Historical background

As you might now, Germany was separated after World War II and there have been four different zones: a French zone, a British zone, an American zone and a Russian zone. While Russia wanted to keep contact with Germany from the East, the Western countries aimed to make Germany democratic.

The three Western states together with the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg decided to form a German state again. The first step (in 1948) was the creation of a new currency, our former D-Mark (Deutsche Mark). One year later, in 1949 a constitution for the new German state was proposed and accepted by all Western state parliaments. The Grundgesetz became effective on May 24, 1949.

First article: Human dignity

The Grundgesetz is not structured by paragraphes (like others laws), but by articles. At the moment, there are 146 articles in our Grundgesetz, the first one ensures human dignity for every human. Moreover, the third section of article 1 introduces the whole Grundgesetz and assures that the Grundgesetz is law.

The introductory position for human dignity is a reaction on the horrible deeds in World War II. The Grundgesetz is to ensure that something like this will never happen again and that nobody is discriminated against.

Why not call it constitution?

The German Grundgesetz was not planned as a real constitution, but instead it says that the German people could vote for a real constitution:

Article 146 [Duration of validity of the Basic Law]

This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on the day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect.

When East Germany joined the Federal German Republic a special law about the adoption of the law in the Eastern countries was created. Since the union of both parts of Germany, the Grundgesetz is our real constitution and not just a transitional one.

On October 9, 1989 there were 70,000 demonstrants in Leipzig and one week later 120,000 people were counted. Another week later even 320,000 citizens participated. Due to this enormous masses, the state was not able to suppress the demonstrations anymore. Since the responsible persons did not want to carry the guilt of a bloody massacre, they called on the army to use violence only for defense.

The aim of the demonstrant were democratic rights and an end of violence. You have to know that the GDR did not really care about basic rights, e.g. they used dubious interrogation methods leading to confession of anybody. Later, the demands have been extended to the unity of Germany.

If people were seen trying to escape from East Germany to West Germany they were shot. The border between both parts of Germany (not the wall in Berlin) included mines and spring guns. Some people still managed to escape: Somebody crossed the wall in Berlin with a rope over a small street, another family escaped to Bavaria with a balloon.

Image of the wall taken by carlos_seo

In 1989 then, people in East Berlin started to demonstrate against the government together (if they had been too few, everbody would have been arrested) and called for the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile Hungary began opening the wall and many people tried to reach Austria from there. Others escaped to the West German embassies.

From November 9, 1989 on East German citizens were allowed to travel to West Germany, some more border crossings have been built. As time passed by, people going to West Germany illegaly were more and more tolerated, until there was the official union at midnight of October 3, 1990.