Construction and Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty of 1990
Documentary heritage submitted by Germany and recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2011.
© Ruth Leibing
Jump to freedom. The escape of the border policeman Conrad Schumann, 15 August 1961. Original film negative and paper copy. Location: State Archive of Hamburg. STAH CP 32515. Photograph: Peter Leibing.
The documents relating to the Construction and Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty of 1990 are fundamental and unique parts of the political heritage and the collective memory of Germany, Europe and the world during the post-World War II era. The fall of the Wall during the night of 9 November 1989 was one of the great moments of European revolutions for freedom and democracy in 1989 as it symbolized not only the end of the political division of Germany and of the European continent, but also the end of the cold war and the Eastern and Western bloc systems. Given this background, the negotiation of the Two-Plus-Four-Treaty of the Victorious Powers of World War II with the representatives of both German states in 1990 was a masterwork of diplomacy and statecraft which overcame decades of enemy images, enabled the unification of Germany and pushed forward the process of European integration.