"Wall peckers" in Berlin, 10 November 1989. People started tearing down the Berlin Wall on their own. Official demolition began at Potsdamer Platz in November 1989, and continued from 20 February 1990 between the Brandenburg Gate and the border post at Checkpoint Charlie.
Source: Bundesregierung/Uwe Rau

International reactions

On 18 November 1989 the heads of state and government of the European Community member countries met in the Élysée Palace in Paris to discuss the situation in the GDR and Eastern Europe.
Source: picture-alliance/dpa/AFP
Conference of foreign ministers of the NATO and Warsaw Pact member states in Ottawa, Canada, 13 February 1990. The national representatives there agreed on negotiations to regulate the foreign policy aspects of German unification.
Source: picture-alliance/dpa/AFP
Early discussions on German unification between West German chancellor Helmut Kohl (l.) and Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev (r.) in Moscow, February 1990. Over the following months Gorbachev abandoned his initial restraint. Kohl promised him financial support for his reform course in the Soviet Union.
Source: Bundesregierung/Engelbert Reineke
US president George Bush (l.) favoured German unification, as he made clear at his joint press conference with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (r.) at Camp David in late February 1990. Preconditions were the integration of united Germany into NATO and the recognition of the existing borders in Europe.
Source: Bundesregierung/Engelbert Reineke
Given the German history of Nazism, wars of aggression and genocide, many countries, particularly Britain, France, Poland and Israel, reacted sceptically at first to the idea of German unification.
Source: DER SPIEGEL, 51/1989, 18.12.1989
Cartoon from 1989/90 ridiculing the fears of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was afraid that Germany could use reunification to gain economic and political power and dominate Europe.
Source: Karl-Heinz Schoenfeld
German unification on a slalom course. Caricature in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 15 February 1990, referring to the German government’s diplomatic attempts to allay its international partners’ concerns over reunification.
Source: Walter Hanel
Cartoon in the International Herald Tribune of 23 February 1990, about the rapid speed of the reunification process: US president George Bush trying to reassure Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev. The two men had met in Malta in February and agreed not to endanger European stability by acting too hastily.
Source: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V., Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik/Plakatsammlung

Exhibition

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