More than thirty years after the fall of the Wall, German public memory continues to emphasize the role of Gorbachev and Kohl, relegating the citizens of the GDR to the role of passive spectators. Actually, the “Peaceful Revolution” and the last Volkskammer, freely elected in March 1990, were key actors in the democratic transformation. That brief parliamentary season helped define crucial conditions of the “2+4” treaties and of the treaty of friendship with the Ussr, supporting a peaceful course and symbolic gestures of reconciliation toward Moscow, Israel, and Poland. The oblivion of this experience, overshadowed by simplified narratives, has fueled victim-centered interpretations of reunification in the East, depriving German history of a fundamental element for understanding the negotiated and pluralistic dimension of national unity.
