that time were only able to achieve those things that had long since become clear as a result of the people's enthusiasm for unity. The elections on 18 March 1990 were also a plebiscite on the German question. However, we still had to devote ourselves to drawing up treaties and putting in place regulations covering an almost endless number of problems. All areas of society were subjected to fundamental change. The German states were reintroduced, the separation of powers was re-established, the state under the rule of law was restored and education, the police and the administrative bodies were all democratised. One decisive factor was the reintroduction of local self-government which went back to Stein and Hardenberg's reform of Prussia and which allowed the people to take partdemocracy, peace and freedom and if it can find the unity which we lost after the Second World War. We spoke about the Western alliance, the Eastern bloc and the East-West conflict; we had East and West Berlin; our world was divided into East and West, but it no longer had a centre. An honest search for the things which unite us is also a search for our centre.
Sometimes, it almost makes me feel irritated that all the things which we went without in East Germany and which we longed for over many years are now taken for granted and go almost unnoticed. I am thinking of freedom of travel, of speech, of trade, of the press and of religion. I am thinking of the right to free