German Unity Day

03.10.2016

Today is a national holiday in Germany, which commemorates the reunification of Germany on October 3rd, 1990  in accordance with the treaty which brought the GDR into the FRG.

A broken nation

Although Germany is a federal state, at the moment there are two main divisions. Twenty-six years after unification there is a clear division between the eastern and western parts, which is reflected in the social, economic, political and cultural life of the country. Secondly, there is a clear split between the political elites who continue the course of serving the United States and EU projects, and the masses of the population, who are oriented to a more independent life for the state, both from Washington and Brussels.

Ethnic "inferiority"

You also can not say that all ethnic Germans are living in the same state. If you follow the cultural approach to the issue of the nation (which is the German theory of nationalism, unlike the French version, which asserts the unity on the basis of citizenship), then Germany can not be considered a complete and unified whole. Residents of Austria and parts of Switzerland, Belgium and Liechtenstein also speak the German language.

Illegitimate unity

"Katehon" notes that no referendum on the unification of Germany was carried out. In fact, there was an occupation of East Germany (GDR) from West Germany (FRG) in a peaceful way, as the "new lands" were introduced to the Constitution of the FRG of 1949. Even before the official reunion, the currency of the FRG was introduced on the territory of the GDR. The armed forces of the GDR were abolished, and NATO moved further east.

The unification initiative came from the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and the reckless General Secretary of Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev gave his consent, thus betraying the interests of the USSR and all the countries of the Warsaw Pact. There was a possibility to maintain the political balance and to achieve the de-nuclearization of a united Germany and the withdrawal of all US military bases. But this was not done.

The collapse of the bipolar system and the Yalta world order

The unification of Germany opened the gates to a new uni-polar world order. In March 1991, US President George HW Bush announced the beginning of a new world order, knowing that the main US opponent - the USSR - was no longer a geopolitical rival. In the same month, the armed conflict in Yugoslavia began, which led to the disintegration of the federation. In December 1991, Soviet Union was broken up.