Post Wall, Post Square: Rebuilding the World after 1989

Who’s boss? Kohl with Modrow in Dresden

After a rather stiff lunch and a press conference with journalists, the chancellor walked to the ruins of the Frauenkirche – destroyed in the Allied firebombing in 1945. In his memoirs Kohl claimed he had spoken to the crowd spontaneously, but in fact a speech had been prepared very carefully with Teltschik the night before. Amid the blackened stones of the eighteenth-century church – which had become a ‘memorial against war’ and a prime site in 1989 for anti-regime protests – Kohl climbed on a temporary wooden podium in the darkening winter evening. He looked out at a crowd of some 10,000. Many were waving banners and placards proclaiming such slogans as‘Kohl, Kanzler der Deutschen’ (‘Kohl, Chancellor of the Germans’), ‘Wir sind ein Volk’ (‘We are one people’)and ‘Einheit jetzt’ (‘Unity now’).[149] (#litres_trial_promo) But, presumably, blending into the mass of people were operatives of the Stasi and the Soviet security services – maybe even the KGB’s special agent in Dresden, Vladimir Putin.

His throat tight with emotion, the chancellor began slowly, feeling the weight of expectation. He conveyed warm regards to the people of Dresden from their fellow citizens in the Federal Republic. Exultant cheers. He gestured to show he had more to say. It got very quiet. Kohl then talked about peace, self-determination and free elections. He said a bit about his meeting with Modrow and talked of future economic cooperation and the development of confederative structures, and then moved to his climax. ‘Let me also say on this square, which is so rich in history, that my goal – should the historical hour permit it – remains the unity of our nation.’ Thunderous applause. ‘And, dear friends, I know that we can achieve this goal and that the hour will come when we will work together towards it, provided that we do it with reason and sound judgement and a sense for what is possible.’

Trying to calm the surging emotions, Kohl proceeded to speak matter-of-factly about the long and difficult path to this common future, echoing lines he had used in West Berlin the day after the fall of the Wall. ‘We, the Germans, do not live alone in Europe and in the world. One look at a map will show that everything that changes here will have an effect on all of our neighbours, those in the East and those in the West … The house of Germany, our house, must be built under a European roof. That must be the goal of our policies.’ He concluded: ‘Christmas is the festival of the family and friends. Particularly now, in these days, we are beginning to see ourselves again as a German family … From here in Dresden, I send my greetings to all our compatriots in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany … God bless our German fatherland!’

By the time Kohl ended, the people felt serene – mesmerised by the moment. No one made any move to leave the square. Then an elderly woman climbed onto the podium, embraced him and, starting to cry, said quietly: ‘We all thank you!’[150] (#litres_trial_promo)

That night and next morning Kohl talked with Protestant and Catholic clergy from the GDR and leaders of the newly formed opposition parties.[151] (#litres_trial_promo) All his meetings in Dresden simply proved to Kohl that the GDR elites were in denial about the desires of the broader public. The crowds in Dresden did not want a modernised GDR standing alone, as touted by the opposition, or an update of the old regime, led by Modrow and the renamed communists (PDS) in some kind of confederation with the FRG. Twenty-four hours amid the people of Dresden convinced the West German chancellor that his Ten-Point Plan was already becoming out of date. In what was now a race against time, those ‘new confederative structures’ he had been advocating were too ponderous and would take too long. The chancellor no longer had any inclination to support the Modrow government – clearly a flimsy, transitional operation that lacked any kind of democratic legitimacy and was merely trying to save a sinking ship from going under fast.[152] (#litres_trial_promo)

Kohl could suddenly see a window of opportunity opening up in the midst of crisis. The cheers of the East German crowds spurred him on and served as the justification for dramatic action. As would-be driver of the unification train, he was now ready to move the acceleration lever up several notches. And he was also energised by the overwhelmingly positive reception in the media for his Dresden visit – both at home and abroad. The common theme next day was that a West German chancellor had laid the foundation for unification, and had done so on East German soil.[153] (#litres_trial_promo)

