
Germany's Unlikely Diplomatic Triumph: Inside Look at Reunification Negotiations - vinnyglennon
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-unlikely-diplomatic-triumph-an-inside-look-at-the-reunification-negotiations-a-719848-8.html
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wuschel
Great article about one of the amazing moments in modern world history. It
does not go enough into detail, but it is already a thrilling read:

A country that was to be the conventional and possibly nuclear battleground
between _NATO_ and _Warsaw Pact_ reunited in a moment of amazing timing.

"Wir sind ein Volk!" .. what a powerful slogan, given Germany century old
struggle for its definition and borders. I still remember those cheap east
german _Trabant_ cars suddenly invading West Germany, and people not believing
that the decade old separation was gone.

With unification, the border between the two superpower blocks moved further
east, and the power of balance changed in Europe. And the notion of Germany
being a battlefield like Tom Clancy sketched it in one of his books faded
away.

The sad part these days was the conflict in the Balcans. I hope that these
documents will be published as well, revealing some of the politcal game
making in that time.

~~~
creshal
> A country that was to be the conventional and possibly nuclear battleground
> between NATO and Warsaw Pact reunited in a moment of amazing timing.

On both sides, generations of German soldiers were trained to shoot nuclear
missiles on each other to turn all of Central Europe into a glass desert. The
reunification was one hell of a culture shock for both sides.

~~~
hwh
On neither side, German soldiers had direct access to a nuclear arsenal,
however. There were missile bases in West Germany alright, under control of
American forces. And there were mobile soviet bases in the eastern part, under
control of Russian forces. Only a small subset of german soldiers had training
in the operation of nuclear weapons, mainly parts of the air force (plans were
that nuclear bombs would have been given to them in the case of a conflict).

~~~
creshal
Western German rocket artillery units (150th-650th battalion) were equipped
with nuclear-tipped Lance/Sergeant SRBMs. The American forces only had control
over the warheads (and "control" usually meant "were responsible for
patrolling the storage shed holding the warheads, while being surrounded by
several German mechanized divisions").

~~~
wuschel
The Prora museum on the island of Rügen (the _Kraft durch Freude Hotels_ ) is
worth visiting in that regard. It illustrates war planning (tactical and
strategic nuclear strikes) in the case of a soviet attack and the projected
civilian losses.

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prodmerc
We're all incredibly lucky that the soviet union folded into dust, instead of
surviving like the Chinese communist party.

People were welcoming Nazis as liberators back in the day, which should say a
bit about how bad the soviets were.

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ch4s3
>People were welcoming Nazis as liberators back in the day

Do you have a citation for that?

~~~
yk
For example _Bloodlands_ by Timothy Snyder. Especially in Ukraine starting in
the early '30ies, but also in eastern Poland from '39 onwards, the NKVD had a
quite horrendous human rights record. So the Nazi troops were greeted at
liberators when they arrived in '41\. At that point the Nazi atrocities had
not reached the heights they are infamous for.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I would imagine their worst human rights record was inside core Russia. They
had to destroy all the old world, after all.

~~~
yk
Depends on your favorite measure for atrocities, there was a civil war in
Russia, there were the Stalinist purges all over the Soviet Union, there was
the colonization of the Asian part of Russia and there was Holdomor. Each of
these are among the worst human rights abuses, but actually I am not sure if
you can really argues which one of them was worse.

~~~
guard-of-terra
There was a civil war all over the place. The "ukrainian" part is well
documented by Bulgakov, for example.

Not going to argue.

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fiatmoney
A good, if brief, book on the lead-up to reunification is "The Fall of the
GDR: Germany's Road to Unity". The biggest takeaway for me was how incredibly
rapidly the collapse progressed once it began - effectively, no one stepped in
to stop it and feedback loops took over.

~~~
_0ffh
Right! My take on it is that Gorbachev did not have the stomach for a rerun of
Czechoslovakia 1968. And what a lucky thing that was!

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buzzdenver
Why link to page 8 of this article and not the beginning ? Can you fix the
link ?

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solidsnack9000
It's too bad there is no easy link to the German version.

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timwaagh
one can almost get putins revanchism when you see for how much they sold DDR
to NATO.

