German Unification in the European Context
464 pages | 6 x 9 | 1993
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-02566-7 | paper: $31.00 sh
The collapse of the Communist regime in East Germany and the subsequent unification of East and West Germany were events of extraordinary historical importance, the ramifications of which will take years to unfold. A leading U.S. expert on West German politics, Peter Merkl, had the good fortune to be a visiting professor at the University of G ttingen in 1990 and was able to witness this incredible transition firsthand. While teaching at the Free University in Berlin in 1991, Merkl enlisted the cooperation of a leading East German expert, Gert-Joachim Glaessner, to contribute a chapter on the GDR. The result is a work that offers a careful and comprehensive account of the process of unification and its implications for the future of European and international politics.
Merklbegins by laying out the historical German Question and placingthe divided state in the international context of the Cold Warand its consequences. He then analyzes the generational differencesbetween Germans over fifty who rallied to the challenge withenthusiasm and the less nationalistic younger generation whofeared that the pursuit of unification would preempt such goalsas a better life for West Germans and a livable environment.Gert-Joachim Glaessner describes in detail the spectacular unravellingof the East German communist regime that ultimately led to thefall of the Berlin Wall amidst the disintegration of the otherCommunist regimes, arguing that they did not fall on their ownnor as a result of West German or Western initiatives alone.Merkl analyzes the process of political unification, the severalelections of the year 1990, and the agreements made between Eastand West Germany. He also discusses the international objectionsto German unification and the many obstacles that were and willneed to be overcome to make German unity a reality. He examinesthe attitudes of East and West Germans towards each other andtheir sense of national identity, the transformation of institutionsand constitutions, and the immense problems and expense of rebuildingthe East German infrastructure and economy and of privatizingstate-owned operations. Finally, he maps out the internationalsignificance of the great changes of the post-Wall and post-Communistworld that will define the future role of united Germany vis-á-vis Germany's neighbors, the European community, the United States, and the world. The book ends with a glimpse of how Germans envision themselves in the year 2000.
Peter H. Merkl is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, author of many books, including Origins of the West German Republic (Oxford, 1963) and Political Violence under the Swastika (Princeton, 1975), and editor of many others, including Developments in West German Politics (Macmillan, 1992) and The Federal Republic at Forty (NYU, 1989).