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?