Unity

Palace of the Republic

The Humboldt Forum, in front of it the street Unter den Linden with cars passing by.

The Humboldt Forum, 2022.

People on the street Unter den Linden in front of thePalace of the Republic.The Television Tower is in the background on the left.

The Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), July 1990.

A New Parliament at the Old Location

On March 18, 1990, the people of the GDR elected a free and democratic parliament for the first time: the People’s Chamber. Its headquarters were in the Palace of the Republic. An electoral alliance advocated rapid reunification. It was supported by Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Helmut Kohl and eventually won the election. 

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On March 18, 1990, the eyes of the world were on the Palace of the Republic. Countless satellite dishes stood in front of the GDR’s magnificent building. Journalists from Germany and the rest of the world reported on the first free election of the GDR parliament. The main issue of the election: would German reunification come quickly or in small steps? Hardly anyone still doubted that it would not come at all. For months, demonstrators on the streets of the GDR had been chanting: "We are one people" and "Germany, united fatherland".

The 24 parties and lists that competed for a seat in parliament went through a short but intense election campaign. Only seven weeks earlier, the Round Table, where representatives of old and new political powers negotiated, had moved the election date forward from May to March. As the problems were huge, the interim government was supposed to be replaced by a democratically elected one as soon as possible. Every day thousands left the GDR for the Federal Republic in the West. More and more details about mismanagement and environmental destruction came to light, as did the extent of surveillance by the secret police. The GDR’s severe crisis with its disrupted system and broken economy made a reunification with the larger West German state even more likely.

Many people in the GDR who were in favour of a rapid unification placed their hopes in the Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Helmut Kohl. He had proposed an economic and monetary union between the Federal Republic and the GDR. Hundreds of thousands cheered when he promised: "Nobody will get worse, but many will get better!" At six large rallies he supported the electoral coalition Alliance for Germany, of which the East German CDU was also part, and which advocates rapid reunification with the Federal Republic. Earlier, the one-party system of the GDR had used parties like the CDU in order to uphold a democratic appearance. All of them de facto had supported the rule of the state party SED. In the election campaign of 1990, the East German CDU now openly committed itself to democracy and formed an alliance with the Alliance for Germany and two other newly founded conservative parties.

In the polls, the SPD was in the lead. It had emerged from the opposition against the SED dictatorship and advocated unity in a similar way. It was also closely aligned with its sister party in the West but not everything that came from that side was helpful. Thus, some West German social democrats warned about the costs of the reunification or spoke out in favour of a more slowly approach. As a result, many GDR voters turned away and preferred to support the CDU.

Finally, the reporters in East Berlin announced the results: CDU 40.8 percent, SPD 21.9 percent, PDS (formerly SED) 16.4 percent. The election result was a triumph for Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The new GDR leadership was now assigned the task of bringing about unity as quickly as possible. The Alliance for Germany formed a large coalition with the SPD and the liberals. Six and a half months later, after tense government work, the unification of the GDR with the Federal Republic took effect on October 3. The people’s representatives fulfilled the promise of a rapid reunification of the states when they voted for joining the Federal Republic on August 23, 1990 in the Palace of the Republic. It would take much longer, however, for East and West to grow together emotionally and socially.

PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC

Contemporary Witnesses Report

In the spring of 1990, politicians fought for their seats in the first freely elected parliament of the GDR. Looking back, they talk about their memories of the campaign and what role the Federal Republic of Germany played.

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Intro
Hans-Werner Martin reports on his first election campaign.
Rolf Berend does not want to run an election campaign like in the west.
Ulrike Poppe warns against a rapid monetary union.
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Palace of the Republic

In March 1990, the first and only free elections of parliament in the GDR took place. New and familiar parties fought for seats in the People’s Chamber in the Palace of the Republic. Political activists recall the election campaign and the role of the Federal Republic.

CONTEMPORARY WITNESS

Hans-Werner Martin

Hans-Werner Martin campaigned for the new SPD in the East. He was not happy with the politics of its sister party in the West. Moreover, he had no sympathy for the hesitant position of the SPD’s candidate for chancellor, Oskar Lafontaine, regarding reunification.  

"The time after the fall of the Wall was great: first, the founding of the party and its growth and then the first free election campaign. That was for the election of the People’s Chamber. We all took part. There were no advertisement agencies that did that. We went out at night with our Trabi, a bucket with glue and posters and drove around, and plastered the city like never again. We chased each other, drove down a street somewhere, put up an SPD poster, and drove back. Then a PDS poster was covering ours. We tore that one down again and put up ours of the SPD. When we found the person putting up the PDS poster, we told him: If you come down this way again you are in trouble! It was hilarious. The SPD came in second place in the election. It was the SPD’s own fault because a certain Mr. Lafontaine only raised the questions of the costs. He was of the opinion that all of this was too early, which was complete political nonsense. It could not have gone fast enough! We only had a very narrow window of opportunity in Germany. The Soviet Union was collapsing and anyone who was a top politician should have read the signs of the times correctly. Mr. Lafontaine obviously did not want to see them."

CONTEMPORARY WITNESS

Rolf Berend

Rolf Berend was a candidate of the CDU in the election of the People’s Chamber. For his campaign, he received support from federal states in the West. But he did not want to campaign the way they did in the West.

"We received support from the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, who helped us with brochures. They printed our images in brochures and also wanted to print posters of us – of me – posters that were supposed to be hung on light posts: You’ve got to be crazy! This is out of the question. We will not allow that. We will not let ourselves be displayed publicly there. There was only one person’s image that got displayed at such official places: that of Erich Honecker. Perhaps images of other members of the Politburo were displayed there, but a normal person’s image was never displayed for purposes of advertisement. That was out of the question. So, we did not have any posters made of us, even though the people of Lower Saxony and Hesse did not understand that at all."

CONTEMPORARY WITNESS

Ulrike Poppe

Ulrike Poppe had already been active in the GDR opposition since the early 1980s. With the Bündnis 90, a coalition of several citizens’ movements, she warned about joining the economic system of the Federal Republic too quickly during the election campaign.  

"The German Institute for Economic Research advised us. They told us that a too rapid economic and monetary union would also lead to bankruptcy of those GDR companies that were still profitable. And that would mean that there would be social consequences that will be very difficult to overcome in the coming decades. But what we said there was not very popular. Take your time, take your time, see eye to eye. The majority of the population wanted to go to the West as quickly as possible. And promises were also made from the side of the CDU. They talked about blooming landscapes and that nobody would be worse off. People wanted to believe that. Confused by the past months, it was understandable that they wanted to have stable structures again."

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PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC

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Schloßplatz
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