Editing History of Germany (section)

===Reunification===
{{Main|German reunification}}

During the summer of 1989, rapid changes known as ''peaceful revolution'' or ''[[Die Wende]]'' took place in East Germany, which quickly led to [[German reunification]].<ref name="weber"/> Growing numbers of East Germans emigrated to West Germany, many via Hungary after Hungary's reformist government opened its borders.
[[File:Oliver Mark - Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, Pöcking 2006.jpg|thumb|[[Otto von Habsburg]], who played a leading role in opening the Iron Curtain]]
The opening of the [[Iron Curtain]] between [[Austria]] and [[Hungary]] at the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. [[Otto von Habsburg]]'s idea developed the greatest mass exodus since the construction of the Berlin Wall and it was shown that the USSR and the rulers of the Eastern European satellite states were not ready to keep the Iron Curtain effective. This made their loss of power visible and clear that the GDR no longer received effective support from the other communist Eastern Bloc countries.<ref>Miklós Németh in Interview, Austrian TV – ORF "Report", 25 June 2019.</ref><ref>Thomas Roser: ''DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln'' (German – Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.</ref><ref>Michael Frank: Paneuropäisches Picknick – Mit dem Picknickkorb in die Freiheit (German: Pan-European picnic – With the picnic basket to freedom), in: Süddeutsche Zeitung 17 May 2010.</ref> Thousands of East Germans then tried to reach the West by staging sit-ins at West German diplomatic facilities in other East European capitals, most notably in Prague. The exodus generated demands within East Germany for political change, and [[Monday demonstrations in East Germany|mass demonstrations in several cities]] continued to grow.<ref>Andreas Rödder, Deutschland einig Vaterland – Die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung (2009).</ref>
[[File:Thefalloftheberlinwall1989.JPG|thumb|left|The fall of the [[Berlin Wall]], November 1989]]
Unable to stop the growing civil unrest, [[Erich Honecker]] was forced to resign in October, and on 9 November, East German authorities unexpectedly allowed East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of the opportunity; new crossing points [[Fall of the Berlin Wall|were opened in the Berlin Wall]] and along the border with West Germany. This led to the acceleration of the process of reforms in East Germany that ended with the dissolution of East Germany and the [[German reunification]] that came into force on 3 October 1990.<ref>For primary sources in English translation and a brief survey see Konrad H. Jarausch, and Volker Gransow, eds. ''Uniting Germany: Documents and Debates, 1944–1993'' (1994)</ref>