Lothar de Maizière is a German former Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the head of the first and only democratically elected government of East Germany, holding this office during the final months before German reunification. Subsequently he briefly served as a minister in the new government of the unified Federal Republic of Germany until his past as a Stasi informant was revealed.
de Maizière in the aftermath of the 1990 East German general election
German reunification was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single full sovereign state, which took place between 9 November 1989 and 15 March 1991. The "Unification Treaty" entered into force on 3 October 1990, dissolving the German Democratic Republic and integrating its recently re-established constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany to form present-day Germany. This date has been chosen as the customary German Unity Day, and has thereafter been celebrated each year as a national holiday in Germany since 1991. As part of the reunification, East and West Berlin were also de facto united into a single city, which eventually became the capital of Germany according to the Unification Treaty.
Germans stand on top of the Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate in the days before the Wall was torn down.
1990 Day of German Unity, with flags of all German states at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany
An East German political event on 21 April 1946: Otto Grotewohl (right) and Wilhelm Pieck (left) seal the merger of two parties, SPD and KPD, to form the SED, a communist party that would dominate the future East German state, with a symbolic handshake. Walter Ulbricht is seated in the foreground to the right of Grotewohl.Avraham Pisarek
Berlin blockade (1948–1949)
