Is it possible for East Germany to exist into the 21st century if in Soviet Union still breaks up?

HKS88345

Banned
Is it possible for East Germany to exist into the 21st century if in Soviet Union still breaks up in 1991?
I understand that East Germany united with West Germany in 1990.

How about a Berlin Wall still standing in 2017?
 

iVC

Donor
It's possible if UK and France resisted the decision to unite two parts of Germany. IRL they there opposed to the idea of united Germany and it took some persuasive talks and joint US/USSR statement to enforce the decision.

They still were WWII victorious countries, you know. They have a right to oppose the unification.

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that neither the United Kingdom nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany. Thatcher also clarified she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it, telling Gorbachev "We do not want a united Germany".

Although she welcomed East German democracy, Thatcher worried that a rapid reunification might weaken Gorbachev, and favoured Soviet troops staying in East Germany as long as possible to act as a counterweight to a united Germany.

“ We defeated the Germans twice! And now they're back! ”

— Margaret Thatcher, December 1989

Thatcher, who carried in her handbag a map of Germany's 1937 borders to show others the "German problem", feared that its "national character", size and central location in Europe would cause the nation to be a "destabilizing rather than a stabilizing force in Europe".

So it was entirely possible these two states to co-exist until modern days. With leaky borders, maybe in some form of confederacy, but still formally divided. Like Russia and Belarus. Like Serbia and Montenegro. Like Czech Republic and Slovakia.
 
So it was entirely possible these two states to co-exist until modern days. With leaky borders, maybe in some form of confederacy, but still formally divided. Like Russia and Belarus. Like Serbia and Montenegro. Like Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Leaky borders is very much an understatement, to say the least. By 1990 the population outflow had made it such that any continued division would rapidly become untenable as the East German economy faced total collapse, which definitely would disrupt European stability. David Tenner's thread on West Berlin getting snuffed out in 1948 is about the only PoD I see to maintain East Germany, as it was the main hub for the brain and manpower drain that affected the GDR and ultimately lead to the construction of the Berlin Wall.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Break up of SU -> break up of the whole Warsaw Pact/COMECON system
--> IMO ASB the GDR survives.

The people there would have clearly "voted by feet".
The GDR alone had no power at all to stop other countries in eastern europe (Tchechoslovakia, Hungary) to let german people comming there NOT crossing borders to qwestern germany or Austria (which would have sent them immediatly to western germany).

And ... the gerontocrats of East-Berlin were (already) more and more loosing their grip even to their own party and ... police and military in the midth/late 80ies. With the russians staying aside in any attempt to smash soemthing like the monday-demonstrations ... they would not have been able to keep the lid on the kettle.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Is it possible for East Germany to exist into the 21st century if in Soviet Union still breaks up in 1991?
I understand that East Germany united with West Germany in 1990.

How about a Berlin Wall still standing in 2017?
No; once East Germans start emigrating en masse, East Germany essentially stops being a viable state.
 
Also I don't think Britain and France would be willing to use force to stop Germany from reuniting, especially if the US and USSR support it, so I don't think it would matter that much, outside of German/French relations remaining cold.
 

iVC

Donor
Also I don't think Britain and France would be willing to use force to stop Germany from reuniting, especially if the US and USSR support it, so I don't think it would matter that much, outside of German/French relations remaining cold.

No; once East Germans start emigrating en masse, East Germany essentially stops being a viable state.

There is a good POD:

From the onset, the Soviet Union sought to use reunification as a way to push Germany out of NATO into neutrality, removing nuclear weapons from its territory. However, West Germany misinterpreted a 21 November 1989 diplomatic message on the topic to mean that the Soviet leadership already anticipated reunification only two weeks after the Wall's collapse. This belief, and the worry that his rival Genscher might act first, encouraged Kohl on 28 November to announce a detailed "Ten Point Program for Overcoming the Division of Germany and Europe". While his speech was very popular within West Germany, it caused concern among other European governments, with whom he had not discussed the plan.

So, Gorbachev could make a demand about neutrality of united Germany and many NATO members would in this case formally object both to West Germany leaving NATO and the idea of unification itself. So the peak and momentum is lost and the only possible way is mild cooperation and very slow integration.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
In order to make East Germany viable-- er-- "viable" you'd have to go back to the very beginning and figure out how to create a North Korea out of East Germany.