Dresden was the beginning of a veritable sea change in public perceptions of Kohl. He had bonded with the people. He had addressed the East Germans repeatedly as ‘dear friends’. He had clearly relished being bathed in the adulation of the masses. The chants of ‘Helmut! Helmut!’ revealed the familiarity East Germans had suddenly come to feel for the West German leader. With all this shown live on TV in both Germanies, the chancellor and this mood of exuberant patriotism flooded into German living rooms from Berlin to Cologne, from Rostock to Munich.[154] (#litres_trial_promo)

There were, of course, similar cheers for Willy Brandt at an SDP rally in the GDR city of Magdeburg on the same day. Hans-Dietrich Genscher was also greeted enthusiastically when he returned to East Germany to speak in his home town, Halle, and in Leipzig on 17 December.[155] (#litres_trial_promo) But Kohl in Dresden outshone both of them by miles. Rarely had the chancellor – often the butt of ridicule as a clumsy provincial – experienced such an ecstatic reaction in his own West Germany. With national elections in the FRG now less than a year away and German unity looming as the dominant issue, Dresden was the best public-relations coup that the chancellor could have dreamed of.

Nor was there much international competition. On 19 December, the same day Kohl spoke in Dresden, Eduard Shevardnadze became the first Soviet foreign minister to enter the precincts of NATO[156] (#litres_trial_promo) – another symbolic occasion in the endgame of the Cold War. On the 20th François Mitterrand became the first leader of the Western allies to pay an official state visit to the East German capital – another bridging moment across the crumbling Wall.[157] (#litres_trial_promo) But both of these were almost noises off compared with Kohl’s big bang. What’s more, these initiatives were striking mainly by reference to the past, whereas the chancellor was looking to the future and everyone now knew it.[158] (#litres_trial_promo)

What made that point transparently clear was the brief instant on 22 December – a rainy Friday afternoon just before the Christmas holiday – when Kohl and Modrow formally opened crossing points at the Brandenburg Gate. Watching the people celebrating the unity of their city, Kohl exclaimed: ‘This is one of the happiest hours of my life.’ For the chancellor at the end of that momentous year – less than a month after his Ten Point speech – Dresden and Berlin were indeed memories to savour.[159] (#litres_trial_promo)

*

The end of 1989 was not happy for everyone, of course. As the Western world ate its Christmas dinner, TV screens were full of the final moments of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. The absolute ruler of Romania for twenty-four years and his wife were executed by soldiers of the army that, until just a few days before, he had commanded.

Romania was the last country in the Soviet bloc to experience revolutionary change. And it was the only one to suffer large-scale violence in 1989: according to official figures 1,104 people were killed and 3,352 injured.[160] (#litres_trial_promo) Here alone tanks rolled, as in China, and firing squads took their revenge. This reflected the nature of Ceaușescu’s highly personal and arbitrary dictatorship – the most gruesome in Eastern Europe. Having gone off on his own from Moscow since the mid-1960s, Ceaușescu had also stood apart from Gorbachev’s reformist agenda and peaceful approach to change.

So why, in this repressive police state, had rebellion broken out? Unlike the rest of the bloc, Ceaușescu had managed to pay off almost all of Romania’s foreign debts – but at huge cost to his people: cutting domestic consumption so brutally that shops were left with empty shelves, homes had no heat and electricity was rationed to a few hours a day. Meanwhile, Nicolae and Elena lived in grotesque pomp.

Despite such appalling repression, their fall was triggered not by social protest but by ethnic tensions. Romania had a substantial Hungarian minority, some 2 million out of a population of 23 million, who were treated as second-class citizens. The flashpoint was the western town of Timişoara where the local pastor and human-rights activist László To˝kés was to be evicted. Over the weekend of 17–18 December some 10,000 people demonstrated in his support, shouting ‘Freedom’, ‘Romanians rise up’, ‘Down with Ceaușescu!’ The regime’s security forces (the Securitate) and army units responded with water cannons, tear gas and gunfire. Sixty unarmed civilians were killed.[161] (#litres_trial_promo)

