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150-747: The German Angus was bred in West Germany in the 1950s by cross-breeding imported Aberdeen Angus stock from the United Kingdom with local German breeds; these were the German Black Pied or Deutsches Schwarzbuntes Niederungsrind, the Deutsche Rotbunte or Rotbuntes Niederungsrind, and the Fleckvieh or German Simmental . Since 1960 there has been some intromission of the American Angus . In 1955

300-494: A breed society was established, and in 1956 a herd-book was started. In 2017 the population was recorded as 9603 cows and 454 bulls. The German Angus is solid-coloured, black, brown or red, and is always naturally polled (hornless). Compared to the Fleckvieh it matures earlier, calves much more easily and has a higher calving rate, while the calf mortality rate is much lower. A comparative study of recently-weaned calves of

450-506: A Solidarity member would become prime minister. On 19 August 1989, in a stunning watershed moment, Tadeusz Mazowiecki , an anti-communist editor, Solidarity supporter, and devout Catholic, was nominated as Prime Minister of Poland and the Soviet Union voiced no protest. Five days later, on 24 August 1989, Poland's Parliament ended more than 40 years of one-party rule by making Mazowiecki the country's first non-communist Prime Minister since

600-511: A State of Emergency") and the labour unions . Demonstrations and protests grew in number, and in 1967 the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the head by a policeman. The press, especially the tabloid Bild-Zeitung newspaper, launched a campaign against the protesters. By 1968, a stronger desire to confront the Nazi past had come into being. In the 1970s environmentalism and anti-nationalism became fundamental values among left-wing Germans. As

750-459: A TV press conference, stating that the planned changes were in effect "immediately, without delay," hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of the opportunity. The guards were quickly overwhelmed by the growing crowds of people demanding to be let out into West Berlin. After receiving no feedback from their superiors, the guards, unwilling to use force, relented and opened the gates to West Berlin. Soon new crossing points were forced open in

900-530: A caretaker. However, he ruled for 14 years. The grand statesman of German postwar politics had to be dragged—almost literally—out of office in 1963. In October 1962 the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel published an analysis of the West German military defence. The conclusion was that there were several weaknesses in the system. Ten days after publication, the offices of Der Spiegel in Hamburg were raided by

1050-554: A coalition would be far from a majority. Neither condition changed until 1998. Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German politics, judiciary, society, culture, press and economy of Nazi ideology and personnel following the Second World War . It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence, by disbanding the organizations associated with Nazism, and by trying prominent Nazis for war crimes . The program

1200-516: A country identifier, extending the postal code and as the Internet's country code top-level domain .de . The less widely used ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code of West Germany was DEU, which has remained the country code of reunified Germany. The now deleted codes for East Germany, on the other hand, were DD in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and DDR in ISO 3166-1 alpha-3. The colloquial term West Germany or its equivalent

1350-618: A leading FDP official, became Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister. Schmidt, a strong supporter of the European Community (EC) and the Atlantic alliance, emphasized his commitment to "the political unification of Europe in partnership with the USA". Mounting external problems forced Schmidt to concentrate on foreign policy and limited the domestic reforms that he could carry out. The USSR upgraded its intermediate-range missiles, which Schmidt complained

1500-825: A major role in drafting the antisemitic Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany. In 1957, 77% of the West German Ministry of Justice 's senior officials were former Nazi Party members. In West Germany, most of the political agencies and buildings were located in Bonn, while the German Stock Market was located in Frankfurt which became the economic center. The judicial branch of both the German Federal Constitutional Court ( Bundesverfassungsgericht ) and

1650-755: A member of the subsequently founded Warsaw Pact . The former capital, Berlin , had been divided into four sectors, with the Western Allies joining their sectors to form West Berlin , while the Soviets held East Berlin . West Berlin was completely surrounded by East German territory and had suffered a Soviet blockade in 1948–49, which was overcome by the Berlin airlift . The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 led to U.S. calls to rearm West Germany to help defend Western Europe from

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1800-604: A member. Following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc , symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall , both states took action to achieve German reunification . East Germany voted to dissolve and accede to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990. The five post-war states ( Länder ) were reconstituted, along with the reunited Berlin , which ended its special status and formed an additional Land . They formally joined

1950-739: A memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising crushed by the Germans, Brandt unexpectedly knelt and meditated in silence, a moment remembered as the Kniefall von Warschau . Brandt resigned as chancellor in 1974, after Günter Guillaume , one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi , the East German secret service . Finance Minister Helmut Schmidt (SPD) formed a coalition and he served as Chancellor from 1974 to 1982. Hans-Dietrich Genscher ,

2100-563: A monopoly on power ; namely China , Cuba , Laos , North Korea , and Vietnam . Vietnam, Laos, and China made economic reforms in the following years to adopt some forms of market economy under market socialism . The European political landscape changed drastically, with several former Eastern Bloc countries joining NATO and the European Union , resulting in stronger economic and social integration with Western Europe and North America. Many communist and socialist organisations in

2250-557: A movement that could not be stopped by the rulers in the Eastern Bloc. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The patrons of the picnic, Otto von Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State Imre Pozsgay saw the planned event as an opportunity to test the reaction of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Eastern Bloc countries to a large opening of the border including flight. After

2400-457: A multi-party parliamentary election and a direct presidential election, which took place on 24 March 1990. The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary , guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government. On 23 October 1989, on

2550-572: A new generation of teachers, educated with the findings of historical studies, could begin to reveal the truth about the war and the crimes committed in the name of the German people, one courageous attorney, Fritz Bauer patiently gathered evidence on the guards of the Auschwitz concentration camp and about twenty were put on trial in Frankfurt in 1963. Daily newspaper reports and visits by school classes to

2700-518: A play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe . The Revolutions of 1989 were a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union —one of the two global superpowers —and in the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. These events drastically altered the world's balance of power , marking

2850-601: A result, in 1979 the Greens were able to reach the 5% minimum required to obtain parliamentary seats in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen state election, and with the foundation of the national party in 1980 developed into one of the most politically successful green movements in the world. Another result of the unrest in the 1960s was the founding of the Red Army Faction (RAF). The RAF was active from 1968, carrying out

