German Unity Day: Peace through Rapprochement

Today, 3 October, is German Unity Day. In the night leading into 3 October 1990 the Unification Treaty entered into force.

The GDR acceded to the Federal Republic, the Basic Law also applied in the East. And Berlin became the capital of the whole country.

This success was the result of a years-long effort for peace.

The formula of Tutzing

In 1963 Egon Bahr spoke at the Protestant Academy Tutzing. At that time he was spokesman of the Berlin Senate under Governing Mayor Willy Brandt.

In his speech he coined the formula change through rapprochement. His concern was the people, and easing their situation.

In October 1969 Brandt became Federal Chancellor. Walter Scheel became Foreign Minister.

The New Ostpolitik of this government sought talks and rapprochement. Also in order to lead Germany toward a peaceful unification.

In the following years Egon Bahr played a decisive role in the negotiations with Moscow, Poland and the GDR.

Treaties, the kneel, the Nobel Prize

On 12 August 1970 the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union signed the Moscow Treaty. Both sides renounced force and declared the existing borders in Europe inviolable.

Including the inner-German border and the Oder-Neiße line. The Federal Republic’s delegation handed over a letter on German unity.

In it the goal of a peaceful unification in free self-determination remained set down. On 7 December 1970 the Warsaw Treaty with Poland followed.

With the same core of renunciation of force and respect for borders. On the same day Brandt laid a wreath at the memorial to the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto and knelt.

The picture went around the world and became a sign of reconciliation after the German crimes. On 21 December 1972 the Federal Republic and the GDR signed the Basic Treaty.

Bahr had negotiated it with Michael Kohl on the GDR side. The two states entered into official relations.

In 1971 the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize. It honored a policy of reconciliation between old enemy countries and his commitment to creating the preconditions for peace in Europe.

Continuation of the peace efforts

This policy continued when Brandt was no longer Chancellor. On 1 August 1975, 35 states signed the Final Act of Helsinki, a self-commitment without treaty character.

Renunciation of force, intact borders, respect for human rights. Civil-rights groups in the East later invoked it.

Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl carried forward important features of Ostpolitik. In 1989, in the course of the Peaceful Revolution.

The people in the GDR took to the streets in regular Monday demonstrations. In the night of 9 November the Berlin border crossings were opened.

Then, at the beginning of 1990. Michail Gorbatschow in Moscow gave his agreement in principle that the Germans themselves should decide on their life together.

With the Unification Treaty on 3 October and the Two Plus Four Treaty on 12 September 1990. German unity was finally decided by treaty.

The peace efforts of Brandt and Bahr prepared the ground for this. Likewise, the citizens’ movements in the GDR.

The government of Gorbatschow and the treaties of 1990 then brought the turning point about.

Peace or preparation for war

Reunification was the result of years of peace efforts. It came bound up with a process of rapprochement and reconciliation.

Germany can again go ahead in the line of Brandt and Bahr. negotiate, seek talks and cooperation, agree mutual assurances.

Instead of making itself fit for a coming war, Germany can in this way pave the paths for a new peace.