Plausibility: East Germany survives past 1990

I teach elementary German at a high school along with World History, and I was talking with my students about German Unity Day, which is tomorrow, October 3rd.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of German reunification, and as I talked to my students and looked over the material, I wondered if there was any realistic way that German reunification might not have happened, or might have been postponed by half a decade or so?

At the very least, the opening of the Wall in November of 1989 was an accident, due to a slip at a press conference. So at the very least this dramatic, picture perfect moment with people flooding from East Berlin into West Berlin might have been avoided, and we could have seen a more orderly, gradual reopening of the inter-German boarder. Granted, if and when then Wall went down in this TL, it would still be celebrated, but might be less dramatic and less memorable long term.

I wonder if Gorbachev is not able to do as many reforms (lack of military support, hardliners are able to replace him, etc), I think this would set back German unification.

Also, at the time, Margaret Thatcher was on record as being skeptical about reunification, even after the Wall fell.

I once considered a scenario where Gorbachev's plane crashes while he returned to Moscow after the GDR 40th Anniversary celebrations in October, 1989. Hardliners take over and promise to back up Honecker. We see Tiananmen style events in Germany and elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc.

Granted, the economic situation by 1989-1990 was quite precarious so even with out the dramatic flair of the fall of the wall, we are likely still looking at an eventual reunification by the mid 1990s in most cases. Though I wonder if the GDR could have survived longer term even with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now THAT I seriously doubt, but it would be interesting to find any sort of even remotely plausible scenario.

Thoughts?
 
1989 was too late. Soviet communism was in a death spiral, facing an angry citizenry and economic collapse. I think the latest POD that would work is to avoid Gorbachev, or have him taken out before his reforms really start to kick in.
 
1989 was too late. Soviet communism was in a death spiral, facing an angry citizenry and economic collapse. I think the latest POD that would work is to avoid Gorbachev, or have him taken out before his reforms really start to kick in.

For long term/up to present day survival, yes 1989 is likely too late. But a prolonged existence of even half a decade might not be totally out of the question.
 

Tovarich

Banned
I remember there was one point where Kohl tried "I know I said upon reunification I'll swap each of those crappy Ostmarks you all have for lovely Deutschmarks 1:1, but you know I meant 2:1, ja?"

OTL he had to hastily back down, but if he hadn't then might enough Easterners gone "Well bloody sod you then."?
 
With Gorbachev, the GDR was bound to fall in 1989. Schabowski had not announced the opening of the borders by accident, the "accident" was that he could not find on his sheet a date from which the law would begin to be applied and concluded that it applied "... erm, immediately." Thus the chaotic scenes at the checkpoints. If Schabowski had announced that the law applied from December 1st, or maybe even January 1st, it is uncertain whether masses of people would have stormed the wall, and how the border police would have reacted if they had come nonetheless. Maybe the old GDR leadership would have bought itself a few weeks. But once the border was open, hundreds of thousands would stream out into the West, and without the promises of 1990 (unification, 1-to-1-exchange), they would not have returned. ("Kommt die D-Mark, bleiben wir / Kommt sie nicht, gehn wir zu ihr" was a popular slogan on the streets in the East...)

Without Gorbachev, there may not have been hundreds of thousands in the streets of the GDR. Tiananmen would have lingered above their heads. If no country, especially not even Hungary, would have dared relax their policies, then the mass exodus would have been made impossible. Economically speaking, the Eastern bloc wasn`t faring well, but there`s no economic reason why it wouldn`t have tottered on for another decade or so. The political-ideological foundation and social support were so eroded, though, that at some point in time, a crack was bound to appear somewhere.

Poland might have been a likely candidate. If this happened, then the GDR would have had to shut off its borders with Poland, which would have been geographically considerably easier than shutting the border with the Czech Republic. But if Moscow would want to keep the GDR, even in spite of having to give up Poland, then things could have become ugly in central Europe, with a new Cold War climax. The fact that the Soviets couldn`t afford building up was not so important, either, because mutually assured destruction was still there.
 

abc123

Banned
IIRC, Kohl and others decided for fast reunification because of some sort of legal reasons ( something like admitting new Bundeslander in BRD was easier than reunification with another country_DDR )... If they decided to wait a few years, while the economy in the East recovers, that might give you half decade...
 