3000-604: A sovereign state" on 5 May 1955 (although "full sovereignty" was not obtained until the Two Plus Four Agreement in 1990). The former occupying Western troops remained on the ground, now as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which West Germany joined on 9 May 1955, promising to rearm itself soon. West Germany became a focus of the Cold War with its juxtaposition to East Germany ,

3150-454: A special performance. Supporters of the Shah (later known as Jubelperser ), armed with staves and bricks attacked the protesters while the police stood by and watched. A demonstration in the centre was being forcibly dispersed when a bystander named Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the head and killed by a plainclothes policeman. (It has now been established that the policeman, Kurras, was a paid spy of

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3300-531: A stormy session of the Tenth Plenary Session of the ruling United Workers' Party , General Wojciech Jaruzelski , the First Secretary, managed to get party backing for formal negotiations with Solidarity leading to its future legalisation, although this was achieved only by threatening the resignation of the entire party leadership if thwarted. On 6 February 1989 formal Round Table discussions began in

3450-608: A strategically vital ally marked a dramatic change by the Soviet superpower and a fundamental paradigm shift in international relations , which until 1989 had been dominated by the East–West divide running through Berlin itself. The last Russian troops left the territory of the former GDR, now part of a Federal Republic of Germany , on 1 September 1994. The "Velvet Revolution" was a non-violent transition of power in Czechoslovakia from

3600-590: A succession of terrorist attacks in West Germany during the 1970s. Even in the 1990s, attacks were still being committed under the name RAF . The last action took place in 1993, and in 1998 the group announced it was ceasing activities. In the 1969 election, the SPD gained enough votes to form a coalition government with the FDP. SPD leader and Chancellor Willy Brandt remained head of government until May 1974, when he resigned after

3750-532: A whole despite the Soviets declaring the end of occupation of East Berlin unilaterally many decades before). The Two-plus-Four Agreement also saw the two parts of Germany confirm their post-war external boundaries as final and irreversible (including the 1945 transfer of former German lands east of the Oder–Neisse line ), and the Allied Powers confirmed their consent to German Reunification. From 3 October 1990, after

3900-483: A younger generation of Soviet apparatchiks , led by Gorbachev, began advocating fundamental reform in order to reverse years of Brezhnev stagnation . After decades of growth, the Soviet Union was now facing a period of severe economic decline and needed Western technology and credits to make up for its increasing backwardness. The costs of maintaining its military, the KGB , and subsidies to foreign client states further strained

4050-494: Is considered by many as the formal end of the communist People's Republic of Poland and the start of the modern Republic of Poland . The Warsaw Pact was dissolved on 1 July 1991. On 27 October 1991 the first entirely free Polish parliamentary elections since 1945 took place. This completed Poland's transition from communist Party rule to a Western-style liberal democratic political system. The last Russian troops left Poland on 18 September 1993. Following Poland's lead, Hungary

4200-584: Is difficult to establish the total economic cost of the disaster. According to Gorbachev, the Soviet Union spent 18 billion roubles (the equivalent of US$ 18 billion at that time) on containment and decontamination, virtually bankrupting itself. Throughout the mid-1980s, Solidarity persisted solely as an underground organization, supported by the Catholic Church. However, by the late 1980s, Solidarity became sufficiently strong to frustrate Jaruzelski's attempts at reform, and nationwide strikes in 1988 forced

4350-591: Is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic (German: Bonner Republik ) after its capital city of Bonn . During the Cold War , the western portion of Germany and the associated territory of West Berlin were parts of the Western Bloc . West Germany was formed as a political entity during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II , established from 12 states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by

4500-609: The Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR; German Democratic Republic; commonly known as East Germany). Reunification was achieved by accession ( Beitritt ) of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany, so Bundesrepublik Deutschland became the official name of reunified Germany. In East Germany, the terms Westdeutschland (West Germany) or westdeutsche Bundesrepublik (West German Federal Republic) were preferred during

4650-1083: The Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDSz), the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), the Independent Smallholders' Party , the Hungarian People's Party , the Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Society, and the Democratic Trade Union of Scientific Workers. At a later stage the Democratic Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) were invited. At these talks a number of Hungary's future political leaders emerged, including László Sólyom , József Antall , György Szabad , Péter Tölgyessy and Viktor Orbán . On 2 May 1989,

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4800-498: The Berlin Wall by the people, and sections of the wall were literally torn down. The guards were unaware of what was happening and stood by as the East Germans took to the wall with hammers and chisels. On 7 November, the entire Ministerrat der DDR ( State Council of East Germany ), including its chairman Willi Stoph , resigned. A new government was formed under a considerably more liberal communist, Hans Modrow . On 1 December,

4950-527: The Constitution , establishment of a Constitutional Court , the functioning and management of political parties, multiparty elections for National Assembly deputies, the penal code and the law on penal procedures. The last two changes represented an additional separation of the Party from the state apparatus. The electoral system was a compromise: about half of the deputies would be elected proportionally and half by

5100-611: The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic issued a declaration of sovereignty , which would eventually lead to other states making similar declarations of autonomy. The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 had major political and social effects that catalyzed or at least partially caused the Revolutions of 1989. One political result of the disaster was the greatly increased significance of the new Soviet policy of glasnost. It

5250-658: The GDR denied travel to Hungary, leaving Czechoslovakia as the only neighboring state to which East Germans could escape. Thousands of East Germans tried to reach the West by occupying the West German diplomatic facilities in other Central and Eastern European capitals, notably the Prague Embassy and the Hungarian Embassy, where thousands camped in the muddy garden from August to November waiting for German political reform. The GDR closed

5400-618: The Guillaume affair , in which a senior member of his staff was uncovered as a spy for the East German intelligence service, the Stasi . However, the affair is widely considered to have been merely a trigger for Brandt's resignation, not a fundamental cause. Instead, Brandt, dogged by scandal relating to alcohol and depression as well as the economic fallout of the 1973 oil crisis , almost seems simply to have had enough. As Brandt himself later said, "I

5550-623: The London and Paris Conferences , the Brussels Treaty was modified to include West Germany, and to form the Western European Union (WEU). West Germany was to be permitted to rearm (an idea many Germans rejected), and have full sovereign control of its military, called the Bundeswehr . The WEU, however, would regulate the size of the armed forces permitted to each of its member states. Also,

