The Reunification of Germany & Global Social Evolution

Abstract

Almost thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become all too easy to say that the Wall “fell,” but what does that actually mean? The Wall did not vanish on its own. Rather it was the people, in a figurative sense, who unhinged it before the hammers and chisels could tear it down. It was the people who insisted on resisting the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the same regime that raised the wall in 1961. And of course it was the legions of brave people who faced their fears in the autumn of 1989 and paraded through the streets to bring about the dissolution of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) Regime. It was also a unique mixture of economic and political factors in 1989 that made it possible for the criticism of a few individuals to swell up into a huge choir and lead to a peaceful revolution. The Soviet Union and its “forced” allies had begun a reformation process, but the GDR had refused to react to the strong internal criticism. More and more people participated in the Monday Demonstrations in the streets, first in Leipzig and Plauen, and then in various other cities around the country. New political groups and initiatives were being established. Finally, the GDR government yielded to the demands of the citizens and created new rules for Westward travel on November 9, 1989. It was due to this development, and a subsequent mixture of crucial national mistakes and confusion, that the citizens of Berlin courageously ended the brutality of the GDR border regime once and for all. But this is only one instance of the many historical events the world has seen, there are more, from which we can always learn something. Maybe the most important lesson in history is hiding behind the reunification of Germany in ’90, the answer to which may help solve the problems humanity at large faces today. Big history-making events are nearly always contingent, rarely inevitable; they can be explained afterwards but not predicted with confidence in advance.