![]() | The Imperfect Union: Constitutional Structures of German Unification Subjects: Germany (West) -- Constitutional law; Germany (East) -- Constitutional law; Germany -- History -- Unification 1990; German reunification question (1949–1990); In the mid-summer of 1989 the German Democratic Republic-- known as the GDR or East Germany--was an autocratic state led by an entrenched Communist Party. A loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, it was a counterpart of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which it confronted with a mixture of hostility and grudging accommodation across the divide created by the Cold War. Over the following year and a half, dramatic changes occurred in the political system of East Germany and culminated in the GDR's "accession" to the Federal Republic itself. Yet the end of Germany's division evoked its own new and very bitter constitutional problems. The Imperfect Union discusses these issues and shows that they are at the core of a great event of political, economic, and social history. Peter E. Quint is Jacob A. France Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Maryland School of Law. |
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