5700-480: The Red Brigades ( Brigate Rosse ), many students went to work in the factories, but with little or no success. The most notorious of the underground groups was the Red Army Faction which began by making bank raids to finance their activities and eventually went underground having killed a number of policemen, several bystanders and eventually two prominent West Germans, whom they had taken captive in order to force

5850-573: The Republic of Baden , which had derived ultimately from former independent German kingdoms and principalities. In the dominant post-war narrative of West Germany, the Nazi regime was characterised as having been a 'criminal' state, illegal and illegitimate from the outset; while the Weimar Republic was characterised as having been a 'failed' state, whose inherent institutional and constitutional flaws had been exploited by Hitler in his illegal seizure of dictatorial powers. Consequently, following

6000-586: The Saarland joined West Germany as a state in 1957 after it had been separated as the Saar Protectorate from Allied-occupied Germany by France (the separation had been not legal as it had not been recognized by the Allied Control Council ). In addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto eleventh state. While de jure not part of West Germany, for Berlin

6150-573: The United People's Party (ZSL) and the Democratic Party (SD), broke their alliance with the PZPR and announced their support for Solidarity. The last communist Prime Minister of Poland, General Czesław Kiszczak , said he would resign to allow a non-communist to form an administration. As Solidarity was the only other political grouping that could possibly form a government, it was virtually assured that

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6300-447: The Volkskammer removed the SED's leading role from the constitution of the GDR . On 3 December Krenz resigned as leader of the SED; he resigned as head of state three days later. On 7 December, Round Table talks opened between the SED and other political parties. On 16 December 1989, the SED was dissolved and refounded as the SED-PDS , abandoning Marxism–Leninism and becoming a mainstream democratic socialist party. On 15 January 1990,

6450-485: The West turned their guiding principles over to social democracy and democratic socialism . In contrast, and somewhat later, in South America, a pink tide began in Venezuela in 1999 and shaped politics in the other parts of the continent through the early 2000s. Meanwhile, in certain countries the aftermath of these revolutions resulted in conflict and wars, including various post-Soviet conflicts that remain frozen to this day as well as large-scale wars, most notably

6600-401: The Yugoslav Wars which led to the Bosnian genocide in 1995 . Labour turmoil in Poland during 1980 led to the formation of the independent trade union Solidarity , led by Lech Wałęsa , which over time became a political force, nevertheless, on 13 December 1981, Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski started a crackdown on Solidarity by declaring martial law in Poland , suspending

6750-555: The constitution . The South African apartheid , the Pinochet military dictatorship in Chile , and the Suharto regime in Indonesia were gradually declining during the 1990s as the West withdrew their funding and diplomatic support. The First Intifada against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occurred, giving rise of militant movement Hamas . Dictatorships such as Argentina , Ghana , Paraguay , Suriname , Republic of China and North - South Yemen , among others, elected democratic governments. Exact tallies of

6900-409: The end of communist rule , splitting peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993. North Korea abandoned Marxism–Leninism in 1992. The Cold War is considered to have "officially" ended on 3 December 1989 during the Malta Summit between the Soviet and American leaders. However, many historians argue that the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 was the end of

7050-486: The president . In 1987, the South Korean June Democratic Struggle against the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan occurred after Roh Tae-woo was designated as Chun's successor without a direct election. Not wanting to escalate violence before the 1988 Summer Olympics being hosted in Seoul next year, the government made concessions with the protestors demands , including free elections, amnesty to political prisoners, restoring press freedom and revisions to

7200-415: The "Two-plus-Four Agreement"); by which transitional status of Germany following World War II was definitively ended and the Four Allied powers relinquished their joint residual sovereign authority for Germany as a whole including the area of West Berlin which had officially remained under Allied occupation for the purposes of international and GDR law (a status that the Western countries applied to Berlin as

7350-436: The 'overall' German state that was held to have embodied the unified German people since the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848, and which from 1871 had been represented within the German Reich ; albeit that this overall state had become effectively dormant long before 8 May 1945. In 1949 with the continuation and aggravation of the Cold War (for example, the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49), the two German states that had originated in

7500-444: The 1950s and 1960s. This changed under its constitutional amendment in 1974, when the idea of a single German nation was abandoned by East Germany. As a result, it officially considered West Germans and West Berliners as foreigners. The initialism BRD (FRG in English) began to prevail in East German usage in the early 1970s, beginning in the newspaper Neues Deutschland . Other Eastern Bloc nations soon followed suit. In 1965,

7650-420: The 1956 Hungarian uprising, was executed illegally after a show trial. On 16 June 1989 Nagy was given a solemn funeral on Budapest's largest square in front of crowds of at least 100,000, followed by a hero's burial. The initially inconspicuous opening of a border gate of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which the GDR no longer existed and

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7800-422: The 33rd anniversary of the 1956 Revolution, the communist regime in Hungary was formally abolished. The Soviet military occupation of Hungary , which had persisted since World War II, ended on 19 June 1991. On 2 May 1989, Hungary started dismantling its barbed-wire border with Austria . The border was still heavily guarded, but it was a political sign. The Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 finally started

7950-423: The Allies stationed troops within West Germany for NATO defense, pursuant to stationing and status-of-forces agreements. With the exception of 55,000 French troops, Allied forces were under NATO's joint defense command. (France withdrew from the collective military command structure of NATO in 1966.) Konrad Adenauer was 73 years old when he became chancellor in 1949, and for this reason he was initially reckoned as

8100-433: The Atlantic alliance, emphasized his commitment to "the political unification of Europe in partnership with the USA". The goals of SPD and FDP however drifted apart in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On 1 October 1982 the FDP joined forces with the CDU/CSU to elect CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl as Chancellor in a constructive vote of no confidence . Following national elections in March 1983, Kohl emerged in firm control of both

8250-464: The Auschwitz trial reverberated decades later. The calling in question of the actions and policies of government led to a new climate of debate. The issues of emancipation, colonialism, environmentalism and grass roots democracy were discussed at all levels of society. In 1979 the environmental party, the Greens, reached the 5% limit required to obtain parliamentary seats in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen provincial election. Also of great significance

