WGerman reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic became part of the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany, as provided by the original Article 23 of the federal Constitution. The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated each year on 3 October as German Unity Day. Berlin was reunited into a single city, and again became the capital of united Germany.
WElections for the Third German People's Congress were held in East Germany on 15 and 16 May 1949. Voters were presented with a "Unity List" from the "Bloc of the Anti-Fascist Democratic Parties," which was dominated by the Communist-leaning Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The ballot was worded "I am for the unity of Germany and a just peace treaty. I therefore vote for the following list of candidates for the Third German People's Congress," with voters having the options of voting "yes" and "no". In much of the country, the vote was not secret.
WThe Deutschland-Cup was a one-off football competition played in November 1990, to celebrate German reunification. The match was played one week after the dissolution of the East German Football Association and its merger with the German Football Association, and featured the reigning champions of East and West Germany, Dynamo Dresden and Bayern Munich respectively. The match, which was played at the Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion in Dresden, was won 1–0 by Dynamo.
WRainer Eppelmann, is a German politician. Known for his opposition in the German Democratic Republic, he became Minister for Disarmament and Defense in the last cabinet. He is now a member of the CDU.
WThe German Chainsaw Massacre - The First Hour of the Reunification, also known as Blackest Heart in the United States, is a 1990 German horror film written and directed by Christoph Schlingensief and starring Karina Fallenstein, Alfred Edel, Udo Kier and Irm Hermann. It is the second film in Schlingensief's Deutschlandtrilogie.
WThe German Unification Transport Projects or German Unity Transport Projects, commonly known by their German initials VDE, are a set of major construction projects to increase and improve transport links between Eastern and Western Germany after German reunification. These projects are planned to positively impact regional development and infrastructure in the new federal states and across the inner German border.
WGerman Unity Day is the National Day in Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates German reunification in 1990 when the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were unified, so that for the first time since 1945 there existed a single German state. German Unity Day on 3 October has been the German National Holiday since 1990, when the reunification was formally completed.
WGood Bye Lenin! is a 2003 German tragicomedy film, directed by Wolfgang Becker. The cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon. The story follows a family in East Germany; the mother (Saß) is dedicated to the socialist cause and falls into a coma in October 1989, shortly before the November revolution. When she awakens eight months later in June 1990, her son (Brühl) attempts to protect her from a fatal shock by concealing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism.
WThe Memorial and Education Centre Andreasstraße, is a museum in Erfurt, Germany, which is housed in a former prison used by the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi). It is informally known as the Stasi Museum.
WThe Monument to Freedom and Unity is a planned national German monument in Berlin commemorating the country's peaceful reunification in 1990 and earlier 18th, 19th and 20th century unification movements.
WThe new federal states of Germany are the five re-established states of former East Germany that acceded to the Federal Republic of Germany with its 10 states upon German reunification on October 3, 1990.
WThe old states of Germany are the 10 states in West Germany.
WIn German culture, Ostalgie is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia, is also sometimes used.
WNeue Ostpolitik, or Ostpolitik for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic beginning in 1969. Influenced by Egon Bahr, who proposed "change through rapprochement" in a 1963 speech at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, the policies were implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, fourth Chancellor of the FRG from 1969 to 1974.
WThe Peaceful Revolution was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the west, the end of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the German Democratic Republic and the transition to a parliamentary democracy, which enabled the reunification of Germany in October 1990. This happened through non-violent initiatives and demonstrations. This period of change is also referred to in German as Die Wende.
WThe Stalin Note, also known as the March Note, was a document delivered to the representatives of the Western allied powers from the Soviet Occupation in Germany on March 10, 1952. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin put forth a proposal for a reunification and neutralization of Germany, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and free activity of democratic parties and organizations.
W"Tear down this wall", also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, was a speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987. Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had separated West and East Berlin since 1961. The name is derived from a key line in the middle of the speech: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
WThe Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, or the Two Plus Four Agreement, was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, allowing a reunited Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. On the other hand, Germany agreed to confirm its acceptance of its existing border with Poland, and accepted that the borders of Germany after unification would correspond only to the territories then administered by West and East Germany, with the exclusion and renunciation of any other territorial claims.
WTwo years after German reunification, the Commission of Inquiry for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany, which was a truth commission that lasted from 1992 to 1994, was established by the German government with the objective of looking at the history and the consequences of the former East German communist government. It released its report in 1994, but some felt that more could be investigated. This resulted in the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity lasting from 1995 to 1998, which had the same objective, but investigated more thoroughly.
WThomas Welz grew up in the suburbs of Berlin. As head of the information department, he was editor and author of several illegal samizdat publications with Rainer Eppelmann of the peace circle of the East Berlin Samariterkirche in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Many of them became the mouthpiece of the East German civil rights movement, including publications like "Shalom", "Wegzehrung" and "Wendezeit", one of the first publications, in where term "Wende" was used. During his military service in the NVA, Thomas Welz was detained for five months from October 1978 in the infamous military prison in Schwedt.