1989 – The year of great political revolutions and of the dissolution of socialist structures in the eastern peoples democracies. In the GDR “Democratic Renewal” calls for demonstrations on the anniversary of the death of Rosa Luxemburg demanding freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. 190 people are arrested. The German chemical company Imhausen is involved in the Libyan poison gas affair. Khomeini orders the death of Salman Rushdie and all publishers of his novel “The Satanic Verses”. Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. March: A GDR citizen dies during his attempt to escape by hot air balloon and there are shots fired at the wall again. April: The union Solidarnosz, banned for the last seven years, is permitted again. In Peking, a period of student unrest begins. Local government elections in the GDR in May produce the first result under 99% for the SED, according to official figures they get 98.85%. May: Demonstrations take place in Tibet. Peking imposes martial law. Student demonstrations take place in Peking which spread to other cities. June: A demonstration takes place on the Square of Heavenly Peace which ends in a massacre with many arrests. Afterwards the first death sentences are ordered and carried out. July: The first 25 GDR citizens flee to Austria via Hungary. Steffi Graf and Boris Becker celebrate their double victory at Wimbledon. August: The flood of refugees increases, some embassies are forced to close and the West German government prepares to receive 20,000 GDR citizens. The GDR newspaper „Neues Deutschland“ writes: “The wall will not be taken down … a change in GDR politics is illusory”. Honecker issues the slogan: „Neither ox nor mule can stop the course of socialism.“ 370 arrests are made at a demonstration on the 11th anniversary of the suppression of the Prague Spring. October: Gorbachev visits the GDR on the 40th anniversary of its founding – a kiss of brotherhood with Honecker. Honecker’s slogan in this context: “For us the truth will always be, forever onwards, never backwards.” The opposition meets in the Church of Redemption and demand democratic reforms. Demonstrations and human chains take place on an almost daily basis in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden with up to 300,000 people at each of them, at first the police intervene, but increasingly withdraw. Honecker is removed from power by the Politburo and Krenz is voted leader of the SED. The TV program “Schwarzer Kanal” (“Black Channel”) is stopped, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler resigns. November: Everything seems to happen at once. The GDR lifts visa requirements for Czechoslovakia. Straight away thousands flee to Prague. Egon Krenz travels to Moscow to visit Gorbachev. Upon his return he makes a speech promising an alternative to military service, a constitutional court and new economic policies. Various Politburo members are forced to quit including Mielke. The GDR grants all of its citizens the right to travel to Czechoslovakia. The largest demonstration in post-war history takes place in East Berlin with a million people participating. New travel regulations are introduced but are quickly withdrawn after strong protests. In the preceding 60 hours 23,000 refugees arrive in West Germany via Czechoslovakia. November: On the evening of the 9th, the GDR unexpectedly opens it borders and thousands of GDR citizens flood into West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany. The celebrations are indescribable. Chancellor Kohl interrupts his visit to Poland and hurries to Berlin. By the 15th of November 7.7 million visas for travel to the west have been granted. Mass demonstrations continue to take place in Leipzig where demands for reunification become louder. On the 28th of November Kohl presents the West German parliament, the Bundestag, with a ten-point program for German politics containing the objective of confederate structures leading to a system of federal states in Germany. Ceausescu celebrates his reelection in Bucharest. In the ensuing weeks there are several demonstrations against the regime which are violently suppressed. The Czechoslovakian parliament deletes the leading role of the communist party from the constitution. The chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank, Herrhausen, is assassinated by the RAF. December: the GDR Volkskammer (parliament) decides upon constitutional changes and deletes the leading role of the SED. The conference summit between President Bush and President Gorbachev begins in Malta. Its main subject is the Germany question. The GDR foreign exchange dealer, Schalk-Golodkowski, flees from East to West Germany. The SED special party convention begins and Gysi is elected chairman. The SED changes its name to PDS. Bush meets Mitterrand – the subject is Germany. President Mitterrand ends his GDR visit. He says: “The German question is a question for the Germans, but it is also a question for Europe.” Romania closes all of its borders and a state of emergency is declared in parts of the country. Soldiers who refuse to fire at demonstrators receive a summary execution. Tanks move into Bucharest and fire on demonstrators. The demonstrations spread to other towns and the military partially withdraws. Ceausescu flees before thousands of demonstrators. A bloody battle between the army and Ceausescu’s security forces begins. The former foreign minister Manescu forms a new government which is broadcast from a television station. The TV station is attacked by the security forces. The army is able to hold them off. At Christmas, more than a million West German citizens visit the GDR. Around 12,000 people are murdered in Temesvar, a total of approximately 60,000 people since the unrest began. On the 25th December Ceausescu and his wife are arrested, sentenced to death and shot. A new government is formed. Ceausescu’s legacy of 400 million dollars in Switzerland is confiscated.