8400-469: The Berlin Wall in November 1989, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990. One feature common to most of these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance , demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to pressure for change. Romania was the only country in which citizens and opposition forces used violence to overthrow its communist regime , although Romania

8550-840: The Cold War. The impact of these events were felt in many third world socialist states throughout the world. Concurrently with events in Poland, protests in Tiananmen Square (April–June 1989) failed to stimulate major political changes in Mainland China , but influential images of resistance during that protest helped to precipitate events in other parts of the globe. Three Asian countries, namely Afghanistan , Cambodia and Mongolia , had abandoned communism by 1992–1993, either through reform or conflict. Eight countries in Africa or its environs also abandoned it, namely Ethiopia , Angola , Benin , Congo-Brazzaville , Mozambique , Somalia , as well as South Yemen , unified with North Yemen . Political reforms varied, but in only five countries were Marxist-Leninist communist parties able to retain

8700-404: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on 28 November 1989 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single-party state. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. On 10 December, President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948 and resigned. Alexander Dubček

8850-493: The EDC while maintaining independent control of their own armed forces. Though the EDC treaty was signed (May 1952), it never entered into force. France's Gaullists rejected it on the grounds that it threatened national sovereignty, and when the French National Assembly refused to ratify it (August 1954), the treaty died. The French Gaullists and communists had killed the French government's proposal. Then other means had to be found to allow West German rearmament. In response, at

9000-400: The East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West." With the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Now tens of thousands of

9150-479: The East German security forces.) Protest demonstrations continued, and calls for more active opposition by some groups of students were made, which was declared by the press, especially the tabloid Bild -Zeitung newspaper, as a massive disruption to life in Berlin, in a massive campaign against the protesters. Protests against the US intervention in Vietnam , mingled with anger over the vigour with which demonstrations were repressed led to mounting militance among

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9300-427: The Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The idea of opening the border came from Otto von Habsburg and was brought up by him to Miklós Németh , who promoted the idea. The local organization in Sopron took over the Hungarian Democratic Forum, the other contacts were made via Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay . Extensive advertising for

9450-440: The Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany. The expanded Federal Republic retained West Germany's political culture and continued its existing memberships in international organisations, as well as its Western foreign policy alignment and affiliation to Western alliances like NATO and the European Union. The official German reunification ceremony on 3 October 1990

9600-447: The Federal Republic subject to the terms of the Unification Treaty between the two states; and then both West Germany and East Germany radically amended their respective constitutions in accordance with that Treaty's provisions. East Germany then dissolved itself, and its five post-war states ( Länder ) were reconstituted, along with the reunited Berlin which ended its special status and formed an additional Land . They formally joined

9750-440: The Free Democratic Party (FDP) in order to lay the groundwork for an eventual return to power. Although this effort was exposed and disrupted, many former Nazis still attained positions of power and influence in the political system. West German President (1974–1979) Walter Scheel and Chancellor (1966–1969) Kurt Georg Kiesinger were both former members of the Nazi Party. Konrad Adenauer's State Secretary Hans Globke had played

9900-432: The GDR by the Warsaw Pact would restore the communist government and suppress the civilian protests. By 1989, the Soviet government deemed it impractical for the Soviet Union to continue asserting its control over the Eastern Bloc, so it took a neutral stance regarding the events happening in East Germany. Soviet troops stationed in eastern Europe were under strict instructions from the Soviet leadership not to intervene in

10050-494: The German Democratic Republic. The expanded Federal Republic retained West Germany's political culture and continued its existing memberships in international organisations, as well as its Western foreign policy alignment and affiliation to Western alliances such as the United Nations, NATO, OECD , and the European Economic Community . Before reunification, Germany was divided between the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; commonly known as West Germany) and

10200-402: The German constitution prohibited any military action, except in the case of an external attack against Germany or its allies ( Bündnisfall ). Also, Germans could reject military service on grounds of conscience, and serve for civil purposes instead. The three Western Allies retained occupation powers in Berlin and certain responsibilities for Germany as a whole. Under the new arrangements,

10350-419: The Hall of Columns in Warsaw. On 4 April 1989 the historic Round Table Agreement was signed legalising Solidarity and setting up partly free parliamentary elections to be held on 4 June 1989, incidentally, the day following the midnight massacre of Chinese protesters in Tiananmen Square. A political earthquake followed as the victory of Solidarity surpassed all predictions. Solidarity candidates captured all

10500-403: The Parliament adopted a "democracy package", which included trade union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and a radical revision of the constitution, among other provisions. On 29 January 1989, contradicting the official view of history held for more than 30 years, a member of the ruling Politburo, Imre Pozsgay , declared that Hungary's 1956 rebellion

10650-528: The Sejm amended the constitution to change the official name of the country from the People's Republic of Poland to the Republic of Poland. The communist Polish United Workers' Party dissolved itself on 29 January 1990 and transformed itself into the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland . In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's president and was succeeded by Wałęsa, who won the 1990 presidential elections held in two rounds on 25 November and 9 December. Wałęsa's inauguration as president on 21 December 1990

10800-467: The Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Now tens of thousands of the media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. By the end of September 1989, more than 30,000 East Germans had escaped to the West before

10950-600: The Soviet-era constitution . The main region of these revolutions was Central Europe , starting in Poland with the Polish workers' mass-strike movement in 1988 , and the revolutionary trend continued in Hungary , East Germany , Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , and Romania . On 4 June 1989, Poland's Solidarity trade union won an overwhelming victory in partially free elections , leading to

11100-587: The Stasi's headquarters was stormed by protesters. Modrow became the de facto leader of East Germany until free elections were held on 18 March 1990 —the first since November 1932 . The SED, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism , was heavily defeated. Lothar de Maizière of the East German Christian Democratic Union became prime minister on 4 April 1990 on a platform of speedy reunification with

11250-533: The State Counsel Siegfried Buback . In October 1969 Willy Brandt became chancellor. He maintained West Germany's close alignment with the United States and focused on strengthening European integration in western Europe, while launching the new policy of Ostpolitik aimed at improving relations with Eastern Europe. Brandt was controversial on both the right wing, for his Ostpolitik , and on

