn from the Moscow embassy that Shevardnadze, in utterances on 17 November, had rejected unilateral changes of the status quo but approved the idea of mutual peaceful changes within ‘an all-European consensus’.[90]

What really grabbed Teltschik’s attention, however, was the document headed ‘Unofficial Position’. This began, rather theatrically: ‘The hour has now come to free both West and East Germany from the relics of the past.’ After a few generalities about the immediate situation, Teltschik was struck by an almost languid proposition: ‘Let’s ask purely theoretically: if the Federal government envisaged pushing the question of “reunification” or “new unification” into practical politics …’ Developing this hypothesis, the paper said it would be necessary among other things to discuss the future alliance membership of both German states and, more specifically, how to extract West Germany from both NATO and the European Community. And, on the other side, what would be the consequences of a future German confederation within the EC? This, pondered the paper, could become the germ of a pan-European integration project, but, then, how could the Soviet Union conduct its trade within East Germany via Brussels and cope with EC import taxes and other regulations? The paper stated bluntly that, ‘in the context of the German question, the Soviet Union was already thinking about all possible alternatives, effectively thinking the “unthinkable”’. The paper ended by saying that Moscow could ‘in the medium term’ give a ‘green light’ to a German confederation, providing it was completely free from foreign nuclear weapons on its soil.[91]

Teltschik was electrified by what he read. This combination of blue-sky thinking and diplomatic flexibility was unprecedented and sensational. How to balance the ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ papers was difficult but they clearly revealed that what Moscow was saying publicly was not necessarily a guide to what it might be willing to do. Rushing out of the meeting with Portugalov, Teltschik managed to have a word with Kohl before the chancellor’s next appointment. Their conversation was only brief but Teltschik had sown the seed in Kohl’s mind that, in view of the signals from Moscow, this was an opportune time to go onto the offensive. Kohl was reinforced in this opinion during the afternoon when his head of Chancellery, Rudolf Seiters, returned from a trip to East Berlin, full of news about the reforms under way and the talk about treaty union. Before he left for his trip to Strasbourg – to square François Mitterrand and the EC – Kohl told Teltschik to have something ready for his return. For the first time the chancellor talked about taking a ‘step by step’ approach on the German question. An overall political strategy was finally beginning to germinate.[92]

While Kohl was away, Teltschik was alarmed to learn, first, that Mitterrand was going to visit East Germany before Christmas and also intended to meet Gorbachev in Kiev on 6 December. Even more disconcerting, Paris had not informed Bonn in advance, before the news appeared on the wire services. What, Teltschik wondered, were the French and Soviets plotting? Yet news from Genscher, visiting Washington, was much more encouraging: the foreign minister had stressed the momentum of ‘unification from below’ and warned against any attempt at interference by the four victor powers. To his delight, at the State Department Baker had simply responded by stating America’s full support for German unity without any caveats. And so, with a green light from Washington, positive signals from Moscow, and endorsement in Strasbourg from Mitterrand and the EC, Teltschik found himself frantically planning a speech for Kohl – what would be a ten-point programme.[93]

In their evening meeting on Thursday 23 November, Kohl agreed with Teltschik that Deutschlandpolitik was the boss’s job (Chefsache) and that it was now time to lead opinion formation both in Germany during an election year and with regard to the Four Powers (i.e. the US, the USSR, France and the UK as Allied victors of the Second World War). Otherwise his government would be faced with a diktat.[94] It was also decided then that Kohl would present his proposals for achieving German unity at the earliest suitable opportunity, which would be five days later, on 28 November, during the Bundestag’s scheduled debate on the budget. So a small team of eight, led by Teltschik, worked around the clock in utmost secrecy to prepare a draft of the speech. On the afternoon of Saturday 25th this was taken by car from Bonn to the chancellor, who was at his home in Oggersheim.[95]

So obsessed was Kohl about possible leaks, or even being talked out of the speech by his coalition partner or his NATO allies, that everybody in the know was sworn to total silence. For the rest of the weekend, he worked over the draft with a handful of trusted friends and his wife Hannelore, scribbling corrections and queries on the draft and periodically calling Teltschik on the phone. Then, on Sunday night, he asked Hannelore to type up an amended version on her portable typewriter.[96]

