Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1981 a small group of pacifists demonstrated against the presence of Soviet
nuclear missiles on East German soil as well as civilian nuclear reactors
and industrial pollution, the government quickly suppressed them. Their
motto was “Swords into Plowshares.” Other mass demonstrations had little
to do with the environment. In the summer of 1987 crowds of East Berlin
youths gathered on their side of the Wall to hear two rock concerts being
held in West Berlin near the Reichstag building. When the crowd broke
into spontaneous cries for freedom and unification, police charged in.
Suddenly in 1989 the gates of the Berlin Wall were opened. In the pop-
ular parlance, the Wall fell. Political changes in the Soviet Union had
undermined support for the Communist government in East Germany.
In 1985 the Soviet Politburo had recognized that its tired, elderly leader-
ship needed to be replaced and appointed Mikhail Gorbachev to head the
Communist Party and the government. Gorbachev realized that oppress-
ing the satellites in Eastern Europe was dragging down the Soviet Union.
The unwillingness of the Soviets to prop up the Communist regimes in East
Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and elsewhere, encouraged people to be
bolder in demanding more freedom, and soon the entire system collapsed.
By August 1989 East Germans were permitted to travel to Czechoslovakia
or Hungary and then to West Germany, where they were granted politi-
cal asylum. Thousands did so. When the East German top officials asked
Gorbachev for Soviet troops to prevent this, he declined. Without the
troops, the situation rapidly disintegrated. During the autumn, people
in Leipzig held mass demonstrations every Monday night. In Berlin in
November, 500,000 Easties went to the Wall, and hundreds of thousands of
Westies massed on their side. Once the gates were opened on November 9,
people began spontaneously to tear down the Wall. The phenomenon sur-
prised the West German leaders as much as their counterparts on the East.
East Germany held free elections in March 1990, but the idea that the
two Germanys would remain separate was soon dismissed. On October 3
the two states were unified, and in December the united country held its
first nationwide election since before Hitler came to power. The eastern
portion, having about a fifth of the land and population, faced difficult
problems in becoming integrated. Its industry was so backward that most
was simply shut down. This dramatically improved the air and water
quality. But it meant high unemployment.
Nuclear Power was controversial. As the loser of World War II, Germany
had had enough of war. Yet it did not have much choice. After the surrender,
the Soviet Union continued its military occupation of East Germany
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