Kohl Says KGB, Stasi Tried to Thwart Unity

The Soviet KGB and East Germany’s Stasi tried to thwart German unification hours after the Berlin Wall collapsed by sending false reports of civilian unrest to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Chancellor Helmut Kohl says in a book, “I Wanted German Unity,” to be published Tuesday. Kohl tells how Gorbachev telephoned him during a rally in West Berlin on Nov. 10, 1989, to seek reassurance that events in the city were not “completely out of hand.” He writes: “Opponents of reform in the KGB and the Stasi [East German Ministry for State Security] wanted to provoke a military intervention by the Soviet troops stationed in East Germany.”