Former Soviet leader: What Germany owes to Gorbachev

Gorbachev didn’t tear down the wall alone, but helped it come to this. Many Germans still admire him for this. Gabor Halasz about days full of worries, a walk along the Rhine and a historical quote.

Sometimes words change the world, even if they are not said: “If you are late, life will punish you.” This is perhaps the most famous sentence that has never been pronounced.

In October 1989 he goes around the world. These words are attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Secretary General from Moscow, who had just traveled to East Berlin at the time. As a guest of honor from the brother people who are no longer so loved – the GDR is 40 years old. But the celebrations seem strangely bizarre. While glasses are raised in the Palace of the Republic, crowds demonstrate in the streets demanding reforms and democracy. The SED leadership has decoupled from the people. She is late and will soon be punished by life.

A danger for the aged Politburo

In the GDR, people are longing more and more for a reformer. But for the aged Politburo of the SED around Erich Honecker, the visitor from the Soviet Union has long since become a great danger. Compared to the older gentlemen in East Berlin, Gorbachev comes across as a young man with fresh ideas. One who pushed open the windows.

The cameras of the world are trained on him. He walks towards her and speaks a sentence that is a little reminiscent of the famous quote: “I believe that dangers only lurk in those who do not react to life.” A sentence not suitable for headlines. But Gorbachev later never resisted the famous sentence.

He didn’t change the world alone, but…

On the streets of Plauen, Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin they shout: “We are the people!” and “No Violence”. These are worrying days. How long will the SED put up with this? The fear of a Chinese solution by force is great. There is also the fear that the Soviet Union could, like in 1953, get its tanks out of the barracks.

But Gorbachev does not do it – for the first time in German history, a revolution remains peaceful. Lucky for the Germans, which they also owe to Gorbachev. He didn’t change the world alone, he didn’t break down the wall alone. It was the East Germans on the streets. But without Gorbachev, German reunification would not have been possible.

A walk with Kohl on the Rhine

Life punishes those who come too late – even if Gorbachev probably never said these words, he understood them. Perhaps already when he traveled to Bonn in the summer of 1989. Gorbachev goes for a walk with Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Kohl is said to have said with a view of the Rhine: German reunification is as certain as the water flowing into the sea. Gorbachev did not object at the time – as Kohl later recounts.

A good year later, pictures from the Caucasus went around the world. Kohl in a cardigan, Gorbachev in a pullover – both more or less sealed German unity at the wooden table. It is the beginning of a male friendship.

Overwhelmed by history

“Gorbi, Gorbi,” shout East and West Germans. The man from the Kremlin is worshiped on both sides of the wall. He changed the lives of millions – not only in Germany. He was never democratically elected. He wanted to reform socialism, not abolish it. Was later overwhelmed by the story.

That doesn’t change the fact that Gorbachev remains a hero in Germany. Perhaps Bonn, Berlin and Moscow were never as close as they were under the young General Secretary and first Soviet President. Back then – Early 1990s when the Cold War ended. Some spoke of the end of history.

Walls and wars don’t last forever

At the time, it seemed unthinkable that war would be waged again in Europe. Today those times seem infinitely far away. A man in the Kremlin turned back time. This makes Germans painfully aware: Gorbachev may have been a hero in Germany, but he is not at home.

But his life story also shows that walls and wars do not last forever. When the right politicians are in the right place at the right time and heed the famous unsaid sentence: “If you’re late, life will punish you.”