Mr. Gunther Thumann:

The pace of reunification was very fast, as the Chairman said. In a bit more than nine months, it was all done. Was there ever a problem with it breaking down? From my observations, I do not think so. One reason is that there was a lot of enthusiasm for reunification, not only in West Germany but also in East Germany. That is important. One area in which there was a risk of derailment concerned the Two plus Four talks, which involved the four allied powers – the United States, the Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom – plus East Germany and West Germany. Chancellor Kohl said to me he was worried that the Two plus Four process might derail unification or at least weaken reunification because not all of the allies were very happy with Germany being reunited. It is probably not widely known that Chancellor Kohl said he needed to prevent any problems with the Two plus Four process by front-running. Therefore, he first talked to George Bush, who said he had no problem with reunification and to go ahead. The chancellor then went to Mr. Gorbachev and asked whether a deal could be worked out. They did work one out. Therefore, Mr. Kohl now had the two major powers on his side. Then he went to Paris and talked to Mr. François Mitterrand. That was a bit more difficult but he convinced him not to make any problems. Mr. Kohl said he did not talk to Ms Margaret Thatcher anymore because he thought she would not agree. I remember that if there was a risk, it was with the Two plus Four, but Mr. Helmut Kohl, through his outstanding politics, prevented it.

One needs to say that Mr. Kohl was such a driving force. He was so convinced that reunification should happen. He once said to me he did not really care about the reunification costs. He said that the benefits, about which we had not talked much, were so great that they should go ahead no matter what they were. He was very much a driving force.

Before political unification happened, in October 1990, there was something called German economic, monetary and social union. It is not widely known about but it was an important intermediate step. In May and June of 1990, the West German and East German politicians sat down and did something that someone called forward-looking planning earlier. Maybe the members would like to look at the discussions on economic, monetary and social union. They were quite detailed. A vote was taken and there was a treaty, which became effective on 1 July 1990. Before the political part, considerable time and effort were devoted to working out detailed measures concerning what needed to be done, but in a political context. In addition, there was all the research, by the civil servants at any rate.