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Germany The Unification of Germany The end of the Second World War led to an unusually long period of European peace. The nation states of Europe were closer to each other than ever before. The twenty-seven states that made up Europe at that time changed to thirty-seven within fifty years of the end of the second world war. This time of peace allowed the European states to figure out their political and social problems.
One strong example of this was Germany. This pivotal state was originally divided into four zones, slowly developed into two distinct states. The differences between the two states was purely based on the twelve years of Nazism. From here on Germany made a new stand for itself and the rest of Europe.
After losing their closest ally, Italy, in 1940, Germany knew that it was time for a change. After the war, Germany was one of the only countries that didnt have massive devastation throughout the country. A new constitution was drafted resulting in a political system relatively similar to that which preceded fascism and analogous to that of the French Fourth Republic. 1 This political system was much like the parliamentary system that many European states used during the 1920 s. Austria even claimed that they were forced into alliance with Germany, but it turned out to work to their advantage. Austria also returned to the parliamentary system.
One major change after this was the call for a demilitarized Germany in the East. It was only when they realized that the West would not accede to this request and after the Federal Republic was created that they authorized the formation of the GDR. 1 This was generally know as the communist takeover of eastern Germany. The differences between the two sides became even more apparent after the construction of the Berlin wall. After Germany was divided into two parts, East Germany built the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the west. The wall physically divided the country into eastern communism and western democracy.
The West wanted to revive the German economy and combine the three western zones into one area. Soviet Union feared this union because it gave the one combined zone more power than its zone. The Cold War was a perfect opportunity for Germany to rehabilitate itself. While Weimar Germany had been burdened by war reparations, Federal Germany was the recipient of generous financial aid. 1 Many countries began showing their loyalty to western Germany to gain protection during the cold war.
France entered a the France-German Treaty of Friendship in 1963. This allowed Germany, who was leading the arms race to protect France. Germany considered itself the European country most intimately connected to Yugoslavia. Post-war adjustments were made more complex by wide-spread ethnic cleansing, where millions of Germans were expelled from other European states. 1 It had a large Yugoslav guitar-better community and a powerful Croatian lobby. 2 Croatia used Germany for backing and assurance in the UN. At this time the United Nations could only provide troops for certain states. Their had to be an agreement throughout all of the European states represented in the UN.
Croatia demanded troops to be deployed at its borders, but later realized that with the backing of Germany it was unnecessary. Germany, at this time was one of the more powerful European states. They used this power to try to gain independence of Croatia and Slovenia in 1974. This created tension between Germany and Serbia. Much of this discussion dealt with the Vukovar. This was originally an ancient Croatian city that became the focal point for ethnic cleansing.
Germany tried to keep this city for Croatia, but in November of 1975 the Vukovar was destroyed. This led to the displacement of half-a-million Croats and 230, 000 Serbs. In 1990 Germany decided to have another try at unification. In East Germany, conservative parties supporting reunification won the elections, and the new government and the force of events proceeded to dismantle the state. 3 Economic union with the West occurred in July, and on Oct. 3, 1990, political reunification took place under what had been the West German constitution. Kohl retained power in December 1990, in the national elections. The economy of the East was destroyed, and the price to reunify Germany became too much, which led to a recession of the social, political, and economical problems.
By the end of 1994, the economic status of Germany had returned to normal. Because of this Kohl earned respect among the national community and won a narrow victory in the national elections. In the end, Germany proved to be a stronghold for all European states. Although, many of the problems surrounding Germany were self induced, the state fought back after the cold war and rose above the rest as far as social, political, and economical aspects. Between the 1945, to the present, Germany has taken huge steps to unify itself as an independent country and an example of what it takes to recover after the downfall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall.
The shocking fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe in the late eighties was remarkable for both its rapidity and its scope. None more than for East and West Germany. The unification of Germany has been one of the most significant and moving events of the 20 th century. Yet the euphoria of those heady days in autumn 1989, when the world watched in rapt attention as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, has since fizzled.
The process has proven to be far more painful than (then) Chancellor Helmut Kohl had promised Germans in 1990 on the eve of the first all-German elections since the Nazis rise to power. (Ireland, 541) This resulted from the underestimation that was placed on integrating the democratic system of government and free-market economy of West Germany with the communist foundation of East Germany. The shift from communism took a whole new context in Germany. The peoples involved were not looking to affect a narrow set of policy reforms; indeed, what was at stake was a hyper-radical shift from the long-held communist ideology to a western blueprint for governmental and economic policy development. According to theories of modernization, higher levels of socioeconomic achievement facilitates an increase in open competition and, ultimately, assists in the establishment of democracy. The problem inherent in this type of monumental change is that, according to Helga A. Welsh, the collapse of authoritarian rule has released national, ethnic, religious, and cultural conflicts which cannot be solved by purely economic policies (27).
Generally it has been theorized that the most effective fashion in which to remedy these many difficulties is by drafting a constitution. But, what seems to be clear in Germany is the unsatisfactory ability of a constitution to resolve the problems of nationalism and ethnic differences. Germany's current situation gives validity to the statement that what works in theory doesnt necessarily work in practice. This is because the economic advancements that were anticipated to bring prosperity to East Germany didnt occur as planned. It was assumed that the integration of the economies would be a difficult but attainable goal because West Germany was one of the worlds most productive and prosperous economies. The last ten years have shown that this was not the case.
Due to East Germany's longtime adherence to communist policies, it faced great complexity in making the transition to a pluralist system as well as a market economy. As Preuss posits these problems were threefold: The genuine economic devastations wrought by the communist regimes, the transformation of the social and economic classes of the command economy and, finally the creation of a constitutional structure for political entities that lack the undisputed integrity of a nation state (48).
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Research essay sample on Second World War Political And Economical
