The Thatcher Government, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and German Reunification, 1989-1990

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the Thatcher government’s responses to German reunification in the period 1989-1990. It focuses on Margaret Thatcher’s and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s statements from three different stages of the reunification process: the months leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the weeks after the fall, and the months up until the reunification was finalised. Furthermore, it does a comparative analysis in order to evaluate how aligned the views and opinions of Thatcher and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office were with each other. More specifically, this thesis recognises the internal conflicts the Thatcher government had in relation to German reunification, and the nuances in their conflicting responses.