hankyoreh

Last Oct. 3 marked the 30th anniversary of Germany’s reunification. Historically, South Korean presidents have used Germany as a backdrop when announcing important visions for peace on the Korean Peninsula: Kim Dae-jung’s Berlin Declaration (Mar. 9, 2000), Lee Myung-bak’s Berlin proposal inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul (May 9, 2011), Park Geun-hye’s Dresden Initiative (Mar. 28, 2014), and Moon Jae-in’s New Berlin Declaration (July 6, 2017). When Korean presidents deliver messages about reunification, no place is seen as holding greater symbolism than Germany -- a country that overcame its division to achieve unity.

At a 30th anniversary commemoration ceremony in Potsdam on Oct. 3, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed raising a new memorial to the participants in the peaceful revolution that brought an end to the East German system. He said this memorial would “be a setting inscribing that East German citizens were the ones who took charge of their own destiny and achieved freedom” -- meaning that the people of East Germany had been the agents of reunification. His proposal is based on a rather different perception from the prevailing views that South Koreans hold about German reunification. Many Koreans see West Germany as the agent behind reunification, claiming that it “absorbed” the East.

Was East Germany actually “absorbed” into the West? An examination of the debate and research regarding German reunification that has taken place in South Korea and elsewhere to date shows three main schools of thought.

First, there are those who view West Germany as having absorbed East Germany on Oct. 3, 1990, after the Berlin Wall came down in November of the preceding year. In South Korea, this is the most commonly accepted version. Under the Lee and Park administrations, many called for adopting German-style unification as a “model” for absorbing North Korea, which they assumed would collapse. Lee’s “new unification tax” proclamation and Park’s talk of “unification as jackpot” prompted a spate of research into the costs and effects of reunification under an “absorption” scenario.

Second, there are those who think that the characterization of German reunification as an “absorption” is a misunderstanding and an affront to the people of the former East Germany. East Germans brought down their dictatorship through a bloodless revolution, achieving peaceful unification through their own choices. The bloodless revolution for peace began in May 1989 with demonstrations protesting an unfair election in Leipzig. Around 2,000 people took part in the initial Leipzig demonstrations, which spread over the course of that fall and winter into demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people throughout East Germany clamoring for travel freedoms, democratization, and German reunification. In March 1990, a political party adopting “swift reunification” as its platform won a landslide victory in the East German parliamentary elections; in October of that year, Germany was reunified.

Looking at the process of German reunification, we can see that Germany was not a passive subject of “absorption,” but a driving force. East Germans dictated the direction and speed of reunification. In a 2015 address commemorating the 25th anniversary of Germany’s reunification, then President Joachim Gauck said, “Unification emerged from a peaceful revolution. East Germans overcame their fear and claimed victory over their oppressors through a powerful grass roots movement.” Germany does not even have a set expression for “reunification by absorption” like South Korea does; explanations of the reunification process there are said to employ concepts such as “joining” and “merging.” Indeed, the reunification itself took the form of five East German states joining the West German federation.

Third, there are those who view it as a “consensual absorption.” While the reunification itself was a peaceful process based on democratic negotiations on an equal footing between East and West, serious issues arose in the subsequent integration process. According to this argument, the integration process proceeded according to West German standards, making it a de facto absorption.

S. Korea vastly underprepared for reunification compared to West Germany

Experts vary in the views on whether the German reunification process really was an absorption. But this is clear: German reunification was the result of a choice made by the people of East Germany. If South and North Korea are to be reunified, we will need to win over the people of North Korea. Lothar de Maiziere, the last leader of East Germany, once said that unification of the Korean Peninsula “can be completely achieved when the people of North Korea wish it for themselves.”

Can we win over the people of North Korea to achieve reunification like Germany did? Compared with West Germany, South Korea is underprepared for reunification, and the public’s desire for reunification seems to be waning over time. Additionally, we tend to view it as a situation where the South is “normal” and the North “abnormal,” meaning that the North will have to change before reunification happens. If Korean reunification were to happen under the current circumstances, it is likely to face more conflict than Germany. Reunification must be viewed not just in terms of political integration, but also in terms of social integration. We need a realistic, incremental approach that works ahead of time to establish the necessary social and economic systems for South and North Koreans to coexist in terms of areas such as employment and social services.

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, editorial writer

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