ABSTRACT
Martin Gilbert, born in 1937, is a British historian and the author of numerous works, including The Final Journey: The Fate of the Jews of Nazi Europe and Auschwitz and the Allies. The wartime allies, at Teheran and Yalta, were clearly thinking of Germany as a whole, even while demilitarizing and deindustrializing it to make sure that it could not start another war. The author taught to look for the weak link in the chain, the cause of potential trouble in the apparently stable order of things. The phase of history that is opening with the unification of Germany is, in a sense, the reversal of processes that began in 1918 with the overly severe Versailles Treaty terms against Germany. In the next decade, a united Germany could be a lifesaver, a source of economic strength and political stability for all the countries of central Europe, and it could continue to be the driving force for the unification of Europe.
