ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question of whether successive West German governments were successful in the pursuit of unification which, according to the Preamble of the constitution was supposed to be the primary goal of German policy. It presents the discussion of whether German unification more or less fell into the laps of the German people as a “historical present”—or whether West German policy toward the German Democratic Republic (GDR) actively pursued the goal of unification and was finally rewarded in 1990. The GDR was not only not taken seriously as a negotiation partner but was ignored altogether, since the West German leadership viewed the GDR as a Soviet satellite whose international diplomatic recognition must be prevented under all circumstances. The desire of the Soviet leadership to base its foreign policy on a relaxation of tensions with the West changed its attitude toward the major point of controversy in German-Soviet relations: the issue of West German ties to West Berlin.
