The Cold War and the division of Germany were closely related; at the core of both was the question of which power was to dominate the center of Europe: the Soviet Union or the United States. The Berlin Wall was its starkest symbol. Lurking in the background was the political and military presence of the four victorious powers of World War II in Berlin and Germany. No element of this structure could be overcome without changes in the others. The East–West conflict would only be ended if the Wall came down and Germany were reunified.

Given these strong linkages, two questions arise: how was it possible that in 1989 the Wall that for twenty-eight years had separated the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) crumbled visibly, and that unification took place with the consent of all four powers who also withdrew most of their troops from Europe?

The consolidation of the status quo

After the Helsinki Conference of 1975, the two superpowers as well as the two German states felt comfortable respecting the modus vivendi on the territorial status quo in Europe, which had been achieved through détente and German Ostpolitik. When contacts grew after the conclusion of the Basic Treaty between the FRG and the GDR, East Berlin intensified its policy of demarcation: to emphasize its disparity with capitalist West Germany, the GDR defined itself as a “socialist workers’ and peasants’ state” whose alliance with the USSR was “irrevocable.”