> But even in the introduction to the English edition of his book, written after the opening of East Germany's borders in late 1989, Schmidt says nothing of reunification, but speaks instead of the prospect of giving aid and support to a "reformist" East Germany.3 Now, it is true that in the interplay of (then) West German politics, Schmidt's Social Democrats were less supportive of early unification than were Kohl's Christian Democrats. But Schmidt was not, in late 1989, recommending a "go slow" approach to reunification. The question simply had not emerged yet with any immediacy. After the fall of the Honecker regime in the east, acquiesced in by Gorbachev and the Soviets, it became thinkable to discuss reunification as something that might actually occur, some years down the road, rather than being indefinitely postponed till a hazy millenium. But, even in early 1990, ________
2Helmut Schmidt, Men and Powers, Ruth Hein, trans. (New York: Random House, 1989), 8. The original German edition was published in 1987.
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