1990 – Federal Republic of Germany: January: 1.5 million Germans travel from east to west and vice versa between Christmas and the New Year. The “Round Table” demands that the successor authorities to the state security services are dis-banded without replacement. The Monday demonstrations in Leipzig continue against Gysi and the PDS. The Ministry for State Security (STASI) in Berlin is stormed. Modrow is able to calm the masses. The “Round Table” agrees to the first-past-the-post electoral system. The removal of the wall begins in Kreuzberg. A charge of high treason is raised against Honecker. February: Modrow’s concept for German unification is rejected by the west. The FDP is constituted in East Berlin. The “Alliance for Germany”, a right-wing alliance of several parties (CDU +++) is formed for the Volkskammer elections in March. The four victorious powers of World War 2 agree to a timetable for German reunification. 2 + 4 talks are arranged with both German countries. A joint committee of experts takes up talks about steps towards currency and economic unification. Willy Brandt is voted chairman at the national party conference of the GDR SPD. March: Absolute agreement in the Bundestag on the inviolability of the western Polish border. 109,000 unofficial STASI workers are released from service. The first talks between representatives of both German states and the 4 victorious powers take place. The first free elections take place in the GDR – the winner of the election is the Alliance for Germany. April: The freely elected parliament of the GDR is sworn in. A hundred thousand demonstrate against the feared currency revaluation of 2:1. Lothar de Maiziere is elected Minister President of the GDR. At a meeting with George Bush and Margaret Thatcher on the Bermuda Islands he explains that Germany should receive “complete control over its entire state territory without any new discriminating restrictions to German sovereignty.” Assassination attempt on Lafontain. May: The first round of 2 + 4 talks on a foreign minister level takes place. A demonstration in Frankfurt against German unity ends with riots. Minister of Finance Waigel agrees to the creation of a “German Unity” fund of 115 million DM with the regional finance ministers. The inter-state treaty for currency, economic and social unification is signed. June: Arrest of a total of 9 alleged RAF terrorists. All expropriations of property after 1949 are reversed by petition. The Schengen Treaty is signed in Luxembourg (removal of border controls between 5 EU countries). July: The Deutschmark is introduced and controls on the inner-German border and the emergency reception procedure are dropped. Economic and currency union. Military service and its alternatives are shortened. In the Caucasus Kohl gets approval for flexibility on the question of alliance from Gorbachev. August: The date for the first unified German election is set for the 2nd December 1990. The date for the reunification of both German states is set for the 3rd October after the GDR Volkskammer decides to join. September: In Moscow the foreign ministers of the 4 victorious powers and both German states sign the historic treaty which sets the seal on the reinstatement of German sovereignty. Germany and the Soviet Union agree to a non-aggression pact to last for at least 20 years. Germany will provide 13 billion DM until 1994 for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The GDR officially leaves the Warsaw Pact. October: The Bundesbank releases the first 100 DM and 200 DM notes of the new series into circulation. The last meeting of the Volkskammer takes place ceremoniously. At midnight the existence of the GDR is extinguished. The 3rd October becomes a new German national holiday. The GDR joins the Federal Republic of Germany. First meeting of the unified German parliament. An assassination attempt is made on the life of Wolfgang Schäuble. The PDS central office in Berlin is searched. The transfer of the PDS millions throws the party into crisis and there are arrests. Saxony is declared the 2nd free German state, Biedenkopf becomes Minister-President. November: Manfred Stolpe becomes Minister-President of Brandenburg. Foreign Minister Genscher and his Polish Counterpart sign the treaty for the international recognition of the border between Germany and Poland (the Oder-Neisse line). Schäuble takes part in a cabinet meeting in a wheelchair. In Berlin the last part of the wall is removed. December: The CDU/CSU/FDP coalition win the first election in reunified Germany. – ABROAD: January: Martial law is revoked in Peking. Romania remembers the victims of the revolution. The Bulgarian parliament deletes the leading role of the communist party from the constitution. February: Nelson Mandela, the South African ANC leader is released after 27 years in prison. The communist party of the Soviet Union in the USSR wants to rescind on its monopoly of power. March: Lithuania declares its independence from Russia. May: Gorbachev is elected President of the USSR. Boris Yeltsin becomes President of the Russian republic. June: A student demonstration takes place commemorating the anniversary of the massacre on the Square of Heavenly Peace. An enormous presence of security forces nips further protests by the populace in the bud. In Albania/Kosovo there is unrest similar to a civil war. Many Albanians flee to the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Slovenia breaks with the joint Yugoslavian Federation of Communists. The first free elections take place in Czechoslovakia. Open Forum wins and Vaclav Havel is confirmed as president. In Paris the CSCE summit begins. The cold war era is ceremoniously declared over. NATO and the Warsaw Pact sign a treaty for a reduction of conventional weapons. July: Slovenia declares its sovereignty. August: Iraqi troops occupy Kuwait. The situation intensifies in the course of the year because Iraq is not prepared to with-draw. A weapons embargo is imposed. Iraq takes all foreigners hostage, but releases some Germans after negotiations with Willy Brandt. The USA sends troops to the Gulf region. October: Gorbachev receives the Nobel Peace Prize. November: The World Security Council delivers a resolution with an ultimatum for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait by the 15th January 1991. John Major is voted successor to Margaret Thatcher who has spent eleven years in office is Prime Minister of Great Britain. December: The new Polish President, Lech Walensa, is sworn into office.