11400-562: The United States, the United Kingdom, and France. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided between the Western and Eastern blocs . Germany was divided into the two countries. Initially, West Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, representing itself as the sole democratically reorganised continuation of the 1871–1945 German Reich . Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, and

11550-585: The West German Federal Minister of All-German Affairs , Erich Mende , had issued the "Directives for the Appellation of Germany", recommending avoiding the initialism BRD. On 31 May 1974, the heads of West German federal and state governments recommended always using the full name in official publications. From then on, West German sources avoided the abbreviated form, with the exception of left-leaning organizations which embraced it. In November 1979,

11700-547: The West. On 15 March 1990, a peace treaty was signed between the two countries of Germany and the four Allies, to replace the Potsdam Agreement of 1 August 1945 after World War II to return full sovereignty to Germany, which facilitated the reunification. The two German countries were reunified into present-day Germany on 3 October 1990, solving the German problem of two states status, which had existed since 7 October 1949. The Kremlin's willingness to abandon such

11850-786: The Western Allied and the Soviet Zones respectively became known internationally as West Germany and East Germany. Commonly known in English as East Germany , the former Soviet occupation zone in Germany , eventually became the German Democratic Republic or GDR . In 1990 West Germany and East Germany jointly signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (also known as

12000-493: The biggest protest the GDR ever witnessed. Unable to stem the ensuing flow of refugees to the West through Czechoslovakia, the East German authorities eventually caved in to public pressure by allowing East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany directly, via existing border points, on 9 November 1989, without having properly briefed the border guards. Triggered by the erratic words of regime spokesman Günter Schabowski in

12150-501: The border to Czechoslovakia on 3 October, thereby isolating itself from all its neighbors. Having been shut off from their last chance for escape, an increasing number of East Germans participated in the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig on 4, 11, and 18 September, each attracting 1,200 to 1,500 demonstrators. Many were arrested and beaten, but the people refused to be intimidated. On 25 September,

12300-453: The boundaries of Germany as at 31 December 1937 would be chosen as demarcating German national territory from German-occupied territory; all German annexations after 1937 were automatically null. Subsequently, and into the 1970s, the West German state was to maintain that these 1937 boundaries continued to be 'valid in international law', although the Allies had already agreed amongst themselves that

12450-623: The case of the territory of Kaliningrad) civil administration, their Polish and Soviet status to be confirmed at a final Peace Treaty. Following wartime commitments by the Allies to the governments-in-exile of Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Potsdam Protocols also agreed to the 'orderly and humane' transfer to Germany as a whole of the ethnic German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Eight million German expellees and refugees eventually settled in West Germany. Between 1946 and 1949, three of

12600-457: The circulation of Soviet publications that it viewed as subversive. In spite of rumors that the communists were planning a massacre on 9 October, 70,000 citizens demonstrated in Leipzig that Monday and the authorities on the ground refused to open fire. The following Monday, 16 October 120,000 people demonstrated on the streets of Leipzig. Erich Honecker had hoped that the Soviet troops stationed in

12750-569: The communist government to a parliamentary republic. On 17 November 1989, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration in Prague, a day after a similar demonstration passed without incident in Bratislava. Although controversy continues over whether anyone died that night, that event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from 19 November to late December. By 20 November the number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague had swelled from 200,000

12900-533: The court that they regarded their action as a legitimate act in what they described as the "struggle against imperialism". The student movement began to split into different factions, ranging from the unattached liberals to the Maoists and supporters of direct action in every form—the anarchists. Several groups set as their objective the aim of radicalising the industrial workers and taking an example from activities in Italy of

13050-539: The death of Hitler in 1945 and the subsequent capitulation of the German Armed Forces, the national political, judicial, administrative, and constitutional instruments of both Nazi Germany and the Weimar Republic were understood as entirely defunct, such that a new West Germany could be established in a condition of constitutional nullity. Nevertheless, the new West Germany asserted its fundamental continuity with

13200-581: The early postwar years. In a tense Parliament, Mazowiecki received 378 votes, with 4 against and 41 abstentions. On 13 September 1989, a new non-communist government was approved by parliament, the first of its kind in the Eastern Bloc . On 17 November 1989, the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky , Polish founder of the Cheka and symbol of communist oppression, was torn down in Bank Square, Warsaw . On 29 December 1989

13350-460: The end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era . The earliest recorded protests to be part of the Revolutions of 1989 began in Kazakhstan , then part of the Soviet Union, in 1986, with student demonstrations , and the last chapter of the revolutions ended in 1996, when Ukraine abolished the Soviet political system of government, adopting a new constitution which replaced

13500-612: The entry into the Bundestag of the Greens , who received 5.6% of the vote. In January 1987 the Kohl–Genscher government was returned to office, but the FDP and the Greens gained at the expense of the larger parties. Kohl's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, slipped from 48.8% of the vote in 1983 to 44.3%. The SPD fell to 37%; long-time SPD Chairman Brandt subsequently resigned in April 1987 and

13650-506: The federal government informed the Bundestag that the West German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF had agreed to refuse to use the initialism. The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code of West Germany was DE (for Deutschland , Germany), which has remained the country code of Germany after reunification. ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are the most widely used country codes, and the DE code is notably used as

13800-401: The federal republic on 3 October 1990, raising the total number of states from ten to sixteen, and ending the division of Germany. The reunited Germany is the direct continuation of the state previously informally called West Germany and not a new state, as the process was essentially a voluntary act of accession: the Federal Republic of Germany was enlarged to include the additional six states of

13950-645: The first visible cracks in the Iron Curtain appeared when Hungary began dismantling its 240-kilometre (150 mi) long border fence with Austria. This increasingly destabilized East Germany and Czechoslovakia over the summer and autumn, as thousands of their citizens illegally crossed over to the West through the Hungarian-Austrian border. On 1 June 1989 the Communist Party admitted that former prime minister Imre Nagy , hanged for treason for his role in

14100-475: The following Monday's demonstration on 9 October. On 6 and 7 October, Mikhail Gorbachev visited East Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, and urged the East German leadership to accept reform. A famous quote of his is rendered in German as "Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft das Leben" ("The one who comes too late is punished by life."). However, Honecker remained opposed to internal reform, with his regime going so far as forbidding

