Post Wall, Post Square. Kristina Spohr
gritted teeth in the Bundestag and then told the world that the policy laid out in the Ten Points represented nothing less than ‘the continuity of our foreign, security and Deutschland policies’. Of course, Genscher resented that he had been sidelined as Kohl’s coalition partner.[115] Yet he had done the same to Kohl on the Prague balcony a few months before. And they had different instincts about how unification should be achieved – Kohl favouring the Adenauer line of Westbindung, drawing East Germany into the Federal Republic and into the Western alliance, whereas Genscher was more inclined to extending Ostpolitik into a full pan-European architecture. But despite their rivalry, despite their differences on means, the two men fundamentally agreed on ends, namely German unity. For Genscher, this was a matter of both head and heart. That’s why, swallowing his pride, he was willing to play firefighter and try to bring London, Paris and Moscow onside.
Technically, of course, the foreign minister did not have responsibility for Deutschlandpolitik because inner-German relations did not constitute ‘foreign’ policy. Nevertheless, Genscher was now drawn fully into the unification issue because of the external complications it engendered – relations with the FRG’s neighbours, Four Powers’ rights, the prerogatives of the superpowers, the domain of international organisations as well as questions of territory and security. As Genscher saw things, it was his duty to build international consensus and pave the way to unity.
Moscow would obviously be the most problematic obstacle, requiring the greatest amount of persuasion. What’s more, the Soviets held strong cards: they were a nuclear superpower, one of the Four Powers and had more than half a million troops and dependants stationed in the GDR. This gave the Kremlin several options. It could press for a pan-European structure. Or offer Germany unity for neutrality, as Stalin tried in 1952. It could simply say nyet to unity, or decide to use force to hold the GDR in place. But were things really secure in the Kremlin? Would perestroika be reversed? What about the deteriorating economy? Could secessionist demands from the republics be contained? Might there even be a coup?
And so, a week later, on 5 December Genscher flew into the Soviet capital – on a dark, gloomy afternoon in the middle of a snowstorm. As his motorcade crawled into the city, it passed another heading in the opposite direction towards the airport. This was Krenz, Modrow and other SED dignitaries who had just finished their own business in the Kremlin. Genscher speculated wryly that the Soviets had orchestrated events so as to avoid an awkward German–German encounter in the airport.[116]
Tension was therefore already in the air. And what followed proved to be the ‘most disagreeable encounter’ with the Soviets that Genscher could ever remember. So ill-tempered was his meeting with Gorbachev that he later asked the German notetaker to write up the meeting in a somewhat more emollient tone.[117] ‘Never before and never afterwards have I experienced Gorbachev so upset and so bitter,’ Genscher remarked in his memoirs. The Soviet leader was unable to restrain his anger at Kohl’s lack of consultation. According to Chernyaev he had been fuming for days, though this may have been due to pressures at home as well as the worsening situation in Eastern Europe at large. Whatever was going on in Gorbachev’s mind, Genscher was a convenient target for his wrath. In fact, Genscher felt, at times Gorbachev was so furious that it was simply impossible to discuss important issues with any seriousness.[118]
Genscher, however, was not flustered and loyally defended the chancellor’s policies. He underlined that Germany would never ‘go it alone’, that the Federal Republic was firmly tied into the EC and CSCE (i.e. the Helsinki Final Act), and that the ‘growing together of the two German states’ would have to be fitted into these frameworks. He also affirmed Bonn’s Politik der Verantwortung (‘politics of responsibility’) and that the FRG adhered to its treaty commitments, not least on the Polish border. This, he said, was important to stress in the light of Germany’s ‘history, its geopolitical position and the size of its population’. Gorbachev let him say his piece but then retorted angrily that Kohl’s Ten Points were wholly ‘irresponsible’ and a grave ‘political mistake’ which presented an ‘ultimatum’ to the East German government; Kohl was trying to prescribe a particular ‘internal order’ for the GDR, a sovereign state. ‘Even Hitler didn’t allow himself anything like that!’ Shevardnadze piped up.
By now seething, Gorbachev denounced Kohl’s programme as ‘genuine revanchism’, delivered as an ‘address to subjects’ and nothing less than a ‘funeral’ of the European process. He was getting into his stride. The Ten Points were ‘irresponsible’. German policy was in a total ‘mess’ (Wirrwarr). ‘The Germans are such an emotional people.’ Don’t forget, he added, ‘where headless politics had led in the past’.
Genscher cut in: ‘We know our historic mistakes and have no intention of repeating them.’
‘You,’ said Gorbachev, ‘had a direct role in developing Ostpolitik. Now you are endangering all this,’ just for the sake of ‘election battles’. He kept criticising Kohl for ‘running around’ and ‘taking hasty actions’ which ‘undermined the pan-European process that had been laboriously developed’.
Gorbachev also tried to drive a wedge between Genscher and Kohl. ‘By the way, Herr Genscher, it seems to me that you only found out about the Ten Points in the Bundestag speech.’
Genscher admitted that this was true but added ‘It’s our internal affair. We resolve this ourselves.’
Well, said Gorbachev drily, ‘you can see for yourself that your “internal affairs” has annoyed everybody else’.
The Soviet leader ended with something like an olive branch. ‘Don’t take everything I said personally, Herr Genscher. You know that we have a different relationship to you than to others.’ The implication seemed clear: Genscher was not Kohl. The foreign minister was getting it in the neck because the chancellor was not present. Gorbachev felt frankly betrayed by Kohl. It was a far cry from their balmy June evening on the banks of the Rhine. Relations would clearly take time and effort to repair.[119]
Although Gorbachev and the Soviet Union were the main problem, Kohl and Genscher faced problems on their Western front as well. And in London there was a leader as fiery as Gorbachev and at least as critical of any moves towards German unification – not least because Margaret Thatcher was hung up on history. Born in 1925 and raised in the provincial Lincolnshire town of Grantham, she had come of age during Hitler’s war, amid the mythology of Britain’s ‘finest hour’. This permanently coloured her view of post-war Germany. Trained first as a research chemist and as a barrister, she had entered Parliament as a Tory MP in 1959 at the height of the Cold War and became prime minister twenty years later, just as détente was freezing over. Since then, her decade in power had been marked by a radical programme of economic liberalisation and a forceful nationalism for which she gained (and relished) the nickname ‘Iron Lady’.
Her foreign policy was traditional, built around ideas of a balance of power. Thatcher was passionate about the ‘special relationship’, assiduously cultivating Ronald Reagan. She was equally ardent about nuclear deterrence, advocating the modernisation of NATO’s theatre nuclear forces and pushing through the deployment of cruise missiles despite fierce opposition from the left. She was as convinced as Reagan that communism was an ideology of the past and therefore endorsed Gorbachev’s reform policies, though keeping a wary eye on their consequences for Soviet power. Within Europe she was a ferocious critic of deeper economic and political integration, especially the Delors Plan, although she did sign up enthusiastically to the single market in 1986. And as the Soviet bloc crumbled in 1989, her biggest fear was that a new German hegemon could destroy the European equilibrium, painfully constructed over four decades. The combination of a single currency and a unified, sovereign Germany in the centre of Europe would be simply ‘intolerable’, she told Mitterrand on 1 September. She had, she said, ‘read much on the history of Germany during her vacation and was very disturbed’.[120] Three weeks later, in similar vein, she informed Gorbachev that ‘although NATO traditionally made statements supporting Germany’s aspirations to be reunited, in practice we would not welcome it at all’.[121] In other words, even before the Wall had fallen, she was clearly ‘on the warpath’ against German unity.[122]
Thatcher seemed to object to pretty