The major question still to be resolved concerned Germany’s place within the international security framework. Would a united Germany join NATO, declare its neutrality, or take some other course? Washington and Bonn insisted that unified Germany be a member of NATO, just as West Germany had been. The Soviets, as was noted above, hoped to keep Germany out of the Atlantic Alliance, preferring that the new nation assume a stance of neutrality. If this proved impossible, Russia was willing to countenance Germany’s membership in
Washington took the lead in pressuring Moscow to accept the NATO solution. When Gorbachev visited America for a summit meeting in late May 1990, Bush stressed to him that NATO would be a stabilizing force for the Germans, that it would help keep them in check. The Russian president countered with Moscow’s dual alliance option, insisting that “if one anchor is good, two anchors are better.” As an accomplished sailor, Bush knew something about anchors, and he also knew how to change tack. Aware that Gorbachev had often employed the rhetoric of national self-determination, he now asked his counterpart if he agreed that nations had the right to choose which alliances they might belong to, and, if so, whether Germany also had this right. To his astonishment, Gorbachev said yes, he agreed. Recognizing the significance of this agreement, Gorbachev’s aides tried to get him to take it back. They did not understand that their president had already given up on the hope of keeping Germany out of NATO and was concerned now to extract rewards for his compliance in the form of loans and more favorable trade arrangements. True, the Soviets would have to pull their troops out of East Germany and Berlin, but Gorbachev hoped to receive compensation for that as well.
The final details of the unification package were worked out in various diplomatic meetings over the course of the next few weeks. Crucially, Bonn promised that after German reunification it would confirm the sanctity of the Oder-Neisse border with Poland, a guarantee that Kohl had hitherto avoided making for fear of alienating right-wing voters in the Federal Republic. Throughout these final negotiations, the East German delegation had little impact: the talks should have been called “One-plus-Four.” A key moment came during a visit by Kohl to Gorbachev’s home turf in the Caucasus Mountains in July. Moscow was insisting that Bonn pay for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany and Berlin and their relocation in the Soviet Union. The Germans had offered DM 8 billion, but Gorbachev wanted more, and threatened to sabotage German reunification if Moscow was rebuffed. In their Caucasus meeting the two men agreed on a figure of DM 12 million, combined with a credit of DM 3 billion. The Soviets would have four years in which to withdraw their troops, during which time no NATO troops could be stationed on former East German territory. The Western powers could keep their troops in West Berlin until the Soviets had fully withdrawn. Germany’s own army, the Bundeswehr, would be reduced from about 400,000 men to 370,000. Kohl was understandably jubilant over this outcome: German unity was a done deal, and the price had not been exorbitant.
The final agreement on German unification was signed by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers at a ceremony in Moscow on September 12, 1990. With this gesture, the World War II victors gave up the rights over Germany that they had assumed in the Berlin Declaration of June 5, 1945, and the Potsdam Agreement of August 2, 1945. At long last, World War II was officially over. Agreement on Germany also signaled an unofficial end to the Cold War. At the signing ceremony, Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze declared that there were no winners or losers in this settlement, but in truth this was a clear victory for the West and for a Western-oriented Germany. Another winner was Berlin, which of course had always been one of the main victims of the German division.
