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reservations about unification in public. 37 It is described astutely by
Charles Powell in his record of the Prime Minister’s meeting with
President Mitterrand at the European Council Meeting in Strasbourg
on 8 December. Mitterrand echoed, and even reinforced all the Prime
Minister’s strictures about the Germans in general and Kohl in particular.
But he was careful to add that ‘in practice there was not much
Gorbachev could do. He could hardly move his divisions forward.
We did not have many cards. The USA did not have the will. All that
could be done was to have a four power meeting. German unification
would happen. We were on the threshold of momentous events.’ 38
Mitterrand insisted at a further meeting with the Prime Minister on
20 January that ‘France would recognise and respect the reality of the
desire of the Germans for unity. It would be stupid to say no to reunification.’
39 The Prime Minister disagreed. Britain and France did at
least have the means to slow things down, if only they were prepared
to use them. On the evidence of these two meetings, the French were
not so prepared.
In his valedictory despatch on 6 December Sir Nigel Broomfield
concluded that ‘the question of German unity is now actual. It could
become operational at any time over this winter if there is a breakdown
in law and order or an economic collapse.’ 40 Chancellor Kohl
evidently agreed. There is no separate record in either book of his
visit to Dresden (brought forward to 19 December to precede
Mitterrand’s visit to East Berlin and the GDR on 20–21 December),
but by his own account this was the moment when Kohl decided that
‘the regime was finished and unification was coming’. 41 I recall his
speech in front of the ruins of the Frauenkirche, destroyed by Allied
bombing in February 1945, as a skilful piece of oratory that calmed
people down by promising them that their aspiration for unity
would be fulfilled, provided that they displayed discipline and
patience. On the return flight, informal planning for German
Economic and Monetary Union (GEMU) began.
Sir Nigel added in his valedictory despatch that the movement to
unification was a German process over which even close allies had
37 Ibid. no. 45.
38 Ibid. no. 71.
39 Ibid. no. 103.
40 Ibid. no. 66.
41 Helmut Kohl, Erinnerungen 1982–1990 (Munich, 2005), 1020.
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