Munich is central venue for German Unity Day
24 September 2012
The state of Bavaria is organising the highlight festivities this year for German Unity Day, which takes place on 3 October. A two-day festival is planned, the State Governor’s Office reported earlier this month.
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(© colourbox)
The official speech is to be delivered by the president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert. One of the highlights of the celebrations is going to be the symbolic hand-over of the Bundesrat presidency by Bavaria’s governor Horst Seehofer to the governor of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann. The Bundesrat is the upper house of the German parliament.
The central celebrations have taken place every year since 1990 in the capital of whichever state occupies the chair of the Bundesrat at that time. 22 years after the unification of East and West Germany, the celebrations are being held in Munich for the second time; the first time was in 1996.
Official website in German only:
www.tag-der-deutschen-einheit.de
Day of German Unity
Germany has been reunited since 3 October 1990. The peaceful revolution of the people in the GDR had brought down the Wall that had divided Germany into east and west. The reunification process is without historical precedent and a national tour de force that cannnot be completed in a few years. 20 years after reunification great progress has been made in rejuvenating the economic and social basis in the eastern federal states. Enormous challenges remain, however, which the people have to surmount together.
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About one million people celebrated the German Unity in Berlin in the night to 3 October 1990
(© picture-alliance/ dpa)
A process without historical precedent
9 November 1989, the day on which the Berlin Wall fell, marked the climax of a trend that was similar to a revolution and in which the citizens of the GDR played the main role. Some, because they did everything in their power to leave a state that refused to grant them the freedom to travel and who by occupying embassies abroad forced the authorities into allowing them to leave, and others because they proclaimed in no uncertain terms that they wished to stay in the GDR. However, they also demanded fundamental reforms, which the regime could not agree to without setting its downfall in motion. Given this assault on two fronts, despite massive security measures the GDR collapsed like a house of cards in the space of just a few months. This paved the way for the division of Germany to be overcome and for the country to be reunited on 3 October 1990.
source: Facts about Germany
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