1989- The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe Page 43

  42. Interviews by the author (anonymity requested); “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Präsident Bush, Camp David, 24. Feb. 1990,” 868–69. See also Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified, 215; GDE, 4:269, 466.

  43. Kohl, Erinnerungen 1982–1990, commentary on photos between 688 and 689; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 161.

  44. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 162.

  45. “Comments at Joint Press Conference by Chancellor Kohl and President Bush,” in Freedman, Documents, 503; see also Küsters, “Entscheidung für die deutsche Einheit,” 120.

  46. He complained to Bush in particular about Kohl’s evasiveness on the Polish border question when the U.S. president called a few days later to give him a summary of events at Camp David. For information on the call, see “Из телефонного разговора М.С. Горбачева с Дж. Бушем,” February 28, 1990, МГ, 376–78; Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 257. Scowcroft briefed Teltschik on it afterward: “Mitteilung des Sicherheitsberaters Scowcroft an Ministerialdirektor Teltschik,” February 28, 1990, document 199, DESE, 898.

  47. “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Präsident Bush, Camp David, 25. Feb. 1990,” document 194, DESE, 874–77. See also Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified, 212–15.

  48. The text of Articles 23 and 146, both before and after 1990, is on the website of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, available at http://www.bpb.de. The expert commentary comes from Henry Ashby Turner Jr., Germany from Partition to Unification, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).

  49. Schäuble was attacked on October 12, 1990, in Oppenau/Sübaden; for more details, see his autobiography, dictated to coauthors from his hospital bed where he was recovering from the assassination attempt: Wolfgang Schäuble, Der Vertrag: Wie ich über die deutsche Einheit verhandelte (Munich: Knaur, 1991). For extensive details on the inner-German process of unification, see GDE, vol. 3.

  50. “Aufzeichnung des Bundesministers des Innern, 27. Februar 1990, Überlegungen zu verfassungsrechtlichen Fragen im Zusammenhang mit der Einigung Deutschlands,” document 196, DESE, 879–86.

  51. Turner, Partition to Unification, 127–28; Adrian Webb, Germany since 1945 (London: Longman, 1998), 26.

  52. “Aufzeichnung des Bundesministers des Innern,” DESE, 880.

  53. “Aufzeichnung des Bundesministers des Innern,” DESE, 883.

  54. “Konstituierende Sitzung der Arbeitsgruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik des Kabinettausschusses Deutsche Einheit,” document 182, DESE, 830–31.

  55. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 164; interview with Eduard Shevardnadze by TASS, March 7, 1990, in NSC, PRS, Condoleezza Rice files, FOIA 2001-1166-F, BPL. This interview was highlighted by Zelikow for Robert Blackwill’s attention. Teltschik scrutinzed this interview as well; see “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 9. März 1990,” document 211, DESE, 921–23.

  56. Schäuble, Der Vertrag, 59–60.

  57. Kohl, Erinnerungen 1990–1994, 40–42,

  58. Kohl, Erinnerungen 1990–1994, 37–47; Helmut Kohl, Kai Diekmann, and Ralf Georg Reuth, Ich wollte Deutschlands Einheit (Berlin: Ullstein, 1996), 283–84; Gerhard A. Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit: Die Wiedervereinigung und die Krise des Sozialstaats (Munich: Beck, 2006), 35–37; Schäuble, Der Vertrag, 293; Szabo, Diplomacy, 26. Information about Ulrich and Thomas de Maizière, respectively, is available on the current websites of the Bundeswehr and the Bundeskanzleramt, http://www.bundeswehr.de and http://www.bundeskanzler.de. For more on the election campaign, see GDE, 3: 159–65.

  59. “Schreiben des Staatssekretärs Köhler an Bundesminister Seiters, Bonn, 14. März 1990,” documents 219–19A, DESE, 947–50. On the way in which Kohl made this decision, see David Marsh, The Euro (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 139–46. As Marsh puts it, the decision “suspended the principles of financial probity on which West Germany had built its forty-year post-war success. … It was the moment when Germany served notice that the D-Mark, the cornerstone of Europe’s currency stabilisation arrangements, would become … a force for disturbance rather than stability.” The head of the Bundesbank would eventually resign, in May 1991, as a belated protest over what he considered to be “Kohl’s reckless financing of German unification.”

