2+4, 4+2, or 33+2? The Centers of Power Take Over the Negotiations on the International Aspects of Unity

Abstract

At the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990, while the majority of the people of Europe were only just starting to be aware that there was a real possibility of reunification, those in all the concerned centers of power were already thinking feverishly about how it would be fashioned: who should negotiate the procedures for the unification of Germany? The European states? The victorious powers of the Second World War alone? Or the “Big Four” and the two Germanies? Or the CSCE, that is, the European states including the two Germanies, the United States, and Canada (as well as the Soviet Union)? How could the international and national unification issues be tied together most efficiently and—one can add safely add—what was the best way to realize individual interests and goals?