The German Experience of Reunification:
A Resource for International Peace Operations?
Steffen Eckhard and Corinna Kuhl
Reunification was the central political event in
German post-war history and affected every legal,
political, economic, and social aspect of the
former German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Within just a few years the existing state apparatus was transformed to create a new social order
for East German citizens. The daily challenges
that needed to be addressed in this institutionbuilding and reform process may contain useful
lessons for similar efforts in fragile states and
conflict areas.
The Center for International Peace Operations
(ZIF) commissioned a study to explore this
question in greater detail. The study, which was
carried out by the Global Public Policy Institute
(GPPi), focused on three thematic areas that
played a prominent role during reunification and
have also been identified by CIVCAP as critical
capacity gaps in peace operations: Public Administration Reform; Judicial Reform; and Transitional
Justice. Despite its modest scope, the study was
able to identify several lessons that could be
useful in providing assistance to conflict management and stabilization efforts. The objective of the
study was to provide an indication of the value of
such an analysis and to identify areas for followup as well as potential challenges.
“What role do we want to play in the crises afflicting distant parts of the globe? Are we playing an active enough role in an area in which
the Federal Republic of Germany has developed such expertise? I am speaking, of course, of conflict prevention. In my opinion, Germany
should make a more substantial contribution, and it should make it earlier and more decisively if it is to be a good partner.” Federal
President Joachim Gauck, January 31, 2014 (http://www.bundespraesident.de).
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Policy Briefing | September 2014
The experience gained in building and reforming state institutions as
part of German reunification provides valuable insights for modern
democratic transition processes. But this experience is rarely drawn
upon to create expertise tailored specifically to peace operations.
The demand for such expertise is reflected in the recommendations
of the Civilian Capacities Initiative (CIVCAP) of the United Nations,
which, inter alia, seeks to mobilize the expertise gained from national
democratic transition processes for international peacekeeping and
peacebuilding efforts. The current discussion about new directions in
German foreign policy has also highlighted the relevance of national
expertise in civilian conflict management.1 Can the reunification experience provide a framework for innovative German contributions to
international peace operations?
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Policy Briefing | September 2014
The Reunification Experience:
Institution-Building with “External”
Support
after reunification exceeded the capacity of the
local authorities. Three types of measures were
adopted to cope with these challenges.
German reunification unfolded rapidly, without
the benefit of long-term planning. Similar to the
work of peace operations in conflict zones, the
process relied heavily on compromise, improvisation, and flexibility. In March 1990, the landslide
victory for the “Alliance for Germany” in the East
German parliamentary elections amounted to a
nearly plebiscitary vote for joining the Federal
Republic. Within a few months, the entire political and legal framework for extending West
Germany’s system to the former GDR was created.
It replaced an institutional framework without
separation of powers. In the GDR, the Socialist
Unity Party (SED), the public administration, the
judicial system, and the national security apparatus were structurally merged. The task at hand
was thus to build - almost from scratch - the
institutions at and below the level of the five new
states (“Bundesländer”). This was implemented
through a decentralized approach based on state
partnerships and the twinning of state, district
and local authorities.
The most important was the deployment of personnel. It is estimated that almost 35,000 West
German public employees served in the East,
either fulfilling executive functions themselves
or supporting and training their East German
counterparts. Training was the second major
pillar of the reforms. About 1.2 million East Ger­man public employees had to be trained to apply
the new legal ordinances and adminis­tra­tive
procedures. Various instruments were de­ployed,
prio­ritizing the mobilization of cost-efficient local
resources. Thirdly, the three umbrella associations of local authorities (Deut­scher Städte­tag,
Deutscher Städte- und Gemeinde­bund, and Deut­
scher Landkreistag) assumed key coordination
and support functions, including the placement
of public employees through a joint personnel
pool and providing urgently re­quired common
resources such as organigrams and manuals for
administrative processes. As a result, these
asso­­ciations possess the greatest expertise for
all strategic and cross-cutting questions con­
cerning public administration reform during
reunification.
Partnerships between German states
East Germany
West Germany
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen,
Hamburg
Brandenburg
North Rhine-Westphalia,
Saarland
Saxony-Anhalt
Lower Saxony
Thuringia
Rheinland-Palatinate, Hesse
Saxony
Bavaria,
Baden-Württemberg
Activities in support of public administration
reform concentrated on a comprehensive network
of 2,000 administrative partnerships at the level
of local government districts and municipalities.
These are the tiers of government which provide
the bulk of public services, including water and
energy, population registration, local development
planning, waste disposal and disaster protection.
However, the high demand for these new services
In the field of judicial reform, even more so than
in public administration, the main problem was
the degree to which the entire judicial apparatus
of the GDR was interwoven with the structures
of the ruling party. The judiciary did not actually
exist as independent third branch of government.