As he finalised the draft, several key concerns were in Kohl’s mind. In the run-up to the Federal elections, he was keen to position himself as a true German patriot and the chancellor of unity – ahead of the Liberal Genscher who had been promoting his own ‘Europa-Plan’ and who, on the Prague balcony, had stolen the show from Kohl once before. Nor did he want to be overshadowed by the SPD’s great figurehead, the Altkanzler Brandt, who had nearly eclipsed Kohl in Berlin on 10 November and was now presenting unification as the culmination of his own Ostpolitik. It was also for electoral reasons that the chancellor decided to omit any mention of the Oder–Neisse line, even though he personally accepted it as Germany’s eastern border. After all, to remove the final obstacle in the way of his Warsaw trip he had supported the 8 November Bundestag resolution assuring the inviolability of Poland’s post-war borders.[97] But Kohl was cautious not to rub things in further with the expellees. He could not be sure that these traditionally CDU voters might not be seduced by Schönhuber’s Republikaner propaganda for the restoration of Germany’s 1937 borders.

Another of Kohl’s concerns was the language regarding the various stages of German rapprochement and merger on the way to a unified state. Instead of picking up on the Modrow term ‘confederation’, Kohl preferred the phrase ‘confederative structures’ so that nobody in the CDU should have reason to accuse him of setting in stone a Zweistaatlichkeit of two sovereign German states, as was apparently envisaged by Lafontaine, Bahr and other SPD rivals. At the same time, his own, looser phrase was intended to placate the Soviets and East German officials as well as GDR opposition groups, all of whom feared an overt Anschluss on the lines of 1938: the socialist GDR swallowed up by the capitalist FRG. In the long run, of course, Kohl did aspire to a full Bundestaat or ‘federation’, in other words a unified state. But he did not have any clear idea yet what this new Deutschland might look like, though he was sure it should be a Bundestaat, not the Staatenbund or ‘confederation’ that East German political elites imagined. And so, Kohl thought, by talking of eventual ‘unity’ his speech could both reflect and amplify the public mood in East Germany – the still diffuse but increasingly vocal yearning for unity expressed in recent protest slogans such as ‘Deutschland, einig Vaterland’ and ‘Wir sind ein Volk’. Indeed, offering Einheit (‘unity’) as the ultimate destination in his speech, he could present ‘from above’ a vision for East Germans ‘below’ that would make them look west.

There were so many ‘what ifs’ to keep in mind. Kohl could barely grasp all the implications. At this stage, he envisaged that the whole intricate process of rapprochement, closer cooperation and eventual unification would take a decade at least. But he was clear about the basic point. That weekend in Oggersheim, he was psyching himself up for a surprise offensive – to put German unity unequivocally on the international agenda.[98]

The eagle arises: Kohl presents his 10 Points to the Bundestag in Bonn

On Tuesday 28 November at 10 a.m. Helmut Kohl addressed the Bundestag. Instead of droning on, as expected, about the budget, Kohl dropped his bombshell of a ‘ten-point programme for overcoming the division of Germany and Europe’.[99] Kohl first talked about ‘immediate measures’ to deal with the ‘tide of refugees’ and the ‘new scale of tourist traffic’. Second, he promised further cooperation with the GDR in economic, scientific, technological and cultural affairs, and also, third, greatly expanded financial assistance if the GDR ‘definitively’ and ‘irreversibly’ embarked on a fundamental transformation of its political and economic system. To this end, he demanded that the SED give up its monopoly on power and pass a new law for ‘free, equal and secret elections’. Because the East German people clearly wanted economic and political freedom, he said he was unwilling to ‘stabilise conditions that have become untenable’. This was not so much negotiation; more like an ultimatum.

At the core of the speech (points four to eight), the chancellor presented his road map to unity – namely to ‘develop confederative structures between both states in Germany … with the aim of creating a federation’. All this would be done in conformity with the principles of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, as part of a larger pan-European process: ‘The future architecture of Germany must fit in the future architecture of Europe.’ Kohl noted that his plan also accorded with Gorbachev’s idea of a Common European Home, as well as the Soviet leader’s concept of ‘freedom of choice’, in the sense of the ‘people’s right to self-determination’ as set out in the Final Act. In fact, Kohl reminded the Bundestag, he and Gorbachev had already expressed their agreement on these issues in their Joint Declaration of June 1989. But in the dramatically new circumstances of November the chancellor wanted to go further. He argued that the European Community should now reach out to the reform-oriented states of the Eastern bloc, including the GDR. ‘The EC must not end at the Elbe,’ he proclaimed. Opening up to the East would allow for ‘truly comprehensive European unification’. With this he neutralised and effectively absorbed Genscher’s ‘Europa-Plan’.