I dunno how though, it certainly won't be an easy task.
 
would West Germany unilaterally leave NATO in order to reunify? I think they would if they were allowed to remain in the European markets. There would be formal objections- but I don't see Western Europe kicking Germany out of the Common Market over this, especially if they agree to disarmament on top of reunification (and they probably would)

The US would have the most to complain about- as they lease German bases, but even there I don't think they'd be willing to remain in Germany uninvited (and the Germans would probably use the Gulf War if it isn't butterflied as an excuse to keep the Americans around)- they could end up not formally part of NATO, but effectively part of it, with US-leased bases designed to fight "war criminals" (the Serbs) and eventually GWOT (if that isn't butterflied)

The one thing this might butterfly entirely is the concept of a general European Union and Euro- which cooler relations between Germany and Western Europe- I think that idea is dead. The butterflies from that would be seen more after 2008.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
@iVC nice idea, a "redo" of what happened in the early fifties, leading to the Berlin Blockade. Could have worked in the late 80ies also. However, this would need a "strong" SU in position to demand things.
The OP states : no.

Therefore a no-go in this scenario.
 
Is it possible for East Germany to exist into the 21st century if in Soviet Union still breaks up in 1991?
I understand that East Germany united with West Germany in 1990.

How about a Berlin Wall still standing in 2017?

The wall still standing would be really hard to pull off, but some sort of glitch with reunification in which East Germany remains as a de jure separate entity but which is de facto unified through Schengen seems possible to me. One of the Four Powers that had to sign off on reunification gets cold feet, East Germany remains a political entity propped up with western aid to prevent a societal collapse. Over time, the economies of the two Germanies are practically one and when the Schengen Zone takes effect in 1995 following an East German accession to that treaty (which is distinct from East Germany joining the EU), East Germany remains technically a separate state with an economy integrated into that of West Germany. For various reasons since, reunification never gets off the ground and East Germany remains technically separate.
 
Maybe france and england send troops and money to eastern germany to avoid the failure of their ecnomia and that their people flee from their own country creating a north korea in the center of europe.
 

Perkeo

Banned
East Germany ceases to exist the day the USSR stops enforcing the partition. And since the breakup of the USSR itself is postulated, they won't enforce anything abroad.
The Western Allies can theoretically say no as well, but practically they are stuck: Either they claim the Germans are their friends or they claim the Germans are Nazis. They cannot have both, so they have to choose friendship.
 

iVC

Donor
Either they claim the Germans are their friends or they claim the Germans are Nazis

More staunch and irritated opposition to the german question was entirely plausible with Thatcher and maybe Jacques Chirac instead of Mitterand.
 
More staunch and irritated opposition to the german question was entirely plausible with Thatcher and maybe Jacques Chirac instead of Mitterand.

Only just so long when they are on power. It is quiet difficult say "no" for unification very long. DDR was going to unite with West Germany after end of Cold War. East Germany wasn't anything else than just Soviet puppet. Without Soviets and Communist bloc existence of DDR hasn't anything reason. And on some point Brits and French will admit that.
 
From what I know, Tatcher was basically alone, even her closest advisors warned her about the inevitability of the situation and in a parlamentary democracy, the personal feelings of the head of government isn't enough to dictate the policy of the state - it'd be necessary a broad anti unification sentiment in the british politics. Not to say about the american position on the german question that always favoured unification.

"[...]Thatcher also clarified she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it, telling Gorbachev "We do not want a united Germany".


So, basically, she wanted to block the unification but didn't want it bad enough to actually be the main antagonist in the question, in the case of soviet inaction.
 

Perkeo

Banned
"[...]Thatcher also clarified she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it, telling Gorbachev "We do not want a united Germany".

So, basically, she wanted to block the unification but didn't want it bad enough to actually be the main antagonist in the question, in the case of soviet inaction.
A good strategy and the only way out of the dilemma.
However once again: A Sowjet Union that can't even hold itself together won't be able to play antagonist in their colonies.
If I were Sowjet leader, I'd let east Germany go but demand a MUCH higher price, get enough cash to make a difference at home.

But look at the results of the Volkskammer election in 1990: more than 50% for fast unification, another 25% for slow unification and almost no support for non-communist continuation of the DDR. No way a democracy can be stable that is that unpopular.
 
The political repression and crap economy that led to the exodus of East Germans to the West, and the wall and the border fortifications to keep people in, is still there in 1989. When the USSR goes away and the Soviet troops leave, unless they build a wall all the way around the country they will hemorrhage people. Even worse the majority of the people that leave will be young people and/or people with marketable skills. North Korea has China on one border, water or two borders, and the DMZ on the other (yes there is a tiny border with Russia). This makes it very difficult for significant numbers of North Koreans to leave, and somewhat easier for insulating the population from outside influences. East Germany (after the fall of the USSR), except for the Baltic coast, is surrounded by now free/capitalist countries and bombarded with radio and TV images from all sides that are not flattering to the system in East Germany. This does not end well.
 
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