Description
One of the main geopolitical controversies of the post–Cold War period concerns the alleged promises of NATO non-expansion made by Western leaders during the negotiations for German unification (1989–90). A central figure in this debate was West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who stated publicly at the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing in January 1990 that “there will be no expansion of NATO territory to the East, that is, toward the borders of the Soviet Union.” However, as Mark Kramer (2005) notes, this statement never materialized in any binding treaty, and the narrative of such promises was later used as a pretext for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While there is broad historiographical consensus that no formal guarantees were given, Sarotte (2011) and Spohr (2013) argue that Western diplomacy conveyed ambiguous signals that reinforced Soviet expectations that NATO would not expand eastward. To clarify this debate, this study examines the concrete role played by Genscher in generating ambiguity regarding NATO’s postwar role during German unification. Drawing on diplomatic records published in Diplomatie für die deutsche Einheit (2011), Michail Gorbatschow und die deutsche Frage (2011), and Die Einheit (2015), it concludes that Genscher was decisive in promoting a CSCE-based European security architecture in which Cold War alliances would dissolve, a vision not shared by other NATO members nor by the German government itself.
