Replies

Excuse me, but it were YOUR nukes and nothing else that kept the deterrence.

LOL, our nukes are part of our military Michael. That's the whole point. That's a point that seems to be lost on other nations. Developing your military doesn't just mean consripting soldiers and buying bullets. Our nuclear arsenal is just as much an integral part of our military as are our tanks and our aircraft carriers. If Germany didn't build up a nuclear arsenal, you can't really say that you had a military budget that was similar to ours.

I don´t know wether you know it or not, but the fall of the wall was by chance and actually accidental

An accident? I don't know what's gone on in your life the past few weeks Michael, but you've definitely changed somehow. I don't think this is a typical German attitude you're displaying at all here. My wife certainly doesn't see it the same as you. The fall of the Berlin Wall was no accident. It was the culmination of years of purpose, of years of spending and sacrifice. It was the inevitable conclusion to the policy, will and intention of the German and American people. For you to call it an accident is mystifing to me but it is also an insult to all the people- German and American who made it happen.

Because of the trust between the three (Kohl, Gorbatchov and Bush),

Michael, you're just being stupid here. Bush had been in office a matter of months when the wall fell. Certainly he gets a nice slice of credit but to claim that he had a great significance on the events leading up to that moment and Reagan did not is just... I would expect more from the looniest democrat, to be honest. Even the Soviets acknowledge Reagan's influence.

Gorbachev was NOT a great man. He was a just another piece of sh!t communist dictator like all the rest who tried to keep his little house of cards together even though it was obvious it would fall. When history was staring him straight in the face, he had a chance to grab it by the balls and do something with it- instead he blinked and history passed him by. Now, he's a lecturer on the Al Gore 'useless ex-somebodys' circuit. You can say what you want about Boris Yeltsin, but when history presented itself to him- he grabbed it and did something brave with it. Gorbachev- lol. Just another loser in my opinion. Think about it- Mr Reagan said 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' A great man doesn't keep his people behind a wall. Those are the actions of a tyrant. Gorbachev 'allowed' the wall to fall because he had no choice- Reagan had broken his back.

And where is Reagan in your calculations? What do you have against Reagan? He gets no credit at all? This is silly and willfull ignorance on your part and you are actually the first person I ever met to think this. It seems to me that you dislike Reagan- it's the only thing that explains it.

I tell you what, it is useless to discuss this with you, I believe. You are in effect claiming something that would equal your saying 'the sky is not blue' or 'the world is not round' if you think Reagan wasn't the major player in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist states. I don't know what's wrong with you but I wouldn't debate someone about the sky being blue and I consider this, likewise, to be beneath my serious attention. It is a fact. If you don't like it- this is your problem and I don't want to be involved in your problem in this respect. Read up on the subject. It sounds almost as if you are getting your info from leftists who would like to wipe Reagan's achievements out of the history books. But I lived during those times. I was in my mid-twenties when the wall came down. I remember it vividly as I do the events leading up to it as I do the drastic contrast between Reagan and Carter.

You are correct in one line of thinking- if men like Carter had been in power all through the 80s and 90s, yes, it would've been an accident if the Wall had fallen. But it was no chance thing that it happened after Reagan.

I think you´ve perfectly (intentionally?) misunderstood me.

First of all: I have nothing against Reagan. I believe he was absolutely right with his deterrence policy, and Pershing II were a good idea. Then, he visited Bitburg and paid respect to fallen German soldiers of WWII, even those young men who died in the uniform of the Waffen-SS. That was a very nice gesture. There´s nothing wrong with Reagan, and I´m sad that his physical condition today is so bad. I don´t know much more about him.

Maybe you know, maybe you don´t know it: Adenauer wanted Germanys Bundeswehr to build up nukes on our own, but Washington has asked him not to do so, because they didn´t want to escalate the situation with Moscow and they didn´t want the French and other to get nervous. The German parliament has already entitled the government to build nukes when Adenauer stopped his plans. Under the SPD/FDP government we joined the nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty.

Surely the Berlin wall fell accidently. East German officials mistakenly announced that East Germans could travel freely to West Berlin, and within hours so many East Germans stood at the border crosspoints that the leaders had to give up - or to use violence. Gorbatchov told Krentz that he was not entitled to use military power. The situation were critical and not a planned scenario. It went good, but only by chance.

I´m not taking credit away from Reagan. It´s just that he isn´t one of the most important characters of the cold wars end. My personal ranking is:

1. Gorbatchov
If it were not for him and his believe in peace there´d been a bloody end of the peoples demand for freedom.
He was one man - in a body full of communist warmongerers. There have been many who wanted the military to break the peoples minds. It was Gorbatchov who made reunification and the fall of the Soviet Union possible, even if he didn´t want it. His reforms were signs for the people to stand up, and they stood up.

2. Bush
He made clear that Gorbatchov has nothing to fear from the west, he fully backed Gorbatchov.

3. Kohl
It was Kohl who persuaded Bush, Gorbatchov and more important, with the help of Bush Thatcher and Mitterand, that a united Germany would be no threat to others but the best for the Germans. Even Poland wasn´t really anxious.

4. Reagan
He continued the policy of deterrence, and didn´t allow the Reds to take the lead in the armament race. He didn´t stopped building nukes when the peace movement blocked the roads to military facilities. He didn´t back down. That was his achievement. But he had no influence on the peaceful end of the Cold war. If he had been in power in 1990, the he surely would stand on Bushs position, but he wasn´t.

The Soviet Empire didn´t fall because of foreign influence, it fell because of its own failure. That´s why no foreigner can stand on #1 of my list.

I hope you now understand me, however, you are free to disagree. This is my personal perception, and this is not what we can discuss about, like I said before.

Best wishes,

Michael