Editing German reunification (section)

===1952 onwards===
The Western Allies and West Germany rejected the [[Stalin Note|Soviet Union's idea of neutral reunification in 1952]], resulting in the two German governments continuing to exist side-by-side. Most of the [[inner German border|border between two Germanies]], and later the border in Berlin, were physically fortified and tightly controlled by East Germany from 1952 and 1961, respectively. The flags of the two German countries were originally the [[Flag of Germany|same]], but in 1959 East Germany changed [[Flag of East Germany|its flag]].<ref name="DDR1959">{{cite web |url=http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/1959/ddr-staatswappen-staatsflagge-aender_ges.html |title=Gesetz zur Änderung des Gesetzes über das Staatswappen und die Staatsflagge der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik |language=de |author=Government of the German Democratic Republic |work=documentArchiv.de |date=1 October 1959 |access-date=24 February 2008 |archive-date=13 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191113012908/http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/1959/ddr-staatswappen-staatsflagge-aender_ges.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The West German government initially did not recognize the new and ''de facto'' [[Germany–Poland border|German–Polish border]], nor East Germany, but later eventually recognized the border in 1972 (with the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw<ref name=Jessup>{{cite book|last1=Jessup|first1=John E.|title=An encyclopedic dictionary of conflict and conflict resolution, 1945–1996|date=1998|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, Conn.|isbn=978-0313281129|page=543}}</ref><ref name="Publishing2013">{{cite book|author=Britannica Educational Publishing|title=Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ef2cAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA193|year=2013|publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing|isbn=978-1-61530-991-7|page=193}}</ref><ref name="Biesinger2006">{{cite book|author=Joseph A. Biesinger|title=Germany: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=exMn24SA7fMC&pg=PA615|year=2006|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-8160-7471-6|page=615}}</ref>) and East Germany in 1973 (with the 1972 Basic Treaty<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basic-Treaty | title=Basic Treaty &#124; 1972 &#124; Britannica | access-date=16 May 2023 | archive-date=16 May 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516210224/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basic-Treaty | url-status=live }}</ref>) when applying [[Ostpolitik|a common policy to reconcile with the communist countries in the East]]. The East German government also had encouraged two-state status after initially denying the existence of the West German state, influenced by the Soviet policy of "[[peaceful coexistence]]". The mutual recognition of the two Germanies paved the way for both countries to be widely recognized internationally.{{Efn|In addition, prior to 1965 the [[IOC]] only recognized the Olympic committee for Germany, so the separate Olympic committees of Saarland, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Democratic Republic were not recognized by the IOC, and Germany was represented by a [[United Team of Germany at the Olympics|single team]] in the Winter and Summer Olympics until 1968.}} The two Germanies [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 335|joined]] the United Nations as two separate country members in 1973 and East Germany abandoned its goal of reunification with their compatriots in the West in [[Constitution of East Germany#1974 amendments|a constitutional amendment the following year]].

{{cquote|''The principle is written in [[Grundgesetz|our Constitution]] – that no one has the right to give up a policy whose goal is the eventual reunification of Germany. But in a realistic view of the world, this is a goal that could take generations beyond [[Silent Generation|my own]] to achieve.''<br>{{center|<small>[[Leader of the Christian Democratic Union|CDU Leader]] Helmut Kohl for [[The New York Times]], 1976<ref>{{Cite web |last=Whitney |first=Craig R. |date=August 17, 1976 |title=Kohl Says He'd Bring 'Sounder' Policy in Bonn |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/17/archives/kohl-says-hed-bring-sounder-policy-in-bonn.html |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref></small>}}}}

