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My images were of the Gethsamane Church, where on
October 7th there was a huge demonstration and thousands
of people were arrested and taken to, held overnight in
various camps. Then we had gone through Alexanderplatz
where the demonstrations had moved from Alexanderplatz
to the Lustgarten and sat down in front of the
Stadtratsvorsitzenden, the Council of Ministers meeting,
and prevented the crowd from going towards the Brandenburg
Gate where the police and the border police were there
waiting for this confrontation. So there began to
be many things: the demonstration on November 4th, it
was a huge demonstration; on October 7th, backwards,
the visit by Gorbachev was seen as the order for
glasnost and perestroika to happen. Honecker had to go.
Modrow had to come. And it was unleashing the fight
between Gorbachev and the Ligachevs of the world who
were fighting his policies. So there were many, many
incidents – little ones, big ones that left this as a
very uncertain time, what would happen. They were still
armed very heavily on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
We didn’t know, we were very uncertain about what would
happen, so when the Wall came down on November 9th,
we sighed a sigh of relief. And it was a chance to
step back and to see where we might go. Then
things began to change in a different way. Roundtables
were established. The pace of the revolution was
breathtaking but there was an order to it. The roundtables
took over cities and villages and they made decisions
and they governed. The garbage was still picked up.
And the demonstrations still continued. And then we
could see the shift of the debate. From the revolution
– and there were three things that were important.
One, was the revolution itself, October 7th in Leipzig,
I am sorry, October 9th in Leipzig to November 9th in
Berlin – the active revolution when people went to the
streets and brought down the government. The second was
March 18th; March 18th, after Secretary Baker came to
visit us on December 12th and 13th in 1989. He met with
Mr. Modrow and with the church and in those meetings,
there were two subjects. The Communists were talking about
implementing perestroika and joint ventures would be
offered for 49% ownership. Mr Baker had given his famous
speech of the four conditions for German unification
which he told them. But Modrow said, “We are not talking
about unification of Germany.” He then met with Manfred
Stolpe and a couple of church leaders at the Lutheran
church in Nikolaikirche and told them essentially the
same thing: “I have given this speech in Berlin in West
Berlin. We have these four points on unification. I
hope you continue to be peacefully demonstrating. We
don’t want any escalation.” And the answer was: “We are
fighting for the renewal of the GDR. We are not talking
about unification.” This is in December. But throughout
December things began to change and by January, Mr.
Modrow, who by then was Prime Minister, decided that he
would re-create the Stasi in form of the Office for National
Security. He undercut all of his credibility. The
election that he was planning to have in May was moved to
March and the Communists knew that they would lose.
March 18th is the democratic act of the election of the
Volkskammer that was given a mandate for unification.
The Two Plus Four Agreement discussions began in February.
They began then in parallel to then switch from the
revolution to the negotiations. So when the negotiations came
to East Berlin, the Embassy was very much
involved in June of 1990 at the Schloss
Niederschonhausen; we obviously contributed to
them. But if you want an image, you have Mr. Kohl, a
very big man, standing next to Mr. de Maizière,
a very small man, and there was relative power
distribution in the Two Plus Four negotiations.
But the third act – I mentioned the fall of
the Berlin Wall, the revolution on October
9thand November 9th, the election on March 18th
– the third act was an act for the East
Germans to make, and that was to accede to the
constitution under Article 23. During the
election, and in fact I think it was the Bundnis 90
had a wonderful campaign poster; and the campaign
poster was “Kein Anschluss unter diese Nummer”
- Article 23. That’s the telephone answering call when you don’t
have a connection. “Kein Anschluss unter diese Nummer” with the
emphasis of course on Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Hitler
in 1938. So it was a fascinating campaign but the decision was
taken. Now I must admit that Chancellor Kohl had two options
that he could do for unification in the Two Plus Four talks. They
could have done Article 146 at the time, which would be writing a
new constitution; or they could, or the West Germans would encourage
the East Germans to accede to the constitution under Article 23.
As you could hear from this discussion, the events were going
very, very quickly and they were not to be stopped. People were
still escaping. The Soviet Union was falling apart. The decision was
to support the idea of unification under Article 23. And then
the terms of the Two Plus Four negotiation – very well negotiated,
very solidly supported by the United States; and eventually with
winning over the support of President Mitterand and Maggie Thatcher.