The Cold War and the German Unification:
A Twenty Year Retrospect
Ricardo K. S. Mak
Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist
University

 The decline of the old world order
 The expansion of the USA and of the USSR
 The two superpowers and the two camps

 A superpower must be able to conduct a global strategy including the possibility of destroying the world; to command vast economic potential and influence; and to present a universal ideology http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/
ChinaLinks-New/coldwar.html

 Deterrence and compellence
 Armament race
 Military interventions
 Ideological warfare
 Financial aid
 Alliance

 USA, “ The government realized that economic prosperity had been produced by the war, and that the only way to keep it going was by restoration of the Open Door Policy and a world safe for capitalism.
”
 The USSR, export of the “ continuous revolution ”

World map in 1982

 Subordination of national interests to superpowers: sovereignty, independence, security, geopolitics, domestic needs., etc.
 Exceptions: China, Yugoslavia, Austria,
Switzerland, etc.

 The "German question" refers to the division of
Germany and the ways to unify or reunify Germany.
 “ It existed for 184 years, the German Question. It arose on August 6, 1806 when Franz II, the last
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation, bowed down to an ultimatum from Napoleon, laid down his crown, relieved the Estates of their duties and thereby dissolved the “ Old Empire ” . The
German Question was resolved on October 3, 1990, with the approval of the four former occupying powers, when the German Democratic Republic acceded to the
Federal Republic of Germany.
” ( http://www.tatsachen-ueberdeutschland.de/en/history/main-content-03/farewell-to-the-german-question.html
)

 “ The German Question has therefore been almost entirely concerned with its national identity within a European context … In this context, the national drive for German unification became possible not only because of the domestic situation but largely because it could be built upon the premise of unfettered European integration.
” (Bill
Cash, a British Conservative MP)

’
 1946-49: Containing Germany
 1949-89: Containing the USSR, through integrating Germany into Western Europe
 Since 1989: Requiring Germany to help maintain Western diplomatic and military presence in troubled regions, achieve a stable European economy, and combat terrorism in the post-911 era

 Nationalist conflicts
 Regionalism and globalization
 The eclipse of superpowers
 Multi-polar world

Is the New Germany, an Embedded
European Power, Satisfied with its New Role?
 The biggest population (over 80 million) compared with Italy, France and the UK
 The biggest exporter of the world
 EU countries absorbed 70% of the German export
 The greatest contributor to the EU, 1/3 more than
France.
 Germany possesses all of the four components of economic dominance: control over raw materials, control over markets, control over sources of capital, and a competitive advantage
 How about military strengths?

The USA and the USSR ’ s Growing Participation in European Affair: A Prelude of the Cold war in Europe
 From neutrality to growing participation
 Franklin Roosevelt ’ s position
 The Pearl Harbour
Incident 7 th
December, 1941

’
th
 In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms … The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world; the second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world; the third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world; the fourth is freedom from fear - which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.

 The Nazi-Soviet Pact on 28 th August 1939
 The invasion of Poland and Finland
 Operation Barbarossa,
15 th May 1941

 The USSR: the Master of the East
 The American Supremacy: from 1939 to 1945 population increased from
131 to 140 million, GNP from US$90 billion to US$211billion
 Conferences of Teheran and of Yalta

“
”
 President Truman ’ s anti-communism
 The argument over reparation
 The formation of the Bizonia in Feb.,
1947
 The Iran Incident
 The Greek Civil
War

’
th
 At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedom. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

Occupied Germany and Austria 1945-1948

 It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.

 The Soviet Union excluded from the
European Recovery Plan
 Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Rumania ’ s withdrawal
 The formation of the Cominform
 Purging democratic elements in
Eastern European nations

 France joint the
Bizonia in early
1948
 A by-product of the
Stalin-Tito confrontation
 The Blockade

 The Brussels Pact in March 1948
 The Vandenberg Resolution June
1948
 The Formation of NATO on 4 th April,
1949

 “ Shield and Sword ” : European conventional force plus USA Strategic Air Command (SAC)
 The birth of the PRC and the Korean War
 The first Soviet atomic bomb test on Aug.
29, 1949, at Semipalatinsk Test Site, in
Kazakhstan.
 Eisenhower became Supreme Allied command Europe
 The Warsaw pact 1955
 New strategy of “ massive retaliation ”
 The end of the plan of “ rolling back communism ”

 In a bipolar world: a state faces threat from either the USA or the
USSR and needs to seek help from either one. Conflicts among lesser states are to be regulated by the superpowers.