Protest now spread through the country as people took to the streets, emboldened by the examples of Poland, Hungary and East Germany. The regime hit back and there were lurid reports of perhaps 2,000 deaths. On 19 December, the day Kohl was in Dresden, Washington and Moscow independently condemned the ‘brutal violence’.[162] (#litres_trial_promo)

In Bucharest, Ceaușescu, totally out of touch with reality, sought to quell the chaos through a big address to a mass crowd on 21 December, which was also relayed to his country and the world on television. But his show of defiance was hollow. On the balcony of the presidential palace, the great dictator, now seventy-one, looked old, frail, perplexed, rattled – indeed suddenly fallible. Sensing this, the crowd interrupted his halting speech with catcalls, boos and whistles – at one point silencing him for three minutes. The spell had clearly been broken. As soldiers and even some of the Securitate men fraternised with the protestors in the streets, the regime began to implode. Next morning the Ceaușescus were whisked away from the palace roof by helicopter, but they were soon caught, tried by a kangaroo court and shot – or rather, mown down in a fusillade of more than a hundred bullets. Their blood-soaked bodies were then displayed to the eager cameramen.[163] (#litres_trial_promo)

But Romania was 1989’s exception. Everywhere else, regime change had occurred in a remarkably peaceful way. In neighbouring Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov – who boasted thirty-five years in power, longer than anyone else in the bloc – had been toppled on 10 November. Yet the world hardly seemed to notice because the media was mesmerised by the fall of the Wall the night before. In any case, this was simply a palace coup: Zhivkov was replaced by his foreign minister Petar Mladenov. It was only gradually that people power made itself felt. The first street demonstrations in the capital, Sofia, began more than a week later on 18 November, with demands for democracy and free elections. On 7 December, the disparate opposition groups congealed as the so-called Union of Democratic Forces. Under pressure, the authorities decided to make further concessions: Mladenov announced on the 11th that the Communist Party would abandon its monopoly on power and multiparty elections would be held the following spring. Yet the sudden ousting of Zhivkov did not produce any fundamental transfer of power to the people, as in Poland, or a radical reform programme, as in Hungary. Hence the preferred Bulgarian term for 1989: ‘The Change’ (promianata). In a few weeks, the veritable dinosaur of the Warsaw Pact had been quietly consigned to history.[164] (#litres_trial_promo)

Most emblematic of the national revolutions of 1989 was Czechoslovakia. The Czechs witnessed the GDR’s collapse first-hand, as the candy-coloured Trabis chugged through their countryside and the refugees flooded into Prague.

Driving to freedom: Trabis in Czechoslovakia

But their own communist elite had an uncompromisingly hardline reputation and so change came late to Czechoslovakia. Indeed, Miloš Jakeš, the party leader, had rejected any moves for reform from above, as in Hungary and Poland. Yet there was context. Memories of 1968 – only two decades earlier – were still vivid and painful. But then they were galvanised by the scenes at the Berlin Wall on 9–10 November. A week later, on the 17th, the commemoration for a Czech student murdered by the Nazis fifty years before, rapidly escalated into a demonstration against the regime which the police broke up with force. This was the spark. Every day for the next week, the student protests mushroomed – drawing in intellectuals, dissidents and workers and spreading across the country. By the 19th the opposition groups in Prague had formed a ‘Civic Forum’ (in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the movement was called ‘Public against Violence’) and by the 24th they were in talks with the communist government – which was now dominated by moderates after the old guard around Jakeš had resigned. The two key opposition figures – each in his own way deeply symbolic – were the writer Václav Havel, recently released from imprisonment for dissident activities as a key member of the Charter 77 organisation – and the Slovak Alexander Dubček, leader of the Prague Spring in 1968. The formal round-table negotiations took place on 8 and 9 December. The following day President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-communis government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and then stepped down.[165] (#litres_trial_promo)

The pace of change had been breathtaking. On the evening of 23 November Timothy Garton Ash – who had witnessed Poland’s upheavals in June and then the start of Czechoslovakia’s revolution – was chatting to Havel over a beer in the basement of Havel’s favourite pub. The British journalist joked: ‘In Poland it took ten years, in Hungary ten months, in East Germany ten weeks; perhaps in Czechoslovakia it will take ten days!’ Havel grasped his hand, smiling that famous winning smile, summoned a video team who happened to be drinking in the corner, and asked Garton Ash to say it again, on camera. ‘It would be fabulous, if it could be so,’ sighed Havel.[166] (#litres_trial_promo) His scepticism was not unwarranted. Admittedly the revolution took twenty-four days not ten, but on 29 December Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia by the Federal Assembly in the hallowed halls of Prague Castle.

