Kohl and George H.W. Bush conversation on German reunification
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 may have ended the Cold War, but its collapse did not ensure the unification of East and West Germany. With hundreds of thousands of East Germans soon flooding into West Germany however, uniting the two countries was a necessary solution. After months of extensive implementation planning and regional votes on the issue, the day of German reunification finally came on October 3, 1990. A celebration was underway in the center of Berlin when President George H.W. Bush called German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in congratulations.
In the three-minute phone conversation, Chancellor Kohl relays the buoyant sense of hope visible in the young crowd and offers his appreciation to all the American presidents who have helped Germany reach this momentous day. Recalling Reagan's momentous "Berlin Wall" speech and remembering the faces of the one million German citizens who now stood where the wall used to stand, he simply says, "Words can't describe the feeling."