Reflections on October 3
By Dr. Jackson Janes

On October 3, Germany marks the fifteenth anniversary of unification. The day before, the nation will be fixed on Dresden.

Two weeks after the national elections, the people of Dresden go to the polls to elect their representatives to the Bundestag. The postponement was caused by the recent death of one of the candidates running for office; German law requires that the district be given a chance to reset the date with a new candidate.

The fact that the voters in Dresden know the results of the national elections can give some an incentive to use this opportunity to lend support to either side of the political battle in Berlin. If the CDU picks up an extra representative in Parliament, it will provide psychological momentum in the next phase of negotiations over a coalition with the SPD. If the Social Democrats pick up the seat, it can provide some additional evidence for them that the country really is more left than right.

Either way, it will not change the fact that the CDU (with the CSU) maintains a razor thin majority in the Bundestag. Yet it is interesting to note that a vote in Dresden will have such national implications. Because it overlaps with the anniversary of unification, it offers an occasion to ponder where Germany has come since October 3, 1990.

Looking back on the euphoria between 1989 and 1990, one can recall the three Ws which seem to provide Germans with continuing reasons for celebration around that time: Wimbledon, World Cup, and Wiedervereinigung. The year the wall came down, Steffi Graf and Boris Becker both won at Wimbledon. In 1990, Germany won the World Cup in soccer. And then came unification. Helmut Kohl predicted his famous future for Germany in the form of blooming fields in eastern Germany.

The following years tell the story of how difficult it would be to take on one of the most unique experiments in world history. Putting the two parts of Germany together was, as Willy Brandt described it at the time, letting what belongs together grow together. Yet the growth period was going to take a lot longer than most people expected. One can recite chapter and verse about the enormous amount of money that has been spent on German unification since 1990 and how it has been a major impediment for the German economy, which has been running at low growth rates for the past decade. One can point to double-digit unemployment rates throughout a good part of eastern Germany. One can also point to the emergence of left- and right-wing parties in the eastern states giving voice to discontent there. One can even point to polls that suggest some west Germans think things might have been better if the wall had not come down.

Yet despite the bad news, the fact that Dresden is voting on October 2 and the entire country is awaiting the results says something equally important. That opportunity was unthinkable less than sixteen years ago. In fact, on Oct 2, 1989, the people of Dresden were risking danger to even demonstrate on the streets without knowing that, within a few weeks, the wall in Berlin would be a site on which people would be dancing.

Anniversaries are sometimes occasions where people go through the motions of marking a milestone. During the years before 1989, west Germans officially marked June 17 as a day to recall the demonstrations of east Germans that were brutally suppressed on that day in 1953. But over the years, the call for German unity in speeches that day became dulled by disinterest and indeed distrust that unity would ever come. The usual phrase one would hear was that unification might come, "but not in my lifetime."

October 3 has also been contested by some as an artificial construction for a national holiday. But the choice of the day matters less than does the meaning behind it.

The process of German unification is not over. It will continue to evolve - to grow, as Brandt put it -for years to come. Parts of western Germany - indeed parts of west Berlin - remain untouched by unification. The informal bands connecting Freiburg im Breisgau with Freiberg in Saxony may not be much greater now than they were fifteen years ago. But that might hold true for Kiel und Karlsruhe.

However, the process of unification needs a project, something which represents the common lot or stake people share in the process. What is the project for Germany in 2005? The struggle over political power in Berlin seems to reflect the fact that the country is not sure what the project is, and who should lead the process.

Somehow, having the vote in Dresden on October 2 followed by unification day on October 3 might be a reminder of how far Germans have come since 1990. Without a unified Germany, it is impossible to imagine a European Union with twenty-five members. Without a unified Germany, it is impossible to imagine that Union being capable of even contemplating a constitution, common security and foreign policies, and creating the most unique political instrument of international cooperation the world has ever seen.

Without a unified Germany, the United States would have a far-less capable partner in Europe. Germans need to recall that amidst the rough and tumble of political poker in Berlin. On October 3, it might be a good idea to not just go through the motions of marking unification, but rather to really think about it. The German word for a monument to something is "Denkmal." If the word is taken apart, Denk mal!, it means - think for a minute. That is what we all might do on October 3.

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This essay appeared in the September 30, 2005 AICGS Advisor.

Please direct comments to: jjanes@aicgs.org