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Day of German Unity

On October 3rd get х4 for the first victory for Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the 3rd of October every year is celebrated as a national holiday, called the ‘Day of German Unity’, or ‘Tag der Deutschen Einheit’. To the country and its people it is a day to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification of Germany a year later.



On the Potsdam Conference in late 1945 the victorious powers USA, Britain, France and USSR decided to split the territory of the defeated German Empire into four occupation zones, each to be administered by one of the victors. Nearly four years later, on March 23rd, 1949, the Western Allies allowed the establishment of a German successor state in their territories, called the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Soon after, on October 7th, 1949, another successor state was proclaimed in the Soviet administered German territories west of the Oder-Neisse line, named the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From this day on, Germany was divided and should remain so for more than forty years.



Any early dreams of a quick reunification of the German people faded, as the political situation not only between the two brother states themselves, but also between the alliances they belonged to, rapidly cooled down. The FRG inherited a Western democratic system with strong emphasis on federalism and close ties to the USA and soon NATO, while the GDR became a centralised ‘people’s democracy’ with a dominating Socialist party system and part of the USSR’s Warsaw Pact. The differences between the both alliances were cemented in stone when in 1961, on the height of the Cold War, the people of Berlin saw the construction of the so-called Berlin Wall.



After forty years of separation, not many people in both the FRG and GDR believed that the unification of Germany would happen anytime soon. If asked, most Germans during the late 80ies and even shortly before the events of 1989/90 would state that while the hope still remained, reality stated otherwise. The events in the Soviet Union around Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and the following ‘velvet revolution’ in the GDR that toppled German Socialism and brought Christian Democrats and Liberals to power came as a surprise to many, but ultimately brought national euphoria to Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall became a symbol not only for the end of the separation of Germany, but also for the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era in international relations.



Since 1990, the 3rd of October marks the end of the German Democratic Republic with the new federal states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia joining the Federal Republic of Germany and the city of Berlin becoming again the capital of the now unified country.



We wish all the best to our players from Germany, especially to those that were finally able to retrieve their relatives on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Salute!



The War Thunder Team