14250-544: The force of liberalization spreading from the east, other Eastern Bloc countries remained openly skeptical and demonstrated aversion to reform. Believing Gorbachev's reform initiatives would be short-lived, hardline communist rulers like East Germany 's Erich Honecker , Bulgaria 's Todor Zhivkov , Czechoslovakia 's Gustáv Husák and Romania 's Nicolae Ceaușescu obstinately ignored the calls for change. "When your neighbor puts up new wallpaper, it doesn't mean you have to too," declared one East German politburo member. By

14400-465: The government and the CDU. The CDU/CSU fell just short of an absolute majority, because of the entry into the Bundestag of the Greens, who received 5.6% of the vote. In January 1987 the Kohl–Genscher government was returned to office, but the FDP and the Greens gained at the expense of the larger parties. The Social Democrats concluded that not only were the Greens unlikely to form a coalition, but also that such

14550-486: The government to open dialogue with Solidarity. On 9 March 1989, both sides agreed to a bicameral legislature called the National Assembly . The already existing Sejm would become the lower house. The Senate would be elected by the people. Traditionally a ceremonial office, the presidency was given more powers ( Polish Round Table Agreement ). On 7 July 1989, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev implicitly renounced

14700-457: The government, demanding the resignation of Franz Josef Strauss , Defence Minister, who had decidedly overstepped his competence during the crisis. Adenauer was still wounded by his brief run for president, and this episode damaged his reputation even further. He announced that he would step down in the fall of 1963. His successor was to be Ludwig Erhard. In the early 1960s, the rate of economic growth slowed down significantly. In 1962 growth rate

14850-561: The highest Court of Appeals, were located in Karlsruhe . Revolutions of 1989 The Revolutions of 1989 , also known as the Fall of Communism , were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. This revolutionary wave is sometimes referred to as the Autumn of Nations ,

15000-488: The introduction of new emergency acts : the grand coalition gave the ruling parties the two-thirds majority of votes required for their ratification. These controversial acts allowed basic constitutional rights such as freedom of movement to be limited in case of a state of emergency. During the time leading up to the passing of the laws, there was fierce opposition to them, above all by the Free Democratic Party ,

15150-577: The larger cities, especially in West Berlin, where homosexuality had been widely accepted during the twenties in the Weimar Republic. Anger over the treatment of demonstrators following the death of Benno Ohnesorg and the attack on Rudi Dutschke, coupled with growing frustration over the lack of success in achieving their aims led to growing militance among students and their supporters. In May 1968, three young people set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt; they were brought to trial and made very clear to

15300-732: The late 1980s, people in the Caucasus and Baltic states were demanding more autonomy from Moscow , and the Kremlin was losing some of its control over certain regions and elements in the Soviet Union . Cracks in the Soviet system had begun in December 1986 in Kazakhstan when its citizens protested over an ethnic Russian who had been appointed as the secretary of the CPSU's Kazakh republican branch . These protests were put down after three days. In November 1988,

15450-582: The left wing, for his support of American policies, including the Vietnam War , and right-wing authoritarian regimes. The Brandt Report became a recognised measure for describing the general North-South divide in world economics and politics between an affluent North and a poor South. Brandt was also known for his fierce anti-communist policies at the domestic level, culminating in the Radikalenerlass (Anti-Radical Decree) in 1972. In 1970, while visiting

15600-514: The majoritarian system. A weak presidency was agreed upon. No consensus was attained on who should elect the president, the parliament or the people, and when this election should occur, before or after parliamentary elections. On 7 October 1989, the Communist Party, at its last congress, re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party . In a historic session from 16 to 20 October, the parliament adopted legislation providing for

15750-458: The media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. In particular, the leadership of the GDR in East Berlin no longer dared to completely block the borders of their own country. The Round Table agreement of 18 September encompassed six draft laws that covered an overhaul of

15900-555: The moribund Soviet economy . Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and came to power in 1985. The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of glasnost (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for perestroika (economic restructuring). By the spring of 1989, the Soviet Union had not only experienced lively media debate but had also held its first multi-candidate elections in

16050-516: The most memorable sessions of parliament, the Bundestag concluded on 20 June 1991, with quite a slim majority, that both government and parliament should move to Berlin from Bonn . Political life in West Germany was remarkably stable and orderly. The Adenauer era (1949–63) was followed by a brief period under Ludwig Erhard (1963–66) who, in turn, was replaced by Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966–69). All governments between 1949 and 1966 were formed by

16200-550: The newly established Congress of People's Deputies . While glasnost ostensibly advocated openness and political criticism, these were only permitted within a narrow spectrum dictated by the state. The general public in the Eastern Bloc was still subject to secret police and political repression . Gorbachev urged his Central and Southeast European counterparts to imitate perestroika and glasnost in their own countries. However, while reformists in Hungary and Poland were emboldened by

16350-569: The number of democracies vary depending on the criteria used for assessment, but by some measures by the late 1990s there were well over 100 democracies in the world, a marked increase in just a few decades. A wave of strikes hit Poland from 21 April then this continued in May 1988. A second wave began on 15 August, when a strike broke out at the July Manifesto coal mine in Jastrzębie-Zdrój , with

16500-611: The occupation zones began to merge. First, the British and American zones were combined into the quasi-state of Bizonia . Soon afterwards, the French zone was included into Trizonia . Conversely, the Soviet zone became East Germany . At the same time, new federal states ( Länder ) were formed in the Allied zones; replacing the geography of pre-Nazi German states such as the Free State of Prussia and

16650-532: The pan-European picnic, Erich Honecker dictated the Daily Mirror of 19 August 1989: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food, and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West." But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of

16800-406: The peaceful fall of communism in Poland . Also in June 1989, Hungary began dismantling its section of the physical Iron Curtain . In August 1989, the opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, in which the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. This led to mass demonstrations in cities of East Germany such as Leipzig and subsequently to the fall of

16950-535: The perceived Soviet threat. Germany's partners in the European Coal and Steel Community proposed to establish a European Defence Community (EDC), with an integrated army, navy and air force, composed of the armed forces of its member states. The West German military would be subject to complete EDC control, but the other EDC member states ( Belgium , France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands ) would cooperate in

