At one time, the reunification of Germany was
unthinkable. Then it became a central issue of
Thomas Chace, "How Many Germanys?"
New Republic, 3809 (December 11, 1989), p. 19
These lines, from one of many recent articles (recent meaning the past couple of weeks [end of 1989]), sum up the extraordinary and paradoxical nature of the fall of 1989. The Cold War, a central fact of world politics for the past generation and a half, seems abruptly to have come to an end. In its place, we hope with fingers crossed for a single prosperous and peaceful Europe, integrated if not united "from the Atlantic to the Urals."
Yet these few weeks in the fall of 1989 are not likely to spell an end to the trouble and turmoil of history. Chace's words remind us that as the burning issues of yesterday fade away, their place can be taken by other issues perhaps by the issues of the day before yesterday. For three generations, from the 1860s until after 1945, German unification was indeed the burning central question of European if not world politics. The "German question" brought two world wars, while the struggle of capitalism and communism brought none. When we look into an unknown future, dark chapters of the recent past loom large.
Of one thing we can be certain: 1979 has already established itself as one of the great pivotal years in European history, alongside 1789, 1848, 1871, 1914, 1945, and 1968 years in which future developments turned in fundamental ways . . . not always (remembering the failed liberal revolutions of 1848) in the direction that hope might indicate. Only a few months ago, this last lesson was driven home to a shocked watching world in Tienanmen Square. Yet it is one thing to crush a single protest demonstration in a single square in order to re impose an old order, and quite another thing to crush an entire continent. A rolling back of the past two months is a possibilit...