  60. Kohl, Erinnerungen 1990–1994, 42; Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 31; Angela Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 117; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 129.

  61. “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 28. Feb. 1990,” documents 198, 895, in DESE, 893–97; see also 771n1.

  62. The troop numbers come from Garthoff, The Great Transition, 413. On the Hungarian troop withdrawal in particular, see Csaba Békés, “Back to Europe: The International Background of the Political Transition in Hungary, 1988–90,” in The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy, Analysis and Documents, ed. András Bozóki (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002); “Agreement concerning the Withdrawal of Soviet Troops Temporarily Stationed on the Territory of the Hungarian Republic,” in Freedman, Documents, 510–12. See also “Из беседы М.С. Горбачева с А. Дубчеком,” May 21, 1990, МГ, 446–47; “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand, Paris, 15. Februar 1990,” document 187, DESE, 842–52.

  63. “55. Deutsch-französischen Konsultationen, Paris, 26. April 1990,” document 257, DESE, 1056–59. A telegram from Bonn confirms these events and provides part of the information quoted above; “Telegram, from Amembassy Bonn to Secstate Washdc,” May 4, 1990, released by the State Department via FOIA.

  64. Kohl made remarks to this effect in “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Außenminister Arens, Bonn, 15. Feb. 1990,” document 186, DESE, 839–42.

  65. The East German Volkskammer, in its February 20–21, 1990 session, finally approved an election law; the records from the debate are available in the Bundesarchiv, Berlin. See also Kohl, Erinnerungen 1990–1994, 47. Kohl told the UK foreign minister that he believed that East Germans had intentionally delayed passage of an election law. See “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Außenminister Hurd, Bonn, 12. März 1990,” document 214, DESE, 932–35.

  66. The letters and Bild clipping were sent to the round table. See DA 3-70, ZRT, Briefe der Bevölkerung, Wahlredner, SAPMO.

  67. “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Premierminister Mulroney, 21. Feb. 1990,” document 190, DESE, 855–57.

  68. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 154.

  69. The Polish government had reacted to hints that this announcement might be coming: “Polish Government Statement, 1 March 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 504.

  70. Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 48; Horst Teltschik, interview with author, June 13, 2008, phone conversation.

  71. “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl,” document 198, DESE, 896; for the details of the agreements from 1950 and 1953, see document 92, DESE, 534n9; for its use in an “Entschließungsantrag … der Fraktionen der CDU/CSU und der FDP,” see document 204A, DESE, 913. See also Teltschik, 329 Tage, 165–66; “The Polish Border: Text of Bundestag Resolution, 8 March 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 513. For historical background on Stalin’s relations with Eastern Europe, see Joseph P. Held, ed., The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Melvyn P. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007); Andrej Paczkowski, The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and Poles from the Occupation to Freedom, trans. Jane Cave (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003); Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

  72. “Entwurf eines Entschließungsantrages der Fraktionen der CDU/CSU und der FDP,” Bonn, n.d., but from context between
March 2 and 6, 1990, document 204a, DESE, 913.

  73. “Vorlage des Vortragenden Legationsrats I Ueberschaer an Ministrialdirektor Teltschik, Bonn, 6. März 1990,” document 206, DESE, 915–16.

  74. See “Интервью М.С. Горбачева газете «Правда»,” March 7, 1990, МГ, 381–84; “President Gorbachev Interview to Soviet and German Journalists,” in Freedman, Documents, 507. Teltschik thought that this was just a negotiating tactic and that really the Soviet position still contained flexibility; see “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl,” DESE, 921–23.

  75. For more on the domestic political resistance to Kohl’s actions toward Poland, see Rödder, Deutschland Einig Vaterland, chapter 5.

  76. See DESE, 912n1.

  77. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 166–70.

  78. “Vermerk über ein Gespräch von UdSSR-Außenminister Eduard Schewardnadse mit Ibrahim Böhme, Vorsitzender der SPD in der DDR, am 2. März 1990,” document 65, in Detlef Nakath and Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan, eds., Countdown zur deutschen Einheit: Eine dokumentierte Geschichte der deutsch-deutschen Beziehungen 1987–1990 (Berlin: Dietz, 1996), 313–19.