The reforms faced two great challenges. Firstly,
in addition to establishing a proper civil and
criminal justice system, it was also necessary to
create completely new administrative, social,
employment, and fiscal courts, as well as peripheral institutions such as bailiffs, notaries, and
land registries. Here, as in the administrative
sector, partnerships among states (Bundesländer)
played a crucial role, with West German judges
seconded to the East to preside over courts and
help build the new institutions and train their
staff. The second challenge was the application of
the West German system of administration of
justice in the GDR, because judges and prosecu-
tors had often belonged to the SED party elite or
had conducted prosecutions or passed verdicts
incompatible with international human rights
standards. For that reason, every judge and
prosecutor had to face a commission of inquiry,
and less than one third of roughly 2,700 GDR
judges and prosecutors (largely from the younger
generation) were able to remain in their posts
after reunification.
The Reunification Experience:
Dealing with the Legacy of
Dictatorship
Especially since the mid-1990s a third approach
emerged in the form of a broad range of political
and societal activities. These include, for example,
the opening of the State Security (Stasi) archives
and the efforts of various foundations and associations in educational and memorial work.
Competencies from Reunification:
Expert Knowledge and Lessons
Learned
Summarizing just a few of the multitude of processes of reunification, the study hints at the
large number of daily actions and decisions on
the ground that accompany state-building efforts.
That is precisely where the added value of a
national experience of this kind lies: a significant
To cite but three examples of the potential
involved:
• Preparing administrative and judicial per­
sonnel for new tasks is a universal challenge
of state-building. The traditional German
system of Academies of Business Administration and Public Management (Verwaltungsund Wirtschaftsakademien) played a central
role in the reunification process, operating
with local resources on a small budget. Generally speaking, there is international interest
in the German system of dual vocational
education and training, to which these Academies belong. This approach could potentially
be adapted to the situation in fragile states.
• A further example concerns the creation of
structures for local self-government. Experts
report a notable demand for German expertise
in this area, mainly because Germany possesses
one of the world’s most decentralized systems
of governance. The broad range of public ser­vices provided at the district and municipality
levels include numerous administrative processes, where the experiences from reunification can contribute to solutions that are inno­vative and appropriate for the local context.
• Dealing with the legacy of dictatorship in
Germany involved a contentious public debate
about fundamental questions of accountability, justice, and the determination of historical
truths. The attempted solutions, setbacks, and
successes have shown to be of interest to a
number of countries, and resulted in queries
being addressed to German authorities and
institutions to this day. The emphasis here
is clearly on practical issues and exchanges
of experience that countries in the midst of
democratization processes can put to use,
including mistakes that should be avoided
(such as the destruction of records or potential
memorial sites).
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Policy Briefing | September 2014
During the 1990s there were two main approaches of coming to terms with the past. The first was
the prosecution of crimes committed in the name
of the East German dictatorship. Here it quickly
became apparent that the German criminal justice
system lacked provisions to deal adequately with
the prosecution of systemic crimes against the
population by the State and its representatives.
Only some of the gravest human rights violations
could be dealt with in court (largely trials of
soldiers who had killed people attempting to flee
to the West). This gave added weight to the second
approach, the rehabilitation of victims. To date
about 250,000 persons have applied for legal,
professional, or administrative rehabilitation,
which in most cases has involved financial compensation from the German Government.
number of experts in Germany have either parti­
cipated in these processes themselves or have
absorbed the experiences from colleagues as
lessons learned.
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New Capacities for Peace
Operations
Policy Briefing | September 2014
German reunification could serve as a crystallization point for developing a specific German contribution to international peacebuilding and the
stabilization of fragile states. To this end, a variety
of thematic areas could be explored beyond the
Zentrum für Internationale
Friedenseinsätze (ZIF)
issues discussed in the present study, such as the
reform of security institutions or the experience
with privatization and economic reconstruction.
Tapping the wealth of collective experiences
will require careful development of good practices
and testing their applicability in environments
marked by post-conflict conditions, scarcity of
resources, and fragile statehood. Such a process
must be based on a systematic analysis of the
lessons of reunification, involving academics,
professionals with personal experience of the
reform processes at the time, and experts from
the fields of international peace operations and
development cooperation. The analysis would also
have to address the controversies, failings, and
problems of the West German approach, which
are just as important as the successes for identifying lessons learned. Lastly, this kind of expertise
would need to be institutionalized and continually
developed in order to provide broadly applicable
advisory and mentoring services over the long
term. It is certainly an idea that deserves consideration.
Steffen Eckhard is a research associate with the
Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin.
Corinna Kuhl works in Human Resources at ZIF.
Ludwigkirchplatz 3 – 4
10719 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 – 520 05 65 - 0
Fax:+49 30 – 520 05 65 - 90
Human Resources: [email protected]
Training: [email protected]
Analysis: [email protected]
www.zif-berlin.org
Design: finedesign, Berlin
The relevance of the German reunification experience for other countries already became apparent
during the 1990s. In light of their own transitions, countries of the former Eastern Bloc showed
increasing interest in Germany’s experiences and
lessons learned. The same is true for divided
countries like Korea, and today the countries of
the Arab Spring. At the time, various organizations responded to the demand and recruited the
expertise required for their projects primarily
among civil servants and employees of German
courts, public administration, memorials and
foundations. In many cases these were experts
with experience from the reunification period,
either as seconded West German personnel or as
employees of the former GDR. Whereas personal
experience from the reunification period was
initially helpful, the lessons have long since
become an integral element of German development cooperation.