The playwright becomes president: Václav Havel and the Velvet Revolution in Prague

Although this was for the moment a transitional government – free elections would not be held until June 1990 – the transformation was truly profound. This had been a ‘Velvet Revolution’: smooth and swift, on occasion even merry. By comparison with Poland, Hungary and GDR, opposition politics in Prague had been improvised by amateurs – but they had been able to learn from the mistakes of the others, as well as from their successes. And what’s more, revolution in Czechoslovakia came without the pain of deepening economic crisis, with which the new governments in Warsaw and Budapest had to grapple. And so by the New Year, Czechoslovakia found itself firmly on the road towards political democracy and a market economy.[167] (#litres_trial_promo)

So much had changed in only two months. At the start of November 1989, it was still possible in Eastern Europe to imagine a future for communism, albeit in a reformed state. But within weeks no one could doubt that it was in irreversible decline. And by the end of the year ‘those who had come too late’, as Gorbachev put it in East Berlin, had most certainly been punished (Ceaușescu, Zhivkov and Honecker), while those who had never let themselves be silenced (notably Havel and Mazowiecki) had now replaced the leaders they previously denounced.

The fact that Gorbachev presided over these variegated national exits from communism without intervening also allowed Kohl more leeway and gave hope for his mission in 1990: to bring the two Germanies closer to unity. The chancellor set the tone in his New Year message, expressing the aspiration that the coming decade would be ‘the happiest of this century’ for his people – offering ‘the chance of a free and united Germany in a free and united Europe’. That, he said, ‘depended critically on our contribution’. In other words, he was reminding his fellow Germans – so long weighed down by the burden of the past – that they had now been given the opportunity to shape the future.[168] (#litres_trial_promo)

But the new architecture could not be constructed by Germans alone. With the communist glacier in retreat – indeed melting before one’s eyes – and the ascendant Western Europe opening out, the stark, two-bloc structure of Cold War Europe had cracked asunder. The pieces would now have to be put together in a new mosaic and this would require not merely the consent but also the creative engagement of the superpowers.

In other words, Kohl might have had his problems with Mitterrand and especially Thatcher, but they were mere stumbling blocks. When it came to building a new order around a unifying Germany, this could be achieved only by working with Bush and Gorbachev. Yet both these leaders were deeply preoccupied in late 1989 with their own problems: how belatedly, to create an effective personal rapport after their slow, at times frosty, start. And, more than that, how to manage the delicate business of moving beyond the Cold War in the heart of Europe.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_ba28babc-8a69-5b38-9a85-8a54a3516420)

Securing Germany in the Post-Wall World (#ulink_ba28babc-8a69-5b38-9a85-8a54a3516420)

The 3rd of December 1989. It was almost incredible. George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, sitting together in Malta, relaxed and joking, in a joint press conference at the end of their summit meeting. This was a month after the fall of Wall and barely a week after Kohl’s surprise announcement of his Ten-Point Plan in the Bundestag.

Happy days: Bush and Gorbachev on the Maxim Gorky

‘We stand at the threshold of a brand-new era of US–Soviet relations,’ Bush declared. ‘And it is within our grasp to contribute, each in our own way, to overcoming the division of Europe and ending military confrontation there.’ The president was optimistic that together they could ‘realise a lasting peace and transform East–West relations to one of enduring cooperation’. This, said Bush, was ‘the future that Chairman Gorbachev and I began right here in Malta’.[1] (#litres_trial_promo)

The Soviet leader fully agreed. ‘We stated, both of us, that the world leaves one epoch of Cold War and enters another epoch. This is just the beginning. We’re just at the very beginning of our long road to a long-lasting peaceful period.’ Looking ahead he stated bluntly: ‘the new era calls for a new approach … many things that were characteristic of the Cold War should be abandoned’. Among them ‘force, the arms race, mistrust, psychological and ideological struggle … All that should be things of the past.’[2] (#litres_trial_promo)

At Malta, there were no new treaties, not even a communiqué. But the message of the summit was clear – symbolised in this first ever joint press conference of superpower leaders. The Cold War, which had defined international relations for over forty years, seemed to be a thing of the past.

