In the years following German reunification, the then German government tried to prevent the independence of the Baltic states and later NATO’s eastward expansion, according to a report in Der Spiegel. When Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania pressed for their independence from the still-existing Soviet Union, Chancellor Helmut Kohl lobbied Western allies against it, the report said, citing Foreign Office files from 1991 that were released in rotation.
The Balts were on the “wrong track,” Spiegel quoted a statement Kohl made to then French President François Mitterrand. They should be patient with their independence for at least another ten years. Kohl considered the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 a “catastrophe,” it said. Even after the end of the Soviet Union, the Chancellor offered Russian President Boris Yeltsin the opportunity to lobby Ukraine for its readiness to form a confederation with Russia. After the end of the Warsaw Pact, but even before the end of the Soviet Union, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had also been against NATO’s eastward expansion. This was “not in our interest”, the “Spiegel” quoted file notes on Genscher. The then FDP foreign minister had in principle granted Poland or Hungary the right to belong to NATO, but had made it clear that it was “now a question of not exercising this right.”
The background to this was that Kohl and Genscher had feared the fall of the Soviet president and reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, which actually happened at the end of 1991. At that time, strong units of Soviet and then Russian troops were still stationed in East Germany.
As an alternative to NATO membership, Eastern European countries were offered membership in the largely non-binding North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), which later merged into the now meaningless Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative. “Initially, the former Warsaw Pact countries intended to become members of NATO. They were talked out of this in confidential talks,” “Der Spiegel” quoted Genscher from files at the time. The Foreign Minister had also referred to a promise made during the negotiations on German unity that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO.
The existence of such a pledge, apparently never put in writing, has been a source of debate for years. The Russian side in particular has repeatedly referred to a breach of such a promise, including in Russian ruler Vladimir Putin’s justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
From the Western point of view, the statements attributed to Genscher in this regard were personal expressions of opinion, not determinations under international law, especially since the German foreign minister had no mandate to do so. Nor does the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act contain any reference to a renunciation of NATO’s eastward enlargement; on the contrary, it grants all states – including Russia – the right “freely to choose the means of ensuring their own security.”
The offer to Eastern European states to join NATO was made at the NATO summit in Madrid in 1997 – i.e. still during Kohl’s term of office – and was initially implemented from 1999 onwards with the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
As an Eastern European I feel to have been betrayed quite a few times in the past two months.
Fuck Helmut Kohl. Helmut Schmidt is the best Helmut. Guy was a true European.
[deleted]
Many in the west were afraid of a disintegrating Soviet Union and the chaos that might cause. They were hoping for it to reform itself into a dependable neighbour. Of course they severely underestimated the stability of the USSR once state violence to keep subjects in line was slowly taken off the table.
Russians keep repeating the same lie how NATO expanded eastward and this supposedly breached the deal whereas it was never forbidden in the first place:
> Nor does the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act contain any reference to a renunciation of NATO’s eastward enlargement; on the contrary, it grants all states – including Russia – the right “freely to choose the means of ensuring their own security.”
Must be great, being thrown to a mass murdering psychopath that’s responsible for more deaths than Nazi Germany, and after 50 years being told that “nah, wait ten more years, you can’t be free now”.
And France was not very enthusiast towards German reunification.
Well, they didn’t want to seem like they were backing out of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Yet the cry when France and the UK was skeptical of re-unification.
We should have partitioned them into Voltaire’s nightmare.
Doesn’t matter, Germany can do and say whatever they want and the countries in Eastern and Central Europe will still simp for them like they do today and like they did in the past.
Oh boy, how some people will take that headline out of the context of the era it refers to and use the opinion and concerns that some politicians briefly had in a situation that ended over 30 years ago (and that had been over for years when the time came to decide if these countries could follow the West) to now fling dirt at Germany.
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Translation:
In the years following German reunification, the then German government tried to prevent the independence of the Baltic states and later NATO’s eastward expansion, according to a report in Der Spiegel. When Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania pressed for their independence from the still-existing Soviet Union, Chancellor Helmut Kohl lobbied Western allies against it, the report said, citing Foreign Office files from 1991 that were released in rotation.
The Balts were on the “wrong track,” Spiegel quoted a statement Kohl made to then French President François Mitterrand. They should be patient with their independence for at least another ten years. Kohl considered the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 a “catastrophe,” it said. Even after the end of the Soviet Union, the Chancellor offered Russian President Boris Yeltsin the opportunity to lobby Ukraine for its readiness to form a confederation with Russia. After the end of the Warsaw Pact, but even before the end of the Soviet Union, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had also been against NATO’s eastward expansion. This was “not in our interest”, the “Spiegel” quoted file notes on Genscher. The then FDP foreign minister had in principle granted Poland or Hungary the right to belong to NATO, but had made it clear that it was “now a question of not exercising this right.”
The background to this was that Kohl and Genscher had feared the fall of the Soviet president and reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, which actually happened at the end of 1991. At that time, strong units of Soviet and then Russian troops were still stationed in East Germany.
As an alternative to NATO membership, Eastern European countries were offered membership in the largely non-binding North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), which later merged into the now meaningless Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative. “Initially, the former Warsaw Pact countries intended to become members of NATO. They were talked out of this in confidential talks,” “Der Spiegel” quoted Genscher from files at the time. The Foreign Minister had also referred to a promise made during the negotiations on German unity that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO.
The existence of such a pledge, apparently never put in writing, has been a source of debate for years. The Russian side in particular has repeatedly referred to a breach of such a promise, including in Russian ruler Vladimir Putin’s justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
From the Western point of view, the statements attributed to Genscher in this regard were personal expressions of opinion, not determinations under international law, especially since the German foreign minister had no mandate to do so. Nor does the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act contain any reference to a renunciation of NATO’s eastward enlargement; on the contrary, it grants all states – including Russia – the right “freely to choose the means of ensuring their own security.”
The offer to Eastern European states to join NATO was made at the NATO summit in Madrid in 1997 – i.e. still during Kohl’s term of office – and was initially implemented from 1999 onwards with the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Make teutonic state great again…
As an Eastern European I feel to have been betrayed quite a few times in the past two months.
Fuck Helmut Kohl. Helmut Schmidt is the best Helmut. Guy was a true European.
[deleted]
Many in the west were afraid of a disintegrating Soviet Union and the chaos that might cause. They were hoping for it to reform itself into a dependable neighbour. Of course they severely underestimated the stability of the USSR once state violence to keep subjects in line was slowly taken off the table.
Russians keep repeating the same lie how NATO expanded eastward and this supposedly breached the deal whereas it was never forbidden in the first place:
> Nor does the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act contain any reference to a renunciation of NATO’s eastward enlargement; on the contrary, it grants all states – including Russia – the right “freely to choose the means of ensuring their own security.”
Must be great, being thrown to a mass murdering psychopath that’s responsible for more deaths than Nazi Germany, and after 50 years being told that “nah, wait ten more years, you can’t be free now”.
And France was not very enthusiast towards German reunification.
Well, they didn’t want to seem like they were backing out of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Yet the cry when France and the UK was skeptical of re-unification.
We should have partitioned them into Voltaire’s nightmare.
Doesn’t matter, Germany can do and say whatever they want and the countries in Eastern and Central Europe will still simp for them like they do today and like they did in the past.
Oh boy, how some people will take that headline out of the context of the era it refers to and use the opinion and concerns that some politicians briefly had in a situation that ended over 30 years ago (and that had been over for years when the time came to decide if these countries could follow the West) to now fling dirt at Germany.