1989 was to late, the DDR implode faster as there leaders could react


"Out of touch with Reality" Honecker was inflexible hardliners unwilling to make necessary reforms
As General Secretary He was not very Happy about Gorbachev and his reforms.
He even ask Soviet Diplomats in East Berlin "wen you to get rid of Him ?"
And unaware for GDR Politburo, Honecker had a malignant tumor in his liver !

in end He was putsch by Egon Krenz
While Erik Mielke head of State Security order to shoot the demonstrator in GDR cities, were simply refused by local authority.
also remained the GRD Military in there Bases do lack of Orders or self-contradictory or simply they had enough of that Mess the GDR had become.

in end it was not only Günter Schabowski announced the opening of the borders "As far as I know--effective immediately, without delay"
It was also a group of the border guards at Bornholmer Strasse faced thousands of people who wanted to go west Berlin
They simply open the Border to prevent a unrest, once the Wall was open and East german stampede to West, this let to chain reaction as there colleagues open also there checkpoints
so on 9 November 1989 died the GDR.
 
With Gorbachev, the GDR was bound to fall in 1989. Schabowski had not announced the opening of the borders by accident, the "accident" was that he could not find on his sheet a date from which the law would begin to be applied and concluded that it applied "... erm, immediately." Thus the chaotic scenes at the checkpoints. If Schabowski had announced that the law applied from December 1st, or maybe even January 1st, it is uncertain whether masses of people would have stormed the wall, and how the border police would have reacted if they had come nonetheless. Maybe the old GDR leadership would have bought itself a few weeks. But once the border was open, hundreds of thousands would stream out into the West, and without the promises of 1990 (unification, 1-to-1-exchange), they would not have returned. ("Kommt die D-Mark, bleiben wir / Kommt sie nicht, gehn wir zu ihr" was a popular slogan on the streets in the East...)

Without Gorbachev, there may not have been hundreds of thousands in the streets of the GDR. Tiananmen would have lingered above their heads. If no country, especially not even Hungary, would have dared relax their policies, then the mass exodus would have been made impossible. Economically speaking, the Eastern bloc wasn`t faring well, but there`s no economic reason why it wouldn`t have tottered on for another decade or so. The political-ideological foundation and social support were so eroded, though, that at some point in time, a crack was bound to appear somewhere.

Poland might have been a likely candidate. If this happened, then the GDR would have had to shut off its borders with Poland, which would have been geographically considerably easier than shutting the border with the Czech Republic. But if Moscow would want to keep the GDR, even in spite of having to give up Poland, then things could have become ugly in central Europe, with a new Cold War climax. The fact that the Soviets couldn`t afford building up was not so important, either, because mutually assured destruction was still there.

I did misspeak when I was referring to what was said by accident. I mean the "sofort/immediately" slip that caused the dramatic scenes. Had the borders been open gradually there wouldn't have been such a panicked horde of people trying to cross.

Though you make a good point about whether or not those people would have stayed without the promises of 1990. Though at first, unification was NOT a foregone conclusion. But an economic opening might have been enough, and might have breathed new life and stability into the GDR government, especially if Honecker is removed early enough and replaced by someone more....Gorbachev-like.

IIRC, Kohl and others decided for fast reunification because of some sort of legal reasons ( something like admitting new Bundeslander in BRD was easier than reunification with another country_DDR )... If they decided to wait a few years, while the economy in the East recovers, that might give you half decade...

Well, it was less messy legally to have the 5 East German states join the FRG than to have the two countries create a new country. East and West Germany weren't replaced by a new unified Germany. East Germany ceased to exist and it's territory became part of West Germany.

Had the East insisted on something new (an interesting concept), the West would have balked, prolonging/derailing reunification.

1989 was to late, the DDR implode faster as there leaders could react


"Out of touch with Reality" Honecker was inflexible hardliners unwilling to make necessary reforms
As General Secretary He was not very Happy about Gorbachev and his reforms.
He even ask Soviet Diplomats in East Berlin "wen you to get rid of Him ?"
And unaware for GDR Politburo, Honecker had a malignant tumor in his liver !

in end He was putsch by Egon Krenz
While Erik Mielke head of State Security order to shoot the demonstrator in GDR cities, were simply refused by local authority.
also remained the GRD Military in there Bases do lack of Orders or self-contradictory or simply they had enough of that Mess the GDR had become.

in end it was not only Günter Schabowski announced the opening of the borders "As far as I know--effective immediately, without delay"
It was also a group of the border guards at Bornholmer Strasse faced thousands of people who wanted to go west Berlin
They simply open the Border to prevent a unrest, once the Wall was open and East german stampede to West, this let to chain reaction as there colleagues open also there checkpoints
so on 9 November 1989 died the GDR.

Right, Honecker was totally out of touch. Didn't know about his health issues. Might have been interesting to see him replaced in early 1989, late 1988, and have someone more progressive at the helm that was more in line with Gorbachev.
 
