ABSTRACT
Adam Michnik, born in 1945, is a Polish historian. He is editor-in-chief of Warsaw's daily Gazeta Wyborcza, and is a deputy to the Polish parliament. He was a leading dissident during the Communist regime in Poland. He views German reunification as the realization of the just aspirations of the German nation to live within its own state. Looking back at the collapse of the Berlin wall, he would like to affirm that miracles can occur in our unsettled century, and that those who are directed by justice are right, and not those who follow pure political realism. It was impossible to maintain the division of Germany, since East Germany was an artificial creation of Soviet policy. To paraphrase the well-known words of Mirabeau, he would affirm that East Germany was not a state having Soviet bases within it, but a Soviet base with a state within it. A democratic Germany will foster democratic tendencies.