1991 – FRG: January: German airforce fighter planes begin their first NATO operation in a region threatened with war in Turkey. Peace demonstrations against a Gulf war. Helmut Kohl is elected Chancellor for a fourth time and becomes the first leader of a united Germany. Demonstrations against the actions of the USA in the Gulf War do not stop. International criticism towards the German attitude to the Gulf War is aimed chiefly at the German contribution to supplying arms to Iraq. Germany expels 28 Iraqi diplomats. The FRG wants to contribute 14.1 billion DM to the cost of the war and sends a further 580 soldiers to Turkey. A catalogue of legal measures against illegal weapon exports is passed. February: The German airforce begins transporting medical supplies to Israel. The planned privatisation of the GDR Airline Interflug fails. The government decides to raise taxes because of the cost of German unification and the Gulf War. A feeling of disappointment spreads through the new federal states of Germany. Kohl regrets his election promise regarding the financing of German reunification which he calls a false assessment. March: The former state council chairman of the GDR is flown to the Soviet Union. The project “Fast Breeder” in Kalkar is abandoned. April: The president of Treuhandanstalt (the trusteeship for the administration of state-owned property following reunification), Karsten Rohwedder, is shot dead. The RAF admits responsibility. Visa requirements for Poles travelling to Germany and four other EC states are dropped. In Eisenach the last ever Wartburg car is produced. Birgit Breuel becomes president of Treuhandanstalt. The 32 meter long painting “Procession of the Representatives of the People” is unveiled in the Frankfurt Church of St. Paul. According to the Constitutional Federal Court, forced property expropriations prior to 1949 cannot be reversed. The last Trabbi rolls off the production line at the Sachsenring-Automobil GmbH. In the last 35 years in Zwickau 3,069,099 vehicles of this type were manufactured. May: Kohl has eggs thrown at him during a rally in Halle. He defends himself strongly. June: Bundesbahn (German Railways) brings the first ICE train into service. Following a combatitive, day-long debate, the German Bundestag announces 338 votes for, and 320 votes against a move of the German Parliament to Berlin. July: The residence of the painter Otto Dix in Hemmenhofen near Lake Constance is opened as a place of remembrance. During his visit to Poland, Brandenburgs’ Minister-President Manfred Stolpe signs an agreement to found a joint European University in Frankfurt/Oder. September: Attack by neo-nazis on an asylum-seekers’ home in Hoyerswerda. Issue of the new 50 DM note. October: The one year anniversary of German unity is overshadowed by extreme right-wing attacks against foreigners. November: Thousands demonstrate in German towns for peace and against racism on the 2nd anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall and the 53rd anniversary of the Nazi pogroms. The government decides on the extradition of Honecker. Gorbachev is against his extradition to Germany. Klaus Kinski dies in the USA. Schäuble becomes the Chairman of the CDU/CSU fraction. December: Honecker seeks shelter in the Chilean Embassy. – ABROAD: Soviet Union: January: Breakaway tendencies in Lithuania are answered with Soviet military pressure. The Latvian Ministry of Internal Affairs is stormed by Soviet troops. Gorbachev’s resignation is demanded at a demonstration in Moscow. Soviet troops begin their withdrawal from the Baltic states. Iraq: Talks at Foreign Minister level between the USA and Iraq fail. In Bagdad, the last attempt by the UNO General Secretary Perez de Cuellar to avoid war fails. The ultimatum passes without Iraqi compliance. Operation “Desert Storm” begins. The multinational strike force under the leadership of the USA want to end the occupation of Kuwait. Iraqi missiles hit Tel Aviv and Haifa. The USA succeeds in persuading Israel not to take action and supplies modern weapon defense systems. Iraq sets Kuwaiti oil fields on fire. The allied troops conquer a small Gulf island and liberate the first piece of Kuwait. Iraq diverts millions of litres of oil into the Persian Gulf and causes an environmental catastrophe. Saddam Hussein threatens to use chemical, biological and atomic weapons. The first large land battle ends with the coastal city of Chafdschai being retaken. February: Saddam calls upon his