“Farewell without Tears”: Diplomats, Dissidents, and the Demise of East Germany Author(s): Noel D. Cary Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (September 2001), pp. 617-651 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339121 . Accessed: 05/01/2012 08:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Modern History. http://www.jstor.org Review Article “Farewell without Tears”: Diplomats, Dissidents, and the Demise of East Germany* Noel D. Cary College of the Holy Cross I have lost my homeland, this gray, narrow, ugly land. This beau- tiful land . the land of my anger. (KONRAD WEISS [Eastern Ger- man filmmaker and dissident], 1990) I On October 2, 1990, one hour before the German Democratic Republic (GDR) ceased to exist, its first and last anti-Communist prime minister, Lothar de Maizie`re of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), aptly described the occasion as a “fare- well without tears.” Recalling the scene in his “as told to” memoir, Helmut Kohl (also a Christian Democrat) observes that de Maizie`re thereby renounced any feel- ing of nostalgia for the East German state.