The central theme of Kohl’s speech was working towards a ‘condition of peace in Europe’ within which Germans could regain their unity. This, he made clear at the end, could not be separated from wider questions of international order. ‘Linking the German question to the development of Europe as a whole and to West–East relations’, he declared, ‘takes into account the interests of everyone involved’ and ‘paves the way for a peaceful and free development in Europe’. Speedy steps would be required towards disarmament and arms control. Here the West German chancellor was appealing directly to the superpowers and to his European allies.

What Kohl did not say is as revealing as what he did say. He omitted the Polish border, and he also made no reference to Germany’s membership of NATO, present or future, or to the Reserved Rights of the Allied powers on German soil. Even on his ultimate goal – German unity – Kohl was circumspect. ‘No one knows today what a reunified Germany will ultimately look like.’ But he kept affirming the German people’s ‘right’ to unity, and he stated emphatically: ‘That unity will come, however, when the people of Germany want it – of this, I am certain.’ The chancellor pointed expansively to the pattern of ‘growing together’ that was part of ‘the continuity of German history’. State organisation in Germany, he added ‘has almost always meant a confederation or a federation. We can certainly draw on these historical experiences.’ Kohl may have been looking back to the Bismarck era (the Norddeutscher Bund of 1867 and the Reich of 1871), but he was surely drawing on his own lifetime – the model of the post-war Federal Republic.[100]

The chancellor was relieved to have delivered the speech and exhilarated by its reception. In the lunch break he told aides that the reaction of MPs had been ‘almost ecstatic’. What about Genscher, Teltschik asked mischievously – aware that the foreign minister had been totally out of the loop. Kohl grinned. ‘Genscher came over to me and said: “Helmut, this was a great speech.”’[101]

For the first time Kohl’s plan started to clarify the relationship between the processes of German unification and European integration as being interwoven but separate. Neither should impede the other and they could take place at different speeds. German unification must be effected within the framework of the EC but the specific evolution and form of future inner German relations was up to the Germans to decide for themselves.

In sum, Kohl had proposed a blueprint for that new relationship between the two Germanies, and one clearly based on Bonn’s terms. Reflecting ‘the greater political self-assurance’ of the Federal Republic – ‘already widely recognised as a weighty economic power’, as Vernon Walters, the US ambassador to the FRG, put it – Kohl had presented the world with a fait accompli and set the agenda.[102] And as East Germany unravelled, far more rapidly than anybody had expected, other leaders now had to respond to what the chancellor had put on the table. Coming from a man who had been in essentially reactive mode for the previous three weeks, it was an extremely skilful demonstration of political leadership.

*

What’s striking in retrospect is the lack of public attention devoted to Kohl’s speech internationally. This was, however, hardly surprising at the time given the drama that was beginning to unfold across Czechoslovakia. On the day Kohl addressed the Bundestag, the front page of the New York Times ran as its main headline ‘Millions of Czechoslovaks Increase Pressure on Party With 2-Hour General Strike’. A foretaste of Kohl’s speech was buried on page 14 stating that he would ‘call for a form of confederation’, mainly to dispel criticism that his reaction to the ‘tumultuous changes taking place in East Germany’ had been ‘passive and grounded in West German party politics’.[103] On Wednesday 29 November, Czechoslovakia was again the main news with a banner headline across the paper’s front page ‘Prague Party to Yield Some Cabinet Posts and Drop Insistence on Primacy in Society’. Kohl and his ‘confederation outline’ got a small box lower down the page.[104] Thereafter Germany disappeared from the Times’s front page for the rest of week, with Prague continuing to dominate the news, together with the weekend’s Soviet–American summit in Malta. Even in the Federal Republic, the story was seen as an essentially domestic issue. In any case from Thursday, all other news was eclipsed by the latest act of Baader–Meinhof terrorism, the shock killing of Kohl intimate, Alfred Herrhausen.[105]

Despite the lack of immediate public reaction, however, the ‘Ten Point’ plan was a ticking time bomb. Whatever Kohl might have hoped, his speech naturally opened him up to comment, mostly critical, from all the major powers. Because in his vision, as Ambassador Walters put it, ‘the German states, virtually alone, would plan their future’.[106] Now that the chancellor had gone out on a limb, he had to gear up for another round of international diplomacy to rebuff the criticism, and secure, if not acceptance, at least tolerance for his blueprint for German self-determination. This round would go on until the middle of December.