  79. “Vermerk über die Begegnung einer DDR-Regierungsdelegation unter Leitung von Hans Modrow mit Michail Gorbatschow, KPdSU-Generalsekretär, am 6. März 1990,” document 67, in Nakath and Stephan, Countdown, 320–25; quotation from 322. “Интервью М.С. Горбачева газете «Правда»,” March 7, 1990, МГ, 381–84.

  80. “Conférence de presse conjointe, March 9, 1990, in François Mitterrand, De l’Allemagne, de la France (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, April 1996), 213–18. For the West German reaction to this press conference, see “Vorlage des Ministerialdirigenten Hartmann an Kohl, Bonn, 13. März 1990,” document 216, DESE, 937–41.

  81. “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand,” DESE, 849; “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand, 5. März 1990,” document 203, DESE, 909–12, quotation from 911; “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand, 14. März 1990,” document 218, DESE, 943–47.

  82. “Interview by the French President, M. Francois [sic] Mitterrand, with French Regional Newspapers,” in Freedman, Documents, 481–84.

  83. Mitterrand cited in Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 256.

  84. “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand,” DESE, 943–47; Kohl, Erinnerungen 1990–1994, 45.

  85. On Soviet attitudes to Article 23, see Küsters, “Entscheidung für die deutsche Einheit,” 135; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 185.

  86. Memorandum from Harvey Sicherman to S/P—Dennis Ross and C—Robert Zoellick, March 12, 1990, folder 14, box 176, series 12, BP. This memo is the source of all of the Sicherman quotations in these pages. See also “Erste Gesprächsrunde Zwei plus Vier auf Beamtenebene, Bonn, 14. März 1990,” document 220, DESE, 950–52.

  87. Percy Cradock, In Pursuit of British Interests: Reflections on Foreign Policy under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (London: John Murray, 1997), 115; interview with Lord Douglas Hurd, London, March 17, 2009.

  88. As Angela Stent rightly points out, it is remarkable that Gorbachev never made such an offer. See Stent, Russia and Germany, 121.

  89. Gyula Horn’s comment is discussed in Mastny and Byrne, Cardboard Castle, 71; the direct quotation from Horn is in Mark Kramer, “The Myth of the No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia,” Washington Quarterly 32 no. 2 (April 2009), 41; see also 58n16 in Kramer for a description of the Polish proposal by Jan Rylukowski.

  90. Harvey Sicherman, interview with author, December 12, 2008, phone conversation.

  91. Reuters news release, March 13, 1990, NSC files, Wilson, FOIA 2001-1166-F, BPL; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 170.

  92. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 173.

  93. See my “A Small Town in (East) Germany: The Erfurt Meeting of 1970 and the Dynamics of Cold War Détente,” Diplomatic History 25, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 85–104.

  94. See Mary Elise Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). The play was Michael Frayn, Democracy (quoted and cited in the epigraph to this chapter). See also Willy Brandt, “… was zusammengehört” (Bonn: Dietz, 1993), and My Life in Politics (New York: Viking, 1991); GDE, 3:159–64.

  95. For more about the campaign, see GDE, 3:160; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 173–77.

  96. Memcon, the White House, “Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl,” March 15, 1990, 8:37–9:01 a.m., in FOIA 1999-0393-F, BPL. The German version of the conversation contains similar comments; see “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Bush, 15. März 1990,” document 211, DESE, 952–55.

  97. “Gespräch des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik mit Botschafter Karski und dem stellvertretenden Abteilungsleiter Sulek, Bonn, 19. März 1990,” document 223, DESE, 956–60.

  98. For the exact election results, see DESE, 956n1; Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 37–39.

  99. ZDF, March 18, 1990, KASPA. For more on the history of socialism in the twentieth century, see Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London: Tauris, 1996).

  100. Kohl, Diekmann, and Reuth, Ich wollte, 136–37.

  101. Küsters, “Entscheidung für die deutsche Einheit,” 135; Teltschik, 329 Tage, 182–83.

  102. The U.S. and the West German versions, the basis of this and the preceding paragraph, are largely but not entirely identical. See Memcon, “Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany,” March 1990, 8:31–8:59 a.m., in FOIA 1999-0393-F, BPL; “Telefongespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Bush, 20. März 1990,” document 224, DESE, 961–63. The direct English quotations here are taken from the U.S. original in that language. See also Teltschik, 329 Tage, 176–79. For more information on West German dealings with Poland after the election, see “Gespräch des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik mit Botschafter Karski und dem stellvertretenden Abteilungsleiter Sulek,” DESE, 956–60.

