German Reunification (nov 9, 1989 – oct 3, 1990)

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German reunification began on 9 November 1989 and ended on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of its constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany. This date is celebrated as German Unity Day and has since been celebrated annually as a national holiday. East and West Berlin were reunified into a single city, which eventually became the capital of Germany.

The East German government, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), started to falter on 2 May 1989 when Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. The Pan-European Picnic and the indecisive reaction of the rulers of the Eastern Bloc set in motion an irreversible movement, leading to thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany via Hungary. The Peaceful Revolution led to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and the GDR's first free elections later on 18 March 1990. Negotiations between the two Germanies and the four occupying powers in Germany produced the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, which granted full sovereignty to a reunified German state on 15 March 1991.

After World War II, Germany was occupied and divided by the four Allied countries, with no peace treaty. Two countries emerged: the American-occupied, British-occupied, and French-occupied zones, forming West Germany, and the Soviet-occupied zone, East Germany, joining NATO in 1955. In 1990, both East and West Germany committed to the principle that their joint pre-1990 boundary constituted the entire territory that could be claimed by a government of Germany.

The reunited state is not a successor state but an enlarged continuation of the 1949–1990 West German state. The enlarged Federal Republic of Germany retained West German seats in the governing bodies of the European Economic Community (EEC) and international organizations, while relinquishing membership in the Warsaw Pact and other international organizations to which only East Germany belonged.

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