German Reunification

After the Wall opened, East Germans quickly moved from demanding reform to demanding unity with the richer West. In March 1990 they held their first free election, and parties favoring rapid unification won. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl pressed ahead, introducing the Deutsche Mark in the East in July. Unity also needed the consent of the four wartime powers, so the Two Plus Four Treaty, signed in Moscow in September, settled Germany's borders and allowed it to stay in NATO.

Britain's Margaret Thatcher and France's François Mitterrand worried about a powerful Germany, while Gorbachev, in need of Western loans, accepted terms he once rejected. Germany reunified on October 3, 1990. Whether Western leaders promised that NATO would not expand further east is still disputed: officials made verbal assurances in early 1990, but nothing was put in the treaty. In the East, the closure of uncompetitive factories caused mass unemployment, leaving economic and political gaps that persist today.