17100-538: The planned picnic was made by posters and flyers among the GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. The Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union , which was then headed by Karl von Habsburg , distributed thousands of brochures inviting them to a picnic near the border at Sopron. After the pan-European picnic, Erich Honecker dictated the Daily Mirror of 19 August 1989: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which

17250-477: The police and quantities of documents were seized. Chancellor Adenauer proclaimed in the Bundestag that the article was tantamount to high treason and that the authors would be prosecuted. The editor/owner of the magazine, Rudolf Augstein spent some time in jail before the public outcry over the breaking of laws on freedom of the press became too loud to be ignored. The FDP members of Adenauer's cabinet resigned from

17400-449: The political affairs of the Eastern Bloc nations, and remained in their barracks. Faced with ongoing civil unrest, the SED deposed Honecker on 18 October and replaced him with the number-two-man in the regime, Egon Krenz . However, the demonstrations kept growing. On Monday, 23 October, the Leipzig protesters numbered 300,000, and remained as large the following week. The border to Czechoslovakia

17550-464: The previous day to an estimated half-million. Five days later, the Letná Square protest held 800,000 people. On 24 November, the entire Communist Party leadership, including general secretary Miloš Jakeš , resigned. A two-hour general strike, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was successfully held on 27 November. With the collapse of other communist governments, and increasing street protests,

17700-625: The prime cause of the violence against students. Trucks carrying newspapers were set on fire and windows in office buildings broken. In the wakes of these demonstrations, in which the question of America's role in Vietnam began to play a bigger role, came a desire among the students to find out more about the role of the parent-generation in the Nazi era. The proceedings of the War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg had been widely publicised in Germany but until

17850-461: The proceedings revealed to the German public the nature of the concentration camp system and it became evident that the Shoah was of vastly greater dimensions than the German population had believed. (The term "Holocaust" for the systematic mass-murder of Jews first came into use in 1979, when a 1978 American mini-series with that name was shown on West German television.) The processes set in motion by

18000-465: The protests attracted 8,000 demonstrators. After the fifth successive Monday demonstration in Leipzig on 2 October attracted 10,000 protesters, Socialist Unity Party (SED) leader Erich Honecker issued a shoot and kill order to the military. Communists prepared a huge police, militia, Stasi , and work-combat troop presence, and there were rumors a Tiananmen Square-style massacre was being planned for

18150-532: The reformation of the GDR's Länder , the East German states and East Berlin joined the Federal Republic . With territories and frontiers that coincided largely with the ones of old Middle Ages East Francia and the 19th-century Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine , the Federal Republic of Germany was founded on 23 May 1949 under the terms of the Bonn–Paris conventions , whereby it obtained "the full authority of

18300-404: The release of prisoners sympathetic to their ideas. In the 1990s attacks were still being committed under the name "RAF". The last action took place in 1993 and the group announced it was giving up its activities in 1998. Evidence that the groups had been infiltrated by German Intelligence undercover agents has since emerged, partly through the insistence of the son of one of their prominent victims,

18450-605: The rising West German student movement , a group calling itself Notstand der Demokratie ("Democracy in Crisis") and members of the Campaign against Nuclear Armament. A key event in the development of open democratic debate occurred in 1967, when the Shah of Iran , Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , visited West Berlin. Several thousand demonstrators gathered outside the Opera House where he was to attend

18600-438: The ruling parties the two-thirds majority of votes required to see them in. These controversial acts allowed basic constitutional rights such as freedom of movement to be limited in case of a state of emergency . Leading up to the passing of the laws, there was fierce opposition to them, above all by the FDP, the rising German student movement , a group calling itself Notstand der Demokratie  [ de ] ("Democracy in

18750-511: The seats they were allowed to compete for in the Sejm . In the Senate they captured 99 out of the 100 available seats, with the one remaining seat taken by an independent candidate. At the same time, many prominent communist candidates failed to gain even the minimum number of votes required to capture the seats that were reserved for them. On 15 August 1989, the communists' two longtime coalition partners,

18900-537: The students at the universities in Berlin. One of the most prominent campaigners was a young man from East Germany called Rudi Dutschke who also criticised the forms of capitalism that were to be seen in West Berlin. Just before Easter 1968, a young man tried to kill Dutschke as he bicycled to the student union, seriously injuring him. All over West Germany, thousands demonstrated against the Springer newspapers which were seen as

19050-464: The subsequent Potsdam Agreement , the four Allied Powers asserted joint sovereignty over "Germany as a whole", defined as the totality of the territory within the occupation zones. Former German areas east of the rivers Oder and Neisse and outside of 'Germany as a whole' were officially separated from German sovereignty in August 1945 and transferred from Soviet military occupation to Polish and Soviet (in

19200-613: The territories east of the Oder-Neisse line must be transferred to Poland and the Soviet Union in any peace agreement. The conference agreed that post-war Germany, minus these transfers, would be divided into four occupation zones : a French Zone in the far west; a British Zone in the northwest; an American Zone in the south; and a Soviet Zone in the East. Berlin was separately divided into four zones. These divisions were not intended to dismember Germany, only to designate zones of administration. By

19350-518: The two breeds found the German Angus to be more easily handled and more placid. It is larger and leaner than the original Scots Angus. The German Angus is reared principally for beef . It may also be used in vegetation management . West Germany in Europe  (dark grey) in Europe  (dark grey) West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It

19500-402: The union, and temporarily imprisoning all of its leaders. Although several Eastern Bloc countries had attempted some abortive, limited economic and political reform since the 1950s (e.g. the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and Prague Spring of 1968), the ascension of reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 signaled the trend toward greater liberalization . During the mid-1980s,

19650-428: The united caucus of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU), either alone or in coalition with the smaller Free Democratic Party (FDP) or other right-wing parties. Kiesinger's 1966–69 "Grand Coalition" was between West Germany's two largest parties, the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This was important for the introduction of new emergency acts—the Grand Coalition gave

19800-469: The use of force against other Soviet-bloc nations. Speaking to members of the 23-nation Council of Europe, Mr. Gorbachev made no direct reference to the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine , under which Moscow had asserted the right to use force to prevent a Warsaw Pact member from leaving the communist fold. He stated, "Any interference in domestic affairs and any attempts to restrict the sovereignty of states—friends, allies or any others—are inadmissible". The policy

