German reunification

Date

3 October 1990

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Central Europe (Germany)

Era

Contemporary

Significance

On 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist and joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), restoring a single German state for the first time since 1945.

Reunification was made possible by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany — the "Two Plus Four Agreement" — signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990 by the two German states and the four post-war occupying powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France). The treaty ended residual Allied rights in Germany and confirmed the country's full sovereignty and existing borders, including recognition of the Oder–Neisse line with Poland. The date is commemorated annually as German Unity Day. Reunification removed the central fault line of the Cold War in Europe and confirmed Moscow's acquiescence to the new order, while anchoring a unified Germany within NATO and the European Community.

Empires active in 3 October 1990

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Yugoslavia
  1918 CE – 1992 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Fall of the Berlin Wall
  9 November 1989
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union
  August–December 1991
• Revolutions of 1989 across Eastern Europe
  1989 (Autumn of Nations)
• The end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa
  27 April 1994 (election); 10 May 1994 (inauguration)
• Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika
  1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
• Iranian Revolution
  January–February 1979

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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