Trying to make this more clear: there never was a West nor an East Germany, it was always just the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic. WG and EG were just shorthands. The system of the Democratic Republic collapsed in 89/90. After that there were a lot of things (election, treaties, ...) leading to what we call "reunification". But despite the name, from a legal point of view it was just 5 new states (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thüringen, Sachsen) plus the eastern part of Berlin joining Germany, just the same as when Alaska or Hawaii joined the USA. Same country, new borders. (Especially since West Germany/FRG always considered EG part of their territory within the constitution. They also considered other territories like East Prussia and Silesia part, which are now part of Poland and Russia, but these claims have been abandoned since and scrapped from the constitution, treaties with Poland and Russia state that Germany is now complete and everything that used to be Germany in a different generation is Germany no more.) Again, the core point is: The territories of the former GDR joined the FRG without the FRG changing in their international standing and continuing to exist (since 1949 - or even longer). |