I will end my remarks by thanking all our British friends, who have greatly helped us over these last 60 years in the German question; there was never a doubt that all British Governments were strong supporters, first of all of alleviating the consequences of the separation of Germans into two states and the special occupation area in Berlin, starting with the airlift in 1948-49. In 1954 Britain was very helpful with the Eden Plan,32 part of which was the Deutschlandvertrag (Treaty on Germany).33 In Article 7 of this Treaty our political goal was enshrined: to work for a state of peace in Europe where the German people could make use of self-determination to achieve unity. In 1970-71 Britain was very helpful in the quadripartite agreement negotiations with the Russians, to get the most for the population of Berlin in opening the borders to the GDR for travel and exchanges. During my London years, I had strong support – and Lord Waldegrave mentioned this – from Lord Carrington, who was the first one to suggest that Manfred Wörner become Secretary General of NATO. From the Labour side, I will never forget the overwhelming applause I got on 2 October at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool for the unification of Germany following the next day. That showed that the whole Labour party was behind the unification of our country. The last person I would like to thank is Lord Robertson, who was Chairman of the BritishGerman Parliamentary Group. He actually made a bet with Richard von Weizsäcker in the early 1980s, that when his daughter would be 18, the Berlin Wall would have fallen. Only eight years later he could walk with his daughter through the Brandenburg Gate. This shows the kind support and interest we had, in particular from the whole population here.
Roger Morgan There are many points there that we will want to come back to. Perhaps that phrase about the ‘state of peace in Europe’ points to one of the really serious differences between our two countries. Willy Brandt and earlier governments in Germany had always said: ‘we can expect the unification of our country only when there is a state of peace in Europe, Eine Europäische Friedensordnung. Maybe in 1989, when everything began to move very fast indeed, the general German reaction was: ‘we have a peaceful order in Europe, we have the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin,34 the Helsinki Final Act35 and Gorbachev’s reform of the Soviet bloc, what more do we need’ On the British side there was more hesitation and there were more questions, and some peoples’ thinking tended to go: ‘Germany’s future role in Western proposals for German reunification and European security were put forward at the Geneva Conference of Foreign Ministers in 1955. These included the Eden plan for German reunification in freedom, which had been submitted to the Western Powers by the British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden at the Berlin Conference in 1954. 33 In October 1954, the three Western allies and Germany signed this treaty, also known as the Bonn/Paris Conventions, as part of the process that brought the FRG into NATO. It entered into force in May 1955. 34 See Session 1, footnote 7. 35 See Session 1, footnote 6. 32
84