Introduction: The Reunification Debate

Abstract

In early October of 1989, just as the German Democratic Republic was celebrating its fortieth anniversary with torchlight parades in Berlin, GDR, the German Studies Association was holding its thirteenth annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the last session, on October 8, the day after the official anniversary, Robert Gerald Livingston, Ann Phillips, and David Childs got together to discuss the possibilities for the future in a session entitled The GDR at Forty. What ensued was a debate between Childs, who asserted that the GDR had no reason for existence other than 400,000 Soviet troops, and Livingston and Phillips,