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GERMAN UNIFICATION: BETWEEN OFFICIAL HISTORY, ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP, AND POLITICAL MEMOIRS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2001

KRISTINA SPOHR
KRISTINA SPOHR
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Abstract

Ten years after German unification, this historiographical review discusses how the cascade of published material reflects on two questions vital for contemporary history on this subject: first, why and how did unification happen, and second, what kind of sources and evidence are used by authors to justify their particular interpretation of events? In answering these questions, this review will not only give an overview of published accounts – official, scholarly, and autobiographical – but go beyond the immediate confines of the 1990s to shed light on the question of why Chancellor Helmut Kohl was able to win a prize that had eluded all of his predecessors since Konrad Adenauer.

Type
HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 869 - 888
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

It is worth noting the significance of referring to ‘unification’ rather than ‘reunification’. The terms ‘unification’ (Vereinigung) and ‘reunification’ (Wiedervereinigung) were used almost indistinguishably in 1989 to refer to the re-establishment of a unified German state. But ‘reunification’ suggests that the German state that had existed before the Second World War and was divided after 1945 was being brought back together. Yet in 1990 it was not an issue of reconstituting pre-war Germany, as it was clear that the eastern territories (Pomerania, Silesia, East and West Prussia) would remain part of Poland and the then USSR. Thus, the German government officially used the phrase ‘re-establishing Germany's unity’ (Wiederhersstellung der deutschen Einheit) or ‘German unification’ in order to point out clearly the difference between pre-war Germany and the smaller post-Cold War Germany.In this review the following terms and abbreviations are used. The Four Powers are the post-Second World War victor powers, USA, USSR, Britain, and France; the Two plus Four talks comprised those four plus the two Germanies; FRG stands for the western Federal Republic of Germany and GDR for the eastern Democratic Republic of Germany; CDU for the Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands (Christian Democratic Union of Germany); SPD for the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany); CPSU for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; and NSC for the National Security Council of the USA.