Federal Republic of Germany
In 1982, the SPD/FDP coalition broke up. On October 1, 1982, Helmut Kohl (CDU) was elected Chancellor in a Constructive Vote of No Confidence in the Bundestag.CDU and FDP formed a new government under Helmut Kohl (Chancellor 1982-1998).
"Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!" US-President Ronald Reagan in Berlin, 1987At the beginning of the 80s, the Cold War was still going on. That changed when Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His reform programs Perestroika ("New Thinking for Our Country and Abroad") and Glasnost (openness) made "Gorby" popular in the West and improved political and economic relations. He urged the other regimes in the Soviet Bloc to follow his reform policy. Reformists in Hungary and Poland were encouraged, staunch communists. among them Erich Honecker in East Berlin, rejected Gorbachev's reforms.
On June 12, 1987, US-President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. His words went around the world: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Shortly after, in 1988, Gorbachev made it clear that the Soviet Union would not intervene in the internal affairs of Soviet Bloc allies, as it had done 1968 in Prague to crush the "Prague Spring". Poland and Hungary became the first Warsaw Pact state country to break free.
Hungary had opened its border to Austria, and many East Germans fled via Hungary into the West. East Germans occupied West German Embassies in Budapest, Warsaw and Prague in order to force permit for leaving the country. In September 1989, thousands of men, woman and children camped in the garden of the German Embassy in Prague, until Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher brought the news they all had been waiting for: they all were allowed to travel into the Federal Republic.
On October 7, Gorbachev visited East Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic. While many people demonstrated on the streets, the Politbüro did not reconsider and refused reforms. More and more citizens of East Germany vehemently demanded an adjustment of the political course on that the USSR, and mass demonstrations with eventually hundreds of thousands people occurred in several cities, particularly in Leipzig.
Finally, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened, and East Germany were allowed to travel freely.
In 1990, discussions between the West German and the East German Governments over reunification took place. In February, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev met in the Caucasus. On July 1st, the economic and monetary union was in force. On August 23rd, both Parliaments agreed on the date of the reunification. The winning powers approved in September and dismissed Germany into the full sovereignty. On October 3, the five reconstituted East German states Mecklenburg-Pommerania, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt und Thuringia and the reunited city state of Berlin acceded to the Federal Republic, and the two German states were united. This is the national holiday we celebrate.
On June 20, 1991, the Bundestag had decided in a hard-fought ballot to return to Berlin its old capital function. In 1999, the Government moved from the Rhine to the Spree, in the same year, the renovated Reichstag in Berlin was reopened.
Here we are the end of the last chapter of the history of the Seven Mountains. When we wander through our area today, we may take it for granted that we have enough to eat, and that we live in a state under the rule of law, and that we are free .. but we cannot take it for granted. Every day, we see that in the news. In the years of the new beginning After World War II, in the "Bonn Republic", the basis was created. Therefore, this chapter also is a big "thank you", for the opportunity to live in a free state under rule of law.
Let us go back to where we began the history chapter, to the Petersberg. Today the old hotel doesn't exist anymore, in its place, a new guest house for the Federal Government was built. It modeled on the old hotel, saving some of the old stones. This hotel, too, has had it's share of prominent guests, among them Hillary and Bill Clinton - a jogging trail is named by him.