 Why was it a exclusive question in the West?
 The transplantation of the Soviet Model in East
Germany: centralized bureaucracy, planned economy and personal cult of Walter Ulbricht
 But West Germany which adopted parliamentary democracy and market economy would eventually regain full sovereignty. How to watch over this government with great industrial and military potential was an issue to be concerned.
 At the same time, West Germany could be a major bulwark against a possible Soviet invasion.
 Western integration as a solution: West Germany ’ s admission into ECSC in 1951, the NATO in May 1955.

’
 Konrad
Adenauer ’ s
Chancellorship
 (http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/mar cuse/classes/133c/133CwImages/PortAde nauer.jpg)

’
 Hallstein Doctrine: A basic foreign policy principle of the Government of the Federal
Republic of Germany from 1955 to 1969.
According to this doctrine, the Federal Republic asserts the exclusive right to represent the entire German nation. It will not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with states that recognize the German Democratic Republic
(DDR). The doctrine is applied for the first time against Yugoslavia (1957), followed by Cuba
(1963) and Arab countries (1965).

 The Hungarian Crisis in 1956: the help from the West was not on the way
 The routinization of the communist rule in East
Germany
 The “ Sputnik ” shock and the NATO ’ s new tactic of “ massive retaliation ”
 The conclusion of the Franco-German
Friendship Treaty 20 th June 1963

 Khrushchev, “ Berlin is the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on
Berlin.'
 But it was not only the problem of the
West, as 184,198 East German fled to the West in 1954.
 A series of events 1957-1960.
 The Berlin Wall

Photo: Germans running away from East Germany to West Germany through a house which was built on the common border

 Europe sidelined
 Tyranny in the West
 … but socialism was not an alternative either
 Detente (Salt 1 from
November 17, 1969 until May 1972 ) and
West Germany ’ s
Ostpolitik
Street riot http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ images/2008/04/30/world/22973953.JPG
Street riot http://pagesperso-orange.fr/ titi.nanou/images/prague.jpg

 West Germany ’ s economic miracle
 But still a political dwarf in
Ronald Reagan's plan of combating “ the evil empire ” .
 The Installation of Pershing
II in Britain, Holland,
Belgium, Italy and West
Germany from 1983 to
1984
 The German unification
1989-1990

 Strong states such as Germany has suddenly more options: Germany ’ s recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, refused to participate in the Iraq War, reservations to European economic integration
 New calculation over pain and gain
 Domestic pressure
 Even as a member of the EC/EU, Germany now wanted to seize a leading position

 1991 Germany unilaterally recognized the independence of Slovenia and
Croatia
 Weak international regimes and conflicting norms
 Domestic drive, political culture and historical memory

Yugoslavia: ethnic division, 1991

 CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) supported the existing border
 EC ’ s resolution on 25 th June 1991 (1) preserving Yugoslavia, (2) enabling excommunist states to participate in reshaping new Europe (3)providing loans for a united
Yugoslavia
 The Brionde Accord concluded by Italy,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands succeeded in convincing the Serbs to withdraw from
Slovenia but not Croatia in which 600,000
Serbs lived.
 Even the UN and the USA stood aside

 West Germany ’ s decade-long policy of liberating East Germany produces the following strategy: “ To the extent that this norm shaped Germany ’ s post-war foreign policy, elites may have calculated high domestic ‘ gains ’ from being the champions of selfdetermination in the Yugoslav conflict.
”

 The Mass Media of Germany
(Süddeutsche Zeitung and FAZ)
 The ruling party’s (CDU) new selfimage
 The lobbying activities of Croatia in February 1991
 The offensive of the
Green/Bündnis 90
 The SPD’s political bandwagoning http://www.iranfocus.com/ uploads/img440b5b4d704f0.jpg

 The survey of mid-July 1991 (38% for the independence of the two states,
34%, 27% neutral)
 The ideological dilemma posed by the
German unification in the 1990
 The visit of Kohl and Genscher, the
German Foreign Minister to
Yugoslavia

 EC vs. Croatia and Slovenia
 Serbia and Montenegro excluded the other Republic from the federal leadership
 EC decided in August 1991 that the recognition would be delayed for two months. For Germany the green light was on.

 On 8 th December, Germany indicated that it would recognize these states soon.
 France and Britain showed that they would bright this issue to the UN
 The CDU party convention in Dresden in which Kohl should show a new course in foreign policy
 EC backed down and Germany ’ s recognition of the two states on 23rd December 1991

 International Politics in a Multi-polar world

 Mary Fulbrook, A History of Germany,
1918-2008: The Divided Nation
(Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009)
 Otis C. Mitchell, The Cold War in
Germany: Overview, Origins, and
Intelligence Wars (Lanham:
University Press of America, 2005).