30 years ago, the German Democratic Republic finally became part of the FRG.

Since then, October 3 is celebrated by the Germans as the Day of German Unity.

The integration process of the two states was based on the Unification Treaty, which was concluded on August 31, 1990.

It was signed by the Minister of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany Wolfgang Schäuble and the parliamentary secretary of state under the Prime Minister of the GDR Gunter Krause.

The document regulated the transfer of the political and legal systems of western Germany to the east.

Berlin again became the capital of the united German state.

The reunification took place on the basis of the mechanism prescribed in Article 23 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.

All this greatly accelerated the integration.

Before the complete elimination of the sovereignty of the GDR, the two states in May 1990 signed an Agreement on the creation of a monetary, economic and social union between the FRG and the GDR, as a result of which the West German mark became a single currency.

At the same time, eastern Germany entered the common market of the European Community.

In July 1990, as part of the reform of the administrative-territorial division in the territory of the GDR, five new regions appeared: Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony, and in August a legal basis was created for holding all-German parliamentary elections.

Absorption instead of consolidation

According to experts, the unification of Germany took place with the consent of the overwhelming majority of Germans, but the forced nature of integration caused a number of serious economic and social problems, many of which were not overcome even after three decades.

“After the GDR became part of the FRG, the entire industry that existed at that time collapsed, factories were stopped, naturally, people lost their jobs.

To date, eastern Germany has not been able to fully restore the economy, raise the standard of living of the population in this region to the indicators of the western lands, "Sergei Fokin, professor of the Department of Foreign Policy of Russia at the Russian Presidential Fund of the National Economy and Public Administration, RANEPA, told RT.

From the point of view of Aleksandr Kamkin, a leading researcher at the Center for German Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it would be more correct to call the process of unification of the German state the “absorption” of the GDR.

In a commentary on RT, he noted that the FRG authorities did not take into account the peculiarities of the economic structure in the socialist east.

This led to the closure of many businesses and an increase in unemployment.

“As a result, we see that after 30 years it has not been possible to level the difference in the level of economic development in the east and west of Germany.

This is partly due to the phenomenon existing on the territory of the former GDR - "nostalgia" for the times of socialism, when everyone had jobs and social guarantees, "Kamkin explained.

  • One of the enterprises of the GDR

  • © Bundesarchiv

The experts' opinion is confirmed by statistics set out in the so-called reports on German unity, which are published annually by the government.

The September 2020 document states that economic performance in the five eastern states reaches only 73% of the national average.

From the report, it follows that eastern Germany still lives worse than western Germany and suffers from a shortage of skilled labor.

The authors of the report attribute the unsolved problems to the consequences of the existence of a planned economy in the east.

In addition, the document refers to the mental difference between East and West Germans.

In particular, it is argued that the inhabitants of the former GDR are very skeptical about democracy and are allegedly less tolerant of other nationalities.

It is xenophobia in the western lands that is often explained by the popularity of the right-wing party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) in the east of the country.

Meanwhile, Russian experts believe that the primary reason for supporting this political force was disagreement with the course of the ruling coalition of the CDU / CSU and the SPD.

Final settlement

In addition to internal turmoil, the entry of the GDR into the FRG led to a serious transformation of the European security architecture.

The unification of Germany was preceded by a series of negotiations between the USSR, the United States, France and Great Britain.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the Soviet Union, which held a large group of troops in the GDR, agreed to restore a unified German state.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed the integration of the FRG and the GDR.

French President Francois Mitterrand was also among the opponents, but German politicians managed to convince him.

  • George W. Bush Sr., François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev at the CSCE (OSCE) Summit in Paris, 1990

  • AFP

  • © Daniel JANIN

On September 12, 1990, in Moscow, representatives of the USSR, the USA, France, Great Britain, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement of Germany.

In accordance with this document, the united German state received "full sovereignty over its internal and external affairs" with a promise to pursue an exclusively peaceful policy.

The treaty ordered the Soviet side to withdraw all troops from the eastern part of the country by the end of 1994.

In turn, the FRG and Western countries have pledged to comply with a number of military restrictions.

In particular, Germany agreed to reduce the size of the army to 370 thousand people within 3-4 years (now the number of the Bundeswehr is just over 180 thousand -

RT

).

Also, the German state pledged to continue the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968, as well as not to station nuclear weapons and foreign troops in the former GDR.

“The Governments of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany confirm their statements that only peace will come from German soil.

According to the constitution of a united Germany, actions that can and are aimed at disrupting peace between nations, in particular preparation for an offensive war, are unconstitutional and punishable, ”the document said.

At the same time, the treaty did not restrict Germany's right to participate "in alliances with all the following rights and obligations."

As a result, the GDR, after unification, automatically became part of the NATO military machine.

In addition, American troops remained on the territory of the German state.

Now the number of the US Armed Forces contingent is about 36 thousand people.

According to promises made to Moscow by Western leaders, including German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the North Atlantic Alliance was not to expand eastward.

However, in the mid-1990s, Brussels, with the support of Washington, initiated the integration of the countries of the former social bloc.

In 1999, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic became NATO members, in 2004 - Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Unrealized "Austrian scenario"

The expansion of the alliance was perceived by the leadership of the Russian Federation as a serious geopolitical challenge and a threat to national security.

Russia has begun to create new weapons systems and to increase the level of combat readiness of army formations.

In February 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered the so-called Munich speech at an international security conference in Bavaria.

In his speech, the Russian president recalled the promise of NATO Secretary General, ex-German Defense Minister Manfred Werner about the alliance's refusal to deploy troops outside Germany.

“I would like to quote from the speech of NATO Secretary General Mr. Werner in Brussels on May 17, 1990.

He then said: "The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops outside the territory of the FRG gives the Soviet Union solid security guarantees."

Where are these guarantees? "

- Putin asked a rhetorical question.

  • Vladimir Putin at a security conference in Munich, 2007

  • RIA News

  • © Dmitry Astakhov

Sergei Fokin believes that the expansion of NATO, including at the expense of the former GDR, has led to extremely negative consequences for the security of Russia and Europe.

In his opinion, the only reasonable option for the unification of Germany was to guarantee the non-advancement of the alliance to the east and the neutral status of the German state.

Alexander Kamkin adheres to a similar point of view.

He believes that the growth of tension in Europe and near the borders of the Russian Federation could have been avoided if the "Austrian scenario" was extended to Germany.

Over the past 65 years, Vienna has maintained military neutrality, maintaining friendly relations with Moscow since the Cold War.

“As a result, Germany, from which only peacefulness was supposed to proceed, turned into an outpost of an aggressive bloc, which, moreover, was replenished with Eastern European republics.

But such a scenario could have been avoided if the experience of Austria had been applied to Germany, ”says Kamkin.

However, despite significant differences, Moscow and Berlin have maintained a stable partnership.

According to the expert, the modern political contradictions between Russia and Germany are smoothed out by the mutually beneficial nature of economic cooperation.

“Of course, different views on NATO, the Ukrainian crisis, the murder in Germany of former field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili and the situation with Navalny complicate the dialogue between Moscow and Berlin.

Nevertheless, mutually beneficial economic interests contribute to maintaining stability in Russian-German relations, "Kamkin summed up.