people to hold out until the “ultimate victory”. For the first time, he reveals a willingness to withdraw from Kuwait and names conditions. Gorbachev hands over a peace plan to the Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz a peace plan. Aziz accepts Gorbachev’s 8-point plan for withdrawal from Kuwait. After consulting with the allies, Bush sets an ultimatum for the following day. For this reason the plan fails. With an advance into Iraqi territory the ground war begins. The allies take ten thousand Iraqi soldiers prisoner. Saddam orders the immediate withdrawal of his troops from Kuwait. They leave the country hastily, leaving it free again. Nevertheless, the allied troops reject a cease-fire. The majority of oil fields are in flames. Iraq declares its willingness to fulfill all UN resolutions. President Bush announces in a speech the liberation of Kuwait. March: 28,000 mine workers in the coal areas of the Soviet Union strike demanding wage increases and the resignation of Gorbachev. The Soviet parliament ratifies the 2 plus 4 treaty. From this point on, Germany is a sovereign state. Ethnic Germans in Russia demand their own Volga republic. Despite a ban on demonstrations 100,000 people take to the streets in support of the Russian reformist politician Yeltsin. Georgia’s population vote to become independent of the USSR. Demonstrations against the regime of Saddam Hussein take place in Iraq. The unrest develops into a civil war. The hard reaction by Saddam creates many victims. Iraq accepts the UN resolution about preconditions to a lasting cease-fire. The release of prisoners of war begins. Saddam promises democratic reforms in his first television appearance after the war. Saddam resigns as head of government but remains head of state. Iraqi troops take action against Kurds within their own country. Yugoslavia: 100,000 demonstrate in Belgrade against the television monopoly of the Serbian regime. Serbia no longer wants to recognize the Yugoslavian state president. April: Yeltsin is granted emergency powers. Georgia declares its independence from the USSR. International aid for Kurdish refugees begins. The cease-fire comes into force. US soldiers intervene for the first time to protect the Kurdish population in the north of Iraq. May: Heavy fighting between Serbs and Croats. Over 94% of the population of Croatia vote for future independence from Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia: President Havel receives the Karl Prize in Aachen. June: Yeltsin becomes the first freely elected president of the Russian Republic. July: The Warsaw Pact is disbanded 36 years after its foundation. Croatia and Slovenia announce their independence. The Yugoslavian army attacks. Ljubljana is surrounded and the border crossings to Austria are controlled. Philippines: The Pinatubo volcano erupts again after 600 years at rest. July: The Slovenian and Yugoslavian armies agree to a cease-fire. The EC Foreign Ministers decide to block financial aid and impose a weapons embargo against Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia decides to withdraw from Slovenia. Open fighting between Croatia and Yugoslavia. South Africa: Nelson Mandela is unanimously voted President of the African National Congress. August: Gorbachev is deposed in a coup d’état and isolated in the Crimea. An interim government is declared. Yeltsin calls for resistance and a general strike. The first troops defect to Yeltsin. Western statesmen demand Gorbachev’s return to power. The Baltic republic of Estonia is granted its state sovereignty. The coup d’état fails. Gorbachev returns to Moscow. Yeltsin criticizes Gorbachev and forbids various activities of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party in Russia. Gorbachev resigns as the General Secretary of the Communist Party and orders the dismemberment of the central committee. The independence of the Baltic states is recognized. The Ukraine and Belarus declare independence. Azerbaijan declares itself independent. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan declare their independence. Turkey: The Turkish airforce bombs Kurdish camps in Iraq and declares a 5 km long border region inside Iraq a buffer zone. September: The Deputy People’s Congress agrees the end of the existing Soviet Union. Tajikistan declares its independence. Gorbachev opens the 3rd CSCE human rights conference in Moscow. Armenia announces its decision to become an independent republic. UN inspectors who have