The first and most important person to be kept happy was Bush. The chancellor had sent the president a pre-emptive letter on the morning of his speech – the only advance warning he sent out. Kohl couched it as a steer on how the US president should handle Gorbachev at Malta but his lengthy missive offered a wide-ranging analysis of the revolutionary processes in Europe, the situation in the Soviet Union and the imperatives for arms reduction, both strategic and conventional. This was all a prelude to what was really on his mind, namely how Bush should discuss the German question at Malta. Kohl made a point of linking Gorbachev’s ‘freedom-of-choice policy’ in 1989 with America’s grand design in 1776 for ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. He stressed that the current bid for emancipation was coming from the people themselves – Poles, Hungarians, Czechs as well as East Germans – and that this was no simple turn to the West but a historically significant movement for reform emanating from within each nation and its distinctive culture. With this statement he sought a neat way out of any Western ‘victory’ rhetoric while at the same time giving weight to the core theme of his letter, ‘self-determination’: so crucial for his approach to resolving the German question. Only then did the chancellor discuss unification – the longest element in his message – setting out his Ten Points. With an eye on the upcoming summit, Kohl explicitly asked Bush for his support, insisting that the superpowers must not simply sort out Germany over his head, like Roosevelt and Stalin in 1945. There should not, he told Bush, be ‘any parallel between Yalta and Malta’.[107]

Interestingly Egon Krenz also wrote to Bush about Kohl’s speech – a striking sign of the times in that he clearly realised that Moscow’s support would no longer be sufficient to ensure the GDR’s survival. Krenz warned of ‘nationalism’ and ‘a revival of Nazi ideas’ – clearly pointing the finger at Bonn – and asked the president to support the status quo, in other words the two German states as members of ‘different alliances’. Krenz never got a reply. Bush knew he was a nobody whose days in office were numbered.[108]

But the president picked up the phone next morning to talk to Kohl. The White House had immediately grasped the implications of the Ten-Point Plan, seeing it as a strategic move in international politics rather than a mere tactical game on the domestic plane. Scowcroft was concerned about Kohl’s bold, unilateral step but Bush, though surprised, was not particularly worried. He knew that the chancellor could not pursue unification on his own and doubted that Kohl would want to alienate his closest ally. ‘I was certain he would consult us before going further,’ Bush reflected later. ‘He needed us.’[109]

On 29 November president and chancellor talked for thirty minutes. First, they discussed arrangements for a meeting as ‘personal friends’ straight after Malta, from which it was agreed to exclude Genscher. Kohl would bring only his unification mastermind Teltschik – a decision that once more underlined the institutional and personal rivalry between the Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry. Then Kohl explained in more detail how he hoped to proceed towards unification. Despite the display of solidarity at Strasbourg a week before, the chancellor remained concerned about the extent of Mitterrand’s support. He also made clear his reliance on the United States. ‘History left us with good cards in our hands,’ he told Bush. ‘I hope with the cooperation of our American friends we can play them well.’ The president, as usual, did not waste words. ‘I am very supportive of your general approach. I note your stress on stability. We feel the same way. Stability is the key word. We have tried to do nothing that would force a reaction by the USSR.’ Bush went on to amplify this latter point. He recognised that the Soviet economy was doing much worse than he had previously realised, yet Shevardnadze had stated proudly that the Soviets did not want America to ‘bail us out’. So help would have to be offered ‘in a sensitive way’. But Bush and Kohl agreed that Western aid would be needed because ‘we want him to succeed’. The chancellor was gratified by the conversation, thanking Bush for his ‘good words’ – ‘Germans East and West are listening very carefully. Every word of sympathy for self-determination and unity is very important now.’[110]

Commenting on the phone call to the press straight afterwards, Bush said: ‘I feel comfortable. I think we’re on track.’ Having been mocked when vice president for his reluctance to indulge in what he had called the ‘vision thing’, he was asked about how he saw Europe’s future over the next five or ten years.[111] The president was now sufficiently relaxed to joke: ‘In terms of the “vision thing”, the aspirations, I spelled it out in little-noted speeches last spring and summer, which I would like everyone to go back and reread. And I’ll have a quiz on it.’ When the laughter died down, Bush continued, ‘You’ll see in there some of the “vision thing” – a Europe whole and free.’ And, he added, ‘I think a Europe whole and free is less vision than perhaps reality.’ But the president had to admit: ‘How we get there and what that means and when the German question is resolved and all of these things – I can’t answer more definitely.’[112]