*

A full year had elapsed since these two men last met, at Governors Island, New York, in 1988 when Reagan was still president. Then Bush had assured Gorbachev that he hoped to build on what had been achieved in US–Soviet relations but would need ‘a little time’ to review the issues. That ‘little time’ had turned into twelve months, during which the world had been turned on its head.[3] (#litres_trial_promo)

Bush’s initial diplomatic priority had been to pursue an opening with China, but this was much more difficult post-Tiananmen. It was only after his European tour – the NATO summit in May and his trips to Poland and Hungary in July – that the president really began to grasp the magnitude of change in Europe. With the language of revolution ringing in his ears as he witnessed the bicentennial celebrations of 1789 during the G7 summit in Paris, he decided it was finally time to propose a meeting with Gorbachev to develop a personal relationship in order to manage the growing turmoil. This was a veritable ‘change of heart’ – indeed, as Bush would later admit in Malta, a turn of ‘180 degrees’.[4] (#litres_trial_promo)

The Soviet leader, of course, had always been keen to meet, but it was not possible to agree firmly on date and place until 1 November. And by the time they actually met one month later, the Iron Curtain was a thing of the past: East Germany was dissolving, a palace coup had taken place in Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution was in full swing. Bush worried that political leaders might not be able to control this remarkable revolutionary upsurge. In particular, he feared that Gorbachev could still be pushed into using force to hang on to the bloc and shore up Soviet power. That is why the president resisted the temptation to celebrate the triumph of democracy – to the puzzlement of many Americans, especially in politics and the press. Bush felt it was in the American national interest, first, to help Gorbachev stay in power, given his continued commitment to reform and, second, to keep US troops in Europe to maintain American influence over the continent. With the geopolitical map in flux, a meeting of minds between the superpowers had become vital for the peaceful management of events. That is why he and Gorbachev needed to talk, even if they had no agreements to sign.

Ten days before their encounter, on 22 November, Bush cabled the Soviet leader: ‘I want this meeting to be useful in advancing our mutual understanding and in laying the groundwork for a good relationship.’ More, ‘I want the meeting to be seen as a success.’ He insisted: ‘Success does not mean deals signed, in my view. It means that you and I are frank enough with each other so that our two great countries will not have tensions that arise because we don’t know each other’s innermost thinking.’[5] (#litres_trial_promo)

The two sides had already agreed that it would be a ‘no agenda’ meeting, but the president wanted Gorbachev to have a general idea of what he had in mind. He listed six key topics: Eastern Europe; regional differences (from Central America to Asia); defence spending; visions of the world for the next century; human rights; and arms control. ‘Of course,’ Bush added, ‘you will have your own priorities.’[6] (#litres_trial_promo)

The president clearly sought the freedom to improvise in Malta. This horrified Scowcroft and the NSC staff who had never wanted a summit with no agenda. They feared another Reykjavik, when – so they believed – Reagan had got seduced by Gorbachev. In their eyes it was imperative to save Bush from falling for the Kremlin’s smooth talker who with sweet words like ‘peace’, ‘disarmament’, and ‘cooperation’ had gained a huge cult following in the West. Most of the president’s entourage believed that if Bush could be persuaded to work from a firm agenda based on ‘a package of initiatives on every subject’, that would put Gorbachev on the defensive. And it would help them to keep the president on a tight leash and minimise the dangers – at such a pivotal moment in history – of ill-advised American concessions.[7] (#litres_trial_promo)