Though you make a good point about whether or not those people would have stayed without the promises of 1990. Though at first, unification was NOT a foregone conclusion. But an economic opening might have been enough, and might have breathed new life and stability into the GDR government, especially if Honecker is removed early enough and replaced by someone more....Gorbachev-like.

(...)
Might have been interesting to see him replaced in early 1989, late 1988, and have someone more progressive at the helm that was more in line with Gorbachev.

The thing was that the SED didn't have any reformers on the higher party level. The possible candidates were usually purged in the early 1950s (even the supporters of Krushchev didn't come through), or they left the country. In Hungary, the situation was different, because Kádár may have been an authoritarian, but he was no Stalinist. Czechoslovakia experienced a reform period in the 1960s, and though it was crushed in 1968, it had consequences on the civil society and the opposition movements. The GDR had neither a Dubcek/Nagy reformer, nor a Kádár-type figure on top of the party. Come 1989, and Kádár was usurped by reform-minded members of the ruling party: reform socialists like Németh and Pozsgay, who then transformed their party into a reform-minded post-Communist one. Even someone like Jaruzelski in Poland, who was more of a hardliner than Kádár, did eventually decide to talk to the opposition.

In the SED there was only Hans Modrow, but he could only come to the forefront when the situation had gotten out of hands anyway. Krenz was no reformer (in fact, he congratulated the Chinese leadership for Tiananmen), and the opinions of the party bureaucracy vis-a-vis perestroika and glasnost were best typified by Kurt Hager, who commented on perestroika: "If your neighbour is decorating his room, that doesn't mean that you have to decorate your room as well."
 
Unless you could keep East and West Germany separated for at least three generations, the country would have reunited sooner or later by itself. There was just too much shared experience between the Germans on each side of the border. To start with, they were both Germans... Unlikke for instance Germany and Austria or the US and Canada. There were extensive family ties between the people in the east and west and the border was a result of war drawn rather haphazardly without regard to existing regional cultural lines. Thus a resident of Wolfsburg or Thurgau just on the western side of the border would feel just as close to his 'fellows' in the next village on the east then he would be to his 'western brethren' in Bavaria or Hamburg. There is a precedent of the 'low countries' in the 80-years war of 1660-1740 being split in Spanish controlled Flanders and independent Netherlands which still exist today, but that took two-hundred years to accomplish. If through some ASB involvement, there would still be two Germanies, with any revolution happening before 2050 they would still unite in the aftermath.
 
Unless you could keep East and West Germany separated for at least three generations, the country would have reunited sooner or later by itself. There was just too much shared experience between the Germans on each side of the border. To start with, they were both Germans... Unlikke for instance Germany and Austria or the US and Canada. There were extensive family ties between the people in the east and west and the border was a result of war drawn rather haphazardly without regard to existing regional cultural lines. Thus a resident of Wolfsburg or Thurgau just on the western side of the border would feel just as close to his 'fellows' in the next village on the east then he would be to his 'western brethren' in Bavaria or Hamburg. There is a precedent of the 'low countries' in the 80-years war of 1660-1740 being split in Spanish controlled Flanders and independent Netherlands which still exist today, but that took two-hundred years to accomplish. If through some ASB involvement, there would still be two Germanies, with any revolution happening before 2050 they would still unite in the aftermath.


There is also the fact that it wasn't by civil war or something but outside force that caused the separation. The fact that East Germany was a Russian colony in all but name robbed it of any legitimacy it might have had otherwise.
 
Well I know Maggie Thatcher was very opposed to German reunification so is it possible she could persuade NATO to oppose it? maybe economically? How much influence does she have with the Americans?
 
Well I know Maggie Thatcher was very opposed to German reunification so is it possible she could persuade NATO to oppose it? maybe economically? How much influence does she have with the Americans?

That is not going to happen, the US has a very large German population and is very Anti-Communist.
 
Well I know Maggie Thatcher was very opposed to German reunification so is it possible she could persuade NATO to oppose it? maybe economically? How much influence does she have with the Americans?

Weren't the Americans pro-unionification? If so, I'd say "Nowhere near enough to matter."

Edit: And I see that Johnrankins beat me to it. But yeah, Margret can bitch and moan all day long but in the end, if the Germans want to reunify, realistically there is nothing she can do alone to stop it, short of going off the deep end and ordering a nuclear strike on a allied state, which I'd have... extreme doubts about the willingness of the British military to carry out.
 
