page_title: Helmut Kohl
section_title: Road to reunification
hierarchical_section_title: Helmut Kohl / Chancellor of West Germany / Road to reunification
caption_attribution_description: English: Ronald Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987. Deutsch: Ronald Reagan spricht vor dem Brandenburger Tor und der Berliner Mauer am 12. Juni 1987. 日本語: ベルリンの壁の前での演説（1987年)
context_page_description: Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998. As Chancellor Kohl was strongly committed to European integration and French–German cooperation in particular; he was also a steadfast ally of the United States and supported Reagan's more aggressive policies in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Kohl's 16-year tenure was the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck. He oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification, for which he is generally known as Chancellor of Unity. Together with French President François Mitterrand, Kohl was the architect of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union and the Euro currency, and in 1988 both received the Charlemagne Prize. Kohl was described as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century" by U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In 1998 Kohl became the second person to be named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government.
context_section_description: Following the breach of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German Communist regime in 1989, Kohl's handling of the East German issue would become the turning point of his chancellorship. Kohl, like most West Germans, was initially caught unawares when the Socialist Unity Party was toppled in late 1989. Well aware of his constitutional mandate to seek German unity, he immediately moved to make it a reality. Taking advantage of the historic political changes occurring in East Germany, Kohl presented a ten-point plan for "Overcoming of the division of Germany and Europe" without consulting his coalition partner, the FDP, or the Western Allies. In February 1990, he visited the Soviet Union seeking a guarantee from Mikhail Gorbachev that the USSR would allow German reunification to proceed. One month later, the Party of Democratic Socialism – the renamed SED – was roundly defeated by a grand coalition headed by the East German counterpart of Kohl's CDU, which ran on a platform of speedy reunification.
  On 18 May 1990, Kohl signed an economic and social union treaty with East Germany. This treaty stipulated that when reunification took place, it would be under the quicker provisions of Article 23 of the Basic Law.  That article stated that any new states could adhere to the Basic Law by a simple majority vote.  The alternative would have been the more protracted route of drafting a completely new constitution for the newly reunified country, as provided by Article 146 of the Basic Law.  However, the Article 146 process would have opened up contentious issues in West Germany. Even without this to consider, by this time East Germany was in a state of utter collapse.  In contrast, an Article 23 reunification could be completed in as little as six months. 
  Over the objections of Bundesbank president Karl Otto Pöhl, he allowed a 1:1 exchange rate for wages, interest and rent between the West and East Marks. In the end, this policy would seriously hurt companies in the new federal states. Together with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Kohl was able to resolve talks with the former Allies of World War II to allow German reunification. He received assurances from Gorbachev that a reunified Germany would be able to choose which international alliance it wanted to join, although Kohl made no secret that he wanted the reunified Germany to inherit West Germany's seats at NATO and the EC.
  A reunification treaty was signed on 31 August 1990, and was overwhelmingly approved by both parliaments on 20 September 1990. At midnight Central European Time on 3 October 1990, East Germany officially ceased to exist, and its territory joined the Federal Republic as the five states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.  These states had been the original five states of East Germany before being abolished in 1952, and had been reconstituted in August. East and West Berlin were reunited as a city-state which became the capital of the enlarged Federal Republic. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kohl confirmed that historically German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were definitively part of Poland, thereby relinquishing any claim Germany had to them. In 1993, Kohl confirmed, via treaty with the Czech Republic, that Germany would no longer bring forward territorial claims as to the pre-1945 ethnic German Sudetenland. This treaty was a disappointment for the German Heimatvertriebene ("displaced persons").
caption: Chancellor Kohl behind and to the right of U.S. President Ronald Reagan (center) at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987. Reagan is challenging Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"