[[File:President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.jpg|thumb|[[Ronald Reagan]] (United States) and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] (Soviet Union) at the first Summit in [[Geneva]], Switzerland on 19 November 1985]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-0922-002, Leipzig, Montagsdemonstration.jpg|thumb|East German [[Monday demonstrations in East Germany|Monday demonstration]] against the government in [[Leipzig]], 16 October 1989]]
[[Mikhail Gorbachev]] had led the country as [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] since 1985. During this time, the Soviet Union experienced a period of [[Brezhnev stagnation|economic and political stagnation]], and correspondingly decreased intervention in [[Eastern Bloc politics]]. In 1987, the United States President [[Ronald Reagan]] gave a famous speech at the [[Brandenburg Gate]], challenging [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] Mikhail Gorbachev to "[[Tear down this wall!|tear down this wall]]" which prevented freedom of movement in Berlin. [[Berlin Wall|The wall]] had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] had referred to as the "[[Iron Curtain]]". Gorbachev announced in 1988 that the Soviet Union would abandon the [[Brezhnev Doctrine]] and allow the Eastern European countries to freely determine their own internal affairs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Doder |first=Dusko |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/22626554 |title=Gorbachev : heretic in the Kremlin |date=1990 |publisher=Macdonald |others=Louise Branson |isbn=0-356-19760-3 |location=London |oclc=22626554 |access-date=6 March 2022 |archive-date=6 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306041727/https://www.worldcat.org/title/gorbachev-heretic-in-the-kremlin/oclc/22626554 |url-status=live }}</ref> In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of ''[[glasnost]]'' (openness) and ''[[perestroika]]'' (economic restructuring), and taken further by Gorbachev, the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity movement]] took hold in Poland. Further inspired by other [[Tank Man|images of brave defiance]], a [[Revolutions of 1989|wave of revolutions]] swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. 
In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence. However, the dismantling of the old Hungarian border facilities did not open the borders nor were the previous strict controls removed, and the isolation by the [[Iron Curtain]] was still intact over its entire length. The opening of a border gate between [[Austria]] and Hungary at the [[Pan-European Picnic]] on 19 August 1989 then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the [[Eastern Bloc]] had disintegrated.<ref name="Thomas Roser 2018"/><ref name="Böhlau Verlag"/> Extensive advertising for 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]]. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the [[Berlin Wall]] had been built in 1961. After the picnic, which was based on an idea of Karl's father [[Otto von Habsburg]] to test the reaction of the USSR and Mikhail Gorbachev to an opening of the border, tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans set off for Hungary.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2019-03-12 |title=TV Interview Tips |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/npcr.31171 |journal=Nonprofit Communications Report |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=7 |doi=10.1002/npcr.31171 |s2cid=242693987 |issn=1549-778X |access-date=6 March 2022 |archive-date=13 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240213042937/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/npcr.31171 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The media reaction of [[Erich Honecker]] in the "Daily Mirror" of 19 August 1989 showed the public in East and West that the Eastern European communist rulers had suffered a loss of power in their own sphere, and that they were no longer in control of events: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into [[People's Republic of Poland|Poland]], in which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Marks, and then they were persuaded to come to the West." In particular, Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State [[Imre Pozsgay]] considered whether Moscow would command the [[Soviet forces|Soviet troops]] stationed in Hungary to intervene.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1990 |title=Division 19 officers August 1989 – August 1990 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/e402342005-008 |access-date=2022-03-06 |website=PsycEXTRA Dataset |doi=10.1037/e402342005-008 |archive-date=12 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612151832/http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/e402342005-008 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> But, with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the nonintervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Thus, the bracket{{clarify|date=October 2024}} of the Eastern Bloc was broken.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Die Insekten |title=Bringing German to Life |year=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-315-75694-3 |pages=43–50 |doi=10.4324/9781315756943-11}}</ref>

Hungary 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 German citizens had escaped to the West before the GDR denied travel to Hungary, leaving Czechoslovakia as the only neighboring state to which East Germans could escape.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Osten |first1=Philipp |title=Das Tor zur Seele: Schlaf, Somnambulismus und Hellsehen im frühen 19 |last2=Krull |first2=Nora |last3=Krull |first3=Nora |publisher=Brill, Schöningh |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-506-77935-9 |pages=158–190 |language=de |chapter=Wissenschaft und Schwärmerei. Der Pfarrer Johann August Steinhofer und die Somnambule Anna Barbara Straub |doi=10.30965/9783657779352_006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rödder |first=Andreas |title=Deutschland einig Vaterland: die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung |date=2009 |publisher=Beck |isbn=978-3-406-56281-5 |edition=2nd |location=München |language=de |oclc=317287167 |orig-year=1967}}</ref>

Even then, many people within and outside Germany still believed that real reunification between the two countries would not happen in the foreseeable future.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schmemann |first=Serge |date=1989-05-14 |title=Despite New Stirrings, Dream of 'One Germany' Fades |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/14/weekinreview/the-world-despite-new-stirrings-dream-of-one-germany-fades.html |access-date=2022-03-06 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=1 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901030530/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/14/weekinreview/the-world-despite-new-stirrings-dream-of-one-germany-fades.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The turning point in Germany, called ''[[Die Wende]]'', was marked by the "[[Peaceful revolution (German)|Peaceful Revolution]]" leading to the [[fall of the Berlin Wall]] on the night of 9 November 1989, with East and West Germany subsequently entering into negotiations toward eliminating the division that had been imposed upon Germans more than four decades earlier.