Right, Honecker was totally out of touch. Didn't know about his health issues. Might have been interesting to see him replaced in early 1989, late 1988, and have someone more progressive at the helm that was more in line with Gorbachev.

Erich Honecker was ill in 1989

At the Warsaw Pact summit on 7–8 July 1989 in Bucharest, he went ill with biliary colic on night of 7 July and flown home to Berlin.
Here was hospitalize and operated, they remove his inflamed gallbladder and, due to a perforation, part of his colon.
also found the surgeon a suspected carcinogenic nodule in Honecker’s right kidney, but not removed it because of Honecker weak condition.
Honecker was away from his office until late September 1989.

While his Replacement Egon Krenz was not informed about that Honecker had return, either give order to Replace him in Office
for Krenz it was wrong assumption that he would be replaced by more loyal subordinate of Honecker
And Krenz start to plot a Putsch.

On 6–7 October 1989 the national celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the East German state happened.
were "Out of touch with Reality" Honecker praised the GDR and Anti Fascistic Wall (GRD Border wall)
while the crowd chanting, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, save us!" toward guest of honour Gorbachev...
 
Well I know Maggie Thatcher was very opposed to German reunification so is it possible she could persuade NATO to oppose it? maybe economically? How much influence does she have with the Americans?

No, because the Americans are OK with reunification, and Mitterrand, though he shared similar sentiments with Thatcher, was ultimately less intransigently opposed than she was...This was due to his support of European integration, which he shared with Kohl...
 
Let us determine two PODs: Erich Honecker dies on December 7, 1988 (date chosen arbitrarily) and on January 22, 1989, Gorbachev's plane crashes/car has an accidnt/....

Who would replace Honecker? Who would replace Gorby? What effects would this have?
 
the DDR's going to fall once the USSR does, that's true.

But the reunification is by no means a done deal. Firstly, there were politicians in the West who were quite opposed to it (Maggie T has been mentioned). Secondly, if there were more squabbling about methods of unification, the value of the Ostmark, etc., etc., you could have had the East Germans say 'to heck with this'; again, as already mentioned. Thirdly, you could have the Conservatives (CDU/CSU) put up roadblocks (since there was a thought that all those lefty Easterners would mean the SDP would be guaranteed majorities for the foreseeable future. Fourthly, while the Soviet Union was collapsing, I could see them trying even harder to maintain the perception of power, and vetoing reunification. (Possibly due to a successful coup attempt.)
 
Let us determine two PODs: Erich Honecker dies on December 7, 1988 (date chosen arbitrarily) and on January 22, 1989, Gorbachev's plane crashes/car has an accidnt/....

Who would replace Honecker? Who would replace Gorby? What effects would this have?

Not sure who would replace them but this likely means that hardliners try and step into the power vacuum in Moscow, which would either delay the collapse of the USSR, or possibly hasten it, depending on how quickly and sternly they try to rollback Gorbachev's reforms and how the people react. In the DDR, it's likely that another hardliner would replace Honecker, though maybe not one as blind as him. However, if hardliners have replaced Gorbachev, the new DDR leader will try to be in step with Moscow.

the DDR's going to fall once the USSR does, that's true.

But the reunification is by no means a done deal. Firstly, there were politicians in the West who were quite opposed to it (Maggie T has been mentioned). Secondly, if there were more squabbling about methods of unification, the value of the Ostmark, etc., etc., you could have had the East Germans say 'to heck with this'; again, as already mentioned. Thirdly, you could have the Conservatives (CDU/CSU) put up roadblocks (since there was a thought that all those lefty Easterners would mean the SDP would be guaranteed majorities for the foreseeable future. Fourthly, while the Soviet Union was collapsing, I could see them trying even harder to maintain the perception of power, and vetoing reunification. (Possibly due to a successful coup attempt.)

All likely possibilities, some more than others. I know that Thatcher was opposed, but with the US being more supportive of reunification and France noncommittal, I think it's likely she gets outvoted. That said, there are plenty of local issues in West Germany and East that could delay reunification by perhaps as much as half a decade or more.

Interesting side question......if reunification is severely delayed, and maybe if the political situation is more tense that OTL, any chance of the capital staying in Bonn, maybe not permanently but longer than it did OTL after reunification?
 
Hmm, maybe West Germany makes East Germany catch up more economically before they merge? I'd imagine the government in East Germany wouldn't be communist anymore, and it would be purely transitional until things improve. Probably wouldn't last too much longer, but it would fit your specifications.

On the less realistic side, you could possibly get a 1983: Doomsday type scenario and perhaps by some stroke of luck East Germany either doesn't get hit to badly or else survives in some small form
 
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