Condoleezza Rice on German Reunification: 'I Preferred To See It as an Acquisition'

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SPIEGEL: Kohl's point was always that the NATO problem could be solved by throwing money at the Russians.

Rice: I never believed that. Gorbachev is a complex man, but his biggest mistake was that he was a true believer in the Soviet Union. He was really convinced that if you got rid of Stalinism and you got rid of coercion, then it would emerge as the modern communist state. I think he could not be bought.

SPIEGEL: Did Moscow even follow any kind of strategy during the negotiations over reunification?

Rice: The Soviet Union was so disoriented that they couldn't define where their interests really were. We had an arms control discussion with the Russians about a month after this May meeting, and the general staff was holding to questions about intermediate range cruise missiles. I remember thinking: your power has been completely destroyed in Europe. The Warsaw Pact has collapsed. Germany is about to unify. And you're worried about the 600-kilometer range of cruise missiles?

SPIEGEL: But you did not want to provoke the Russians.

Rice: Definitely not. We were trying to avoid confrontation with the Soviet Union and any triumphalism. We did not want to put Gorbachev in a position where he had to say no.

SPIEGEL: Kohl wanted to quickly push through an economic and social union. At the end of 1989, then-US Secretary of State James Baker also traveled to East Berlin and seemed to warn against a rushed reunification process. Did the speed with which Kohl acted worry you?

Rice: I don't think we were worried that Chancellor Kohl was pushing too fast. As a matter of fact, by the time the wall fell, I felt we had to go as fast as possible because the window was a very narrow one. The Soviet Union had to be strong enough to sign away its powers and rights but not strong enough to stop it. If you just do the thought experiment and you think a year later when effectively the Soviet Union collapses, would you have been able to do German unification under those terms? We felt it should move very, very fast.

SPIEGEL: Still, you were not happy that Kohl did not consult with you before presenting his 10-Point Plan in the Bundestag in November 1989.

Rice: The problem with the 10 points was we didn't know they were coming.

SPIEGEL: Not even President Bush knew about them in advance?

Rice: No, I don't think anybody knew.

SPIEGEL: What was your reaction when you heard about it?

Rice: I don't think the 10 points were particularly troubing in substance, but we were unhappy. We felt that this was going to have to be very carefully choreographed between the United States and Germany. We didn't know that the chancellor was going to do 10 points and that left us in an untenable position.

SPIEGEL: Did the White House call Kohl to ask him to come to his senses?

Rice: I think that Bush's National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft phoned his German counterpart Horst Teltschik and said: "How could this appear without us knowing?" I think the Germans said they had consulted somehow and they'd let us know, but nobody that I know remembers having been consulted.

SPIEGEL: Was that the only time in the whole process that you weren't informed about something important?

Rice: Yes. Going forward we never had that problem again.

SPIEGEL: Were you concerned that Chancellor Kohl might not get reelected in the parliamentary elections for a reunited Germany in 1990?

Rice: We definitely wanted Helmut Kohl to win again.

SPIEGEL: Because you were afraid of a potential chancellor Oskar Lafontaine?

Rice: We were pretty clear about where Helmut Kohl stood. And that was important. Germany was about to unify. That seemed unthinkable for so long -- and you sure don't want anything to go wrong with a German chancellor who suddenly might decide that maybe Germany ought to unify more slowly or in some kind of transitional way. The details mattered. Membership in NATO mattered. The speed mattered.

SPIEGEL: And that would have been jeopardized under a Chancellor Lafontaine?

Rice: It's inconceivable that any German chancellor could have said, "I don't want Germany to unify." But it is conceivable that you could have had some long transition or a scenario where West Germany is not the surviving state and East Germany goes away, which was how we viewed unification. We had similar concerns about German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who also seemed to think of the unification process as more of a merger. I preferred to see it as an acquisition.

SPIEGEL: Did you consider Helmut Kohl to be a weak chancellor at the time?

Rice: I know there were questions about him in Germany, but sometimes if you act like a strong chancellor, you are a strong chancellor. He acted very strong in the face of what was happening.

SPIEGEL: Overall, how would you characterize his role?

Rice: I think it was dynamic, and it was visionary, and it was both politically risky and politically correct what he did -- right down to the question about the one-for-one exchange rate between the deutsche mark (in West Germany) and the ostmark (in East Germany). I know many financial and economic experts have criticized that move. But I think Chancellor Kohl saw it politically. The "Allianz für Deutschland" in the East had to win that first election in East Germany so that the Allianz and the CDU/CSU could outline the terms of German unification. I actually think that the one-for-one exchange was politically one of the most brilliant strokes in the whole period.

SPIEGEL: In retrospect, what would you have done differently during the negiations about the unification process?

Rice: I'm sure there were small tactical things that could have been done differently, but how could it have come out better? Germany fully integrated and united with its democratic institutions intact, integrated in Europe, integrated in NATO and the American presence is secure in Europe.

SPIEGEL: But the economic price was steep. Did anyone foresee the miserable shape of the East German economy?

Rice: No. I was an East Europeanist, and the GDR was always held up as the most successful of the East European states. It looks like the East Germans themselves didn't know how bad the situation was and how much money they owed.

SPIEGEL: Could the relationship with Russia have been handled differently? Twenty years later, Moscow still appears resentful over the outcome.

Rice: I think the Russian frustration dates more to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the period in the early 1990s when many Russians saw the privatization of the Boris Yeltsin years as deprivation and humiliation and chaos. It is a troubled country and it has not found a sustainable post-imperial identity.

SPIEGEL: As George W. Bush's national security advisor, you expressed frustration with then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's opposition to the Iraq war. Did you perceive the Germans as being ungrateful?

Rice: Allies have a right to disagree. My only disappointment about Iraq was the picture of the German chancellor standing with the French president and the Russian president to protest the war. I have no problem with Germany disagreeing, but the Russian president should not have been standing there, given our history. Friends disagree, but symbols matter.

SPIEGEL: Did the united Germany turn out to be the US ally that you hoped it to be?

Rice: Germany is a terrific ally and an ally whose role is still evolving. I find it remarkable what Germany has done in Afghanistan. I understand the debate about caveats, etc. -- but given where Germany was even 10 years ago, it is amazing that Germany's role has evolved that much. No, I think Germany is a really good ally.

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, we thank you for this conversation.

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• Part 1: 'I Preferred To See It as an Acquisition'
• Part 2: Gorbachev's Biggest Mistake: 'He Was a True Believer in the Soviet Union'