German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic became part of the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany, as provided by Article 23 of the FRG's constitution. The end of the unification process is referred to as German unity, celebrated each year on 3 October as German Unity Day. Berlin was reunited into a single city, was once again designated as the capital of united Germany; the East German government started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. It caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Austria via Hungary; the Peaceful Revolution, a series of protests by East Germans, led to the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, to the negotiations between the GDR and FRG that culminated in a Unification Treaty. Other negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Two Plus Four Treaty" granting full sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two parts were bound by a number of limitations stemming from their post-World War II status as occupied regions.

The 1945 Potsdam Agreement had specified that a full peace treaty concluding World War II, including the exact delimitation of Germany's postwar boundaries, required to be "accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established." The Federal Republic had always maintained that no such government could be said to have been established until East and West Germany had been united within a free democratic state. The key question was whether a Germany that remained bounded to the east by the Oder–Neisse line could act as a "united Germany" in signing the peace treaty without qualification. Under the "Two Plus Four Treaty" both the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic committed themselves and their unified continuation to the principle that their joint pre-1990 boundaries constituted the entire territory that could be claimed by a Government of Germany, hence that there were no further lands outside those boundaries that were parts of Germany as a whole.

The post-1990 united Germany is not a successor state, but an enlarged continuation of the former West Germany. As such, the enlarged Federal Republic of Germany retained the West German seats in international organizations including the European Community and NATO, while relinquishing membership in the Warsaw Pact and other international organizations to which only East Germany belonged, it maintains the United Nations membership of the old West Germany. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians avoided the term "reunification" during the run-up to what Germans refer to as die Wende; the official and most common term in German is "Deutsche Einheit". After 1990, the term "die Wende" became more common; the term refers to the events that led up to the actual reunification. When referring to the events surrounding reunification, however, it carries the cultural connotation of the time and the events in the GDR that brought about this "turnaround" in German history. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SED's Secretary General Egon Krenz.

In 1945, the Third Reich ended in defeat and Germany was divided into four occupation zones, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, France. The capital city of Berlin was divided into four sectors. Between 1947 and 1949, the three zones of the western allies were merged, forming the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, aligned with capitalist Europe; the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic with its capital in East Berlin, part of the communist Soviet Bloc. The FRG was a member of the western military alliance, NATO and the GDR was a member of the Warsaw Pact. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War. Into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, challenging Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down the wall" which divided Berlin.

The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the "Iron Curtain". Gorbachev announced in 1988 that the Soviet Union would abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine and allow the Eastern bloc nations to determine their own internal affairs. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost and taken further by Gorbachev, the Solidarity movement took hold in Poland. Further inspired by other images of brave defiance, a wave of

Bakkai Station is a railway station on the Soya Main Line in Wakkanai, Japan, operated by Hokkaido Railway Company. Bakkai Station is served by the 259.4 km Soya Main Line from Asahikawa to Wakkanai, lies 245.0 km from the starting point of the line at Asahikawa. The station is numbered "W78". Bakkai Station has two side platforms serving two tracks, which form a passing loop on the otherwise single-track line; the platforms are linked by a level crossing for passengers. The station is unstaffed, is the northernmost unstaffed station in Japan; the station opened on 25 June 1924. With the privatization of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987, the station came under the control of JR Hokkaido. List of railway stations in Japan Official website

Brigadier-General Stuart Peter Rolt was a British Army officer who became Commandant of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Stuart Rolt was the son of a Conservative Member of Parliament, he was commissioned into the York and Lancaster Regiment as a lieutenant on 30 January 1884, promoted to captain on 28 April 1890, saw service in the Second Boer War, commanding the Rhodesia Regiment, where he was wounded in action. Promotion to major came while in South Africa, on 21 February 1900, followed by promotion to the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel on 29 November 1900. After his return to the United Kingdom, he was appointed an Assistant Inspector of Gymnasia at Aldershot on 5 February 1901. In 1911 he was appointed in 5th Division. In October, he was recalled from command on the grounds of exhaustion – though the corps commander was at pains to note that no stigma was to be placed on this move, that he had in no way failed, he did not receive a new field command, but was instead became Commandant of the Royal Military College Sandhurst until August 1916, when he was appointed to command 170th Brigade in the 57th Division, a position he held until it was sent overseas.

He retired in December 1918. Stuart Peter Rolt married Evelyn Roylance Court, daughter of William Roylance Court and Mary Carlaw Walker, in 1912, they had four children, Pamela Rolt, Suzanne Phyllis Rolt, Sybil Mary Rolt and Tony Rolt a racing driver