  103. “Schreiben des Bundeskanzlers an Ministerpräsiden Mazowiecki, Bonn, 4. April 1990,” document 242, DESE, 1007–9; “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 30. April 1990,” document 263, DESE, 1069–71.

  104. “Vorlage des Vortragenden Legationsrats I Kastner an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 11. Mai 1990,” document 275, DESE, 1106–7, reports on the criticism of a member of parliament about what Kohl’s government was doing. For more on the final German-Polish treaty, see Jacobsen, Bonn-Warschau, 21, 48.

  105. President Bush’s restrained response to the Lithuanian declaration of independence was calculated to support Gorbachev, but he was criticized at home for it. See Timothy Naftali, George H.W. Bush (New York: Times Books, 2007), 92.

  106. “Vorlage des Ministerialdirektors Teltschik an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 23. März 1990,” document 228, DESE, 970–75.

  107. Telegram, “US Del Secretary Namibia, to White House Wash DC, 20 March 1990,” “Memorandum for the President,” State Department, released via FOIA.

  108. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified, 246; Schäuble, Der Vertrag, 297.

  109. “Schreiben des Bundesministers Blüm an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 27. März 1990,” document 231, DESE, 979–80; “Schreiben des Bundesbankpräsidenten Pöhl an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Frankfurt (Main), 30. März 1990,” document 239, DESE, 1002–3; “Vorlage des Ministerialdirigenten Duisberg an Bundeskanzler Kohl, Bonn, 19. April 1990,” document 248, 1018–20; Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 202–4.

  110. “Address by the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, to the European Parliament,” in Freedman, Documents, 418–23; N. Piers Ludlow, “Naturally Supportive,” 161–73; and Hans Stark, “Helmut Kohl and the Maastricht Process,” both in Europe and the End of the Cold War, ed. Frédéric Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, N. Piers Ludlow, and Leopoldo Nuti (London: Routledge, 2008), 220–58; GDE, 4:420–42; Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 58–59. For more on
the history of the German division and its impact on European integration, see N. Piers Ludlow, ed., European Integration and the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2007).

  111. “Gespräch des Bundeskanzlers Kohl mit Staatspräsident Mitterrand,” DESE, 849; Ritter, Der Preis der deutschen Einheit, 59.

  112. “Gespräch des Ministerialdirigenten Hartmann und des Ministerialrats Ludewig mit Präsident Delors, Paris, 16. Feb. 1990,” document 188, DESE, 852–53.

  113. “Roland Dumas, French Foreign Minister, Interview 9 February 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 467. Rice particularly noted these remarks, saying that they were “worth reading carefully: Definitive French view.” See Condoleeza Rice files, NSC, PRS, FOIA 2001-1166-F, BPL.

  114. “Article by Roland Dumas, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Published in the New York Times, 13 March 1990,” in Freedman, Documents, 508–9; letter from Charles Powell to J. S. Wall, February 20, 1990, released by CAB via FOI.

  115. Douglas Hurd, Memoirs (London: Little, Brown, 2003), 383.

  116. “What the PM Learnt about the Germans,” Independent, July 15, 1990. For accounts from participants, see Gordon Craig, “Die Chequers-Affäre,” Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte 39, no. 4 (October 1991): 611–23; Fritz Stern, Five Germanys I Have Known (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), 474. Stern accuses Powell of attributing Thatcher’s views to the group as a whole, when, Stern argues, the group actually disagreed with her. See also John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher (London: Pimlico, 2004), 634–35; and on the Thatcher era generally, see E.H.H. Green, Thatcher (London: Hodder Arnold, 2006). On the role of Chequers seminars in Thatcher’s foreign policymaking, see Archie Brown, “The Change to Engagement in Britain’s Cold War Policy: The Origins of the Thatcher-Gorbachev Relationship,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 4n2. I am also grateful to Charles Powell for a discussion of these events. A document that Powell sent to at least one participant in advance of the seminar (listing questions to be discussed) and a copy of the summary that he wrote afterward are both available on line at www.margaretthatcher.org.