This volume is comprised of a collection of diplomatic documents covering British reactions to, and policy towards, the collapse of the German Democratic Republic and the unification of Germany in 1989-90. The peaceful unification of Germany in 1989-90 brought a dramatic end to the Cold War. This volume documents official British reactions to the collapse of East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the evolution of British policy during the ‘Two plus Four’ negotiations that provided the international framework for the merger of the two German states. All of the documents fall within the UK’s 30-year rule and have therefore not previously been in the public domain. Most are drawn from the archives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but there are also a large number of Prime Ministerial files from the Cabinet Office archives. These are of particular interest for the light they throw on the views of Margaret Thatcher. Taken together, the documents show that despite Mrs Thatcher’s well-known reservations about German unity, the United Kingdom played a vital and constructive role in the negotiations that helped to bring it about. This volume will be of great interest to students of International History, British Political History, and European Politics and International Relations in general. Patrick Salmon is Chief Historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Keith Hamilton is a Historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Senior Editor of Documents on British Policy Overseas. Stephen Twigge is a Senior Historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

This book explores the effects of Germany's unification in 1990 on its policies toward the European Union.

German-American relations have become interesting again. U.S. President Donald Trump’s lukewarm policy toward Europe has ensured that the relationship between Berlin and Washington is once again regarded as an important field of scholarship within global politics. And yet it was only a few years ago that German-American relations seemed to take second place to transatlantic relations in general, and the European Union (EU)–USA relationship in particular. The advent of Donald Trump as US President in January 2017 has made all the difference. Trump’s difficult personal relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and his denigration of everything the Western world – including the USA itself – has stood for since 1949, have given a new significance to German-American relations in practice and theory. This volume offers an empirical and conceptual analysis of German-American relations in the 21st century and highlights the serious and perhaps unprecedented challenges the two countries face at present. The authors discuss a number of aspects of the current, much more fragile state of German-American relations from different perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal German Politics.

Exploring the visions of the end of the Cold War that have been put forth since its inception until its actual ending, this volume brings to the fore the reflections, programmes, and strategies that were intended to call into question the bipolar system and replace it with alternative approaches or concepts. These visions were associated not only with prominent individuals, organized groups and civil societies, but were also connected to specific historical processes or events. They ranged from actual, thoroughly conceived programmes, to more blurred, utopian aspirations -- or simply the belief that the Cold War had already, in effect, come to an end. Such visions reveal much about the contexts in which they were developed and shed light on crucial moments and phases of the Cold War.

Twenty years in the making, this collection presents 122 top-level Soviet, European and American records on the superpowers' role in the annus mirabilis of 1989. Consisting of Politburo minutes; diary entries from Gorbachev's senior aide, Anatoly Chernyaev; meeting notes and private communications of Gorbachev with George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand; and high-level CIA analyses, this volume offers a rare insider's look at the historic, world-transforming events that culminated in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Most of these records have never been published before.