Conceivable lessons from the German unification miracle Werner Kamppeter, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Seoul 1 On October 9, 1989, about 70000 East German citizens participated in a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Leipzig. This demonstration was the terminal point of the German Democratic Repub­lic(GDR). Many demonstrators feared a repetition of the Tiananmen massacre – leading public figures in Leipzig, among them three party secretaries, warned openly of such an outcome. Just be­fore this was to have happened 5000 police troops that had been waiting at the railway station were withdrawn. A few days earlier the GDR had celebrated the 40 th anniversary of its foundation in 1949. The Rus­sian leader Mikhail Gorbachev attended these festivities in Berlin. From the moment he set his feet on GDR soil he was celebrated like a pop star. There existed an intimate relationship between these demonstrations – or to be more precise, the peaceful candle-light demonstrations that had taken place over several months – and Gorbachev. The elites as well as the common people of the GDR were enthusiastic about Gorbachev’s project of liberal and democratic reform of socialism and of building the“House of Europe . ” They ab­horred the stubbornness of Erich Honecker and his confidents in the Central Committee of the Party(SED). They believed in democratic socialism, they wanted political freedom and they wanted to overcome the East-West confrontation of the post-World War II era. In their eyes Gorba­chev symbolised these ideas and that is why he was able to ferment reform in East German society and politics. Honecker of course knew all this and fought against the reformist tendencies in the country. Therefore, although Gorbachev avoided any public confrontation, his mere presence was a threat to Honecker’s reign. Honecker’s discomfort was palpable to everyone. After the demonstrations on October 9 things unravelled very quickly. On November 9 the wall and the border were opened – by a blunder by Günter Schabowski, member of the SED Central Com­mittee, during a meeting with the press but, by then, Erich Honecker had already been replaced. On November 28, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl single-handedly outlined his Ten Point Plan for the peaceful unification of the two German states. British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand were furious. Gorbachev was not pleased either. In any event, Kohl with the at least tacit support of President George Bush cunningly outmaneuvered them all and Germany became formally unified on Oct. 3, 1990. German unification came as a complete surprise to most people. Nobody at the candle-light demon­strations in Leipzig and elsewhere had anything like that in mind, not even in their wildest dreams. Because it was so unexpected, German unification was an “occurrence ; ” it just happened like an accident in history. It was a miracle. 1 Based on Ehwa Womans University, The 9 th Kim Okgil Memorial Lecture “ Global Peace and the Future of the Ko­rean Peninsula ”, Seoul, November 2, 2009. The constructive comments of Professor Cho Hyo-Je, Sungkonghoe University/Free University Berlin are gratefully acknowledged.