Bush and Gorbachev flew to Valletta with their foreign ministers and a few key advisers. Their weekend of talks, held on Saturday and Sunday 2–3 December 1989, were originally intended to move to and fro between an American and a Soviet battle-cruiser. But a massive storm blew up and so the venue was moved to the huge Soviet passenger liner Maxim Gorky, safely moored in Valletta’s great harbour. Even so, the Saturday afternoon and evening sessions had to be cancelled. Bush jotted down in his diary: ‘It’s the damnedest weather you’ve ever seen … the highest seas that they’ve ever had, and it screwed everything up … The ship is rolling like mad … Here we are, the two superpower leaders, several hundred yards apart, and we can’t talk because of the weather.’ Scowcroft recalled: ‘Gorbachev could not reach the Belknap [i.e. the US cruiser] for dinner that evening, so we ate a marvellous meal meant for him – swordfish, lobster, and so forth.’[8] (#litres_trial_promo)

But in spite of the stormy weather, president and general secretary managed to spend most of the two days in calm and fruitful discussion. They clicked right from the start. Bush even approved of Gorbachev’s taste in clothes, noting in his diary: ‘He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit, a cream-coloured white shirt (like the ones I like), a red tie (almost like the one out of the London firm with a sword).’ And, the president added, he had a ‘nice smile’.[9] (#litres_trial_promo)

In the first plenary the Soviet leader proposed that they should develop ‘a dialogue commensurate with the pace of change’ and predicted that, although Malta was officially just the prelude to a full-scale summit the following summer, it would have ‘an importance of its own’. Bush agreed, but he then tried to cut through the standard Gorby grandiloquence. Getting down to brass tacks, he spelled out the specific ‘positive initiatives’ by which he hoped to ‘move forward’ into the 1990 summit.[10] (#litres_trial_promo)

The president assured Gorbachev that he believed the world would be ‘a better place if perestroika succeeds’. To this end, he said he would like to waive the Jackson–Vanik amendment, which since 1974–5 had prohibited open economic relations with the Soviet bloc. Trade negotiations combined with export credits would, he declared, enable the USSR to import the modern technology that it needed. ‘I am not making these suggestions as a bailing out’, Bush insisted, but in a genuine spirit of ‘cooperation’.[11] (#litres_trial_promo)

In similar vein, the president was now ready to act openly as an advocate for Soviet ‘observer status’ in the GATT, ‘so that we can learn together’. He promised to support Moscow’s aspiration, after completion of the latest round of multilateral trade renegotiations – the so-called Uruguay Round – between the 123 contracting members. Joking that the prospect of early Soviet association might even serve as an ‘incentive’ to EC countries to end their ‘fighting’ between themselves and with the USA over the vexed theme of ‘agriculture’, he recommended that meanwhile the Kremlin ‘move toward market prices at wholesale level, so that Eastern and Western economies become somewhat more compatible’. At this point Bush hoped the Uruguay Round would be completed in less than a year.[12] (#litres_trial_promo)

Gorbachev, equally optimistic about his country’s prospects to speedily join in global trade, was keen to ‘get involved in the international financial institutions’. He stressed: ‘We must learn to take the world economy into perestroika.’ And he truly appreciated US ‘willingness to help’ the Soviet Union to open out. But he was also adamant that the Americans should stop suspecting the Soviets of wanting to ‘politicise’ these organisations. Times had changed, he said, averring that both sides had abolished ‘ideology’, so now they should ‘work on new criteria’ together.[13] (#litres_trial_promo)

It wasn’t all sweetness and light, however. The president touched on human rights (and the issue of divided families) before turning to the Cold War hotspots of Cuba and Nicaragua. He told Gorbachev to stop giving Fidel Castro cash and arms. The Cuban leader was ‘exporting revolution’ and exacerbating tensions in Central America, particularly Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama. Prodding Gorbachev, he said that ordinary Americans were asking how the Soviets could ‘put all this money into Cuba and still want credits?’ Finally, Bush moved to the area of arms control, emphasising his hopes for a chemical-weapons agreement, the completion of a conventional forces in Europe (CFE) treaty and strategic arms-reduction treaty (START) in 1990.[14] (#litres_trial_promo)