19950-464: The workers demanding the re-legalisation of the Solidarity trade union. Over the next few days, sixteen other mines went on strike followed by a number of shipyards, including on 22 August the Gdansk Shipyard , famous as the epicentre of the 1980 industrial unrest that spawned Solidarity. On 31 August 1988 Lech Wałęsa , the leader of Solidarity, was invited to Warsaw by the communist authorities, who had finally agreed to talks. On 18 January 1989, at

20100-432: The world's second-largest economy. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer , who remained in office until 1963, worked for a full alignment with the NATO rather than neutrality, and secured membership in the military alliance. Adenauer was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union . When the G6 was established in 1975, there was no serious debate as to whether West Germany would become

20250-453: The year, while the Baltic states regained their independence in September 1991 along with Ukraine , Georgia , Azerbaijan and Armenia . The rest of the Soviet Union, which constituted the bulk of the area, continued with the establishment of the Russian Federation . Albania and Yugoslavia abandoned communism between 1990 and 1992, by which time Yugoslavia had split into five new countries . Czechoslovakia dissolved three years after

20400-409: Was 4.7% and the following year, 2.0%. After a brief recovery, the growth rate slowed again into a recession, with no growth in 1967. A new coalition was formed to deal with this problem. Erhard stepped down in 1966 and was succeeded by Kurt Georg Kiesinger . He led a grand coalition between West Germany's two largest parties, the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This was important for

20550-448: Was a popular uprising rather than a foreign-instigated attempt at counterrevolution. Mass demonstrations on 15 March, the National Day, persuaded the regime to begin negotiations with the emergent non-communist political forces. Round Table talks began on 22 April and continued until the Round Table agreement was signed on 18 September. The talks involved the communists (MSzMP) and the newly emerging independent political forces Fidesz ,

20700-399: Was an unacceptable threat to the balance of nuclear power, because it increased the likelihood of political coercion and required a western response. NATO responded in the form of its twin-track policy. The domestic reverberations were serious inside the SPD, and undermined its coalition with the FDP. One of his major successes, in collaboration with French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing ,

20850-407: Was exhausted, for reasons which had nothing to do with the process going on at the time". Finance Minister Helmut Schmidt (SPD) then formed a government, continuing the SPD–FDP coalition. He served as Chancellor from 1974 to 1982. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a leading FDP official, was Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister in the same years. Schmidt, a strong supporter of the European Community (EC) and

21000-415: Was held at the Reichstag building , including Chancellor Helmut Kohl , President Richard von Weizsäcker , former Chancellor Willy Brandt and many others. One day later, the parliament of the united Germany would assemble in an act of symbolism in the Reichstag building. However, at that time, the role of Berlin had not yet been decided upon. Only after a fierce debate, considered by many as one of

21150-432: Was hugely unpopular in West Germany and was opposed by the new government of Konrad Adenauer. In 1951, several laws were passed granting amnesties and ending denazification. As a result, many people with a former Nazi past ended up again in the political apparatus of West Germany. Between 1951 and 1953, there was even an effort by a clandestine group of former Nazi functionaries, known as the Naumann Circle , to infiltrate

21300-402: Was next to switch to a non-communist government. Although Hungary had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization during the 1980s, major reforms only occurred following the replacement of János Kádár as General Secretary of the communist Party on 23 May 1988 with Károly Grósz . On 24 November 1988 Miklós Németh was appointed prime minister. On 12 January 1989,

21450-424: Was opened again on 1 November, and the Czechoslovak authorities soon let all East Germans travel directly to West Germany without further bureaucratic ado, thus lifting their part of the Iron Curtain on 3 November. On 4 November the authorities decided to authorize a demonstration in Berlin and were faced with the Alexanderplatz demonstration , where half a million citizens converged on the capital demanding freedom in

21600-410: Was politically isolated from the rest of the Eastern Bloc. The Soviet Union itself became a multi-party semi-presidential republic from March 1990 and held its first presidential election , marking a drastic change as part of its reform program . The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, resulting in seven new countries which had declared their independence from the Soviet Union over the course of

21750-455: Was succeeded by Hans-Jochen Vogel . The FDP's share rose from 7% to 9.1%, its best showing since 1980. The Greens' share rose to 8.3% from their 1983 share of 5.6%. With the collapse of eastern bloc in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall , there was a rapid move towards German reunification ; and a final settlement of the post-war special status of Germany . Following democratic elections, East Germany declared its accession to

21900-408: Was termed the Sinatra Doctrine , in a joking reference to the Frank Sinatra song " My Way ". Poland became the first Warsaw Pact country to break free of Soviet domination. The 1980's revolutions occurred in Western Bloc regimes as well. In February 1986, the People Power Revolution in the Philippines peacefully overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos and inaugurated Corazon "Cory" Aquino as

22050-430: Was the launching of the European Monetary System (EMS) in April 1978. In October 1982 the SPD–FDP coalition fell apart when the FDP joined forces with the CDU/CSU to elect CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl as Chancellor in a constructive vote of no confidence . Following national elections in March 1983, Kohl emerged in firm control of both the government and the CDU. The CDU/CSU fell just short of an absolute majority, due to

22200-416: Was the steady growth of a feminist movement in which women demonstrated for equal rights. Until 1977, a married woman had to have the permission of her husband if she wanted to take on a job or open a bank account. Further reforms in 1979 to parental rights law gave equal legal rights to the mother and the father, abolishing the legal authority of the father. Parallel to this, a gay movement began to grow in

22350-422: Was under the control of the Allied Control Council (ACC), West Berlin politically aligned itself with West Germany and was directly or indirectly represented in its federal institutions. The foundation for the influential position held by Germany today was laid during the economic miracle of the 1950s ( Wirtschaftswunder ), when West Germany rose from the enormous destruction wrought by World War II to become

22500-422: Was used in many languages. Westdeutschland was also a widespread colloquial form used in German-speaking countries, usually without political overtones. On 4–11 February 1945 leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union held the Yalta Conference where future arrangements regarding post-war Europe and Allied strategy against Japan in the Pacific were negotiated. They agreed that

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