2 Germanys Are 1 Again : Celebrations Will Begin at Midnight

The Western Allies ceded their postwar occupation powers today as the clock ticked toward the historic moment when East Germany will be absorbed--with all its problems--into a new, united Germany.

A vast party across the land of 78 million people was getting under way in anticipation of the midnight unification of Germany, with fireworks and ceremonies to last through Thursday. Wednesday was declared a national holiday.

Police were gearing up for trouble from rightist and leftist radicals planning demonstrations in central Berlin, where the Berlin Wall used to stand. Hundreds of riot police assembled near Leipziger Street in East Berlin, a march route for radicals from the west.

City authorities banned demonstrations near the Brandenburg Gate, the 200-year-old monument that will be a focus of celebrations that start at the nearby Reichstag, the old German Parliament building.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl said in a statement to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that the new Germany will help stabilize Europe and that it will not be a “restless Reich” like Nazi Germany, which plunged Europe into its most disastrous war.

The unification of Germany is a “European, indeed a world event of historic rank,” Kohl said.

Several German newspapers published the approved verse of the national anthem to be sung in unified Germany--not the old “Deutschland Ueber Alles” verse--but the third verse, which starts: “Unity and Justice and Freedom for the German fatherland.”

The verse admonishes Germany to “bloom,” not to be “above all,” the old mission that frightens some Europeans.

Only a year ago the rush toward unity was barely starting. East Germans demonstrated for political freedoms and the right to leave their country. The Communist government opened the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9 but was swept away anyway in a peaceful popular revolution.

East Germans began to demonstrate for unification, which was taken up by Kohl and his government, and eventually approved by Moscow and the Allies.

The Soviets agreed to let united Germany remain in NATO and to remove their troops by the end of 1994, although Germany is paying Moscow $9.5 billion to finance the withdrawal.

The last formal steps to clear the way for unity were taken mostly by the foreign powers who defeated Nazi Germany and retained legal powers as occupiers in Berlin.

In New York on Monday, President Bush and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze were present for the signing of a declaration of a suspension of the Allies’ special powers.

This morning, Allied generals from the United States, Britain and France signed a letter ceding their powers. Buglers played as the three flags were lowered for the last time at the Allied headquarters.

Kohl said in a statement broadcast on television that Germany thanked the Western allies for their support, and he also praised Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, saying: “He recognized the nations’ right to pursue their own path. Without this decision, we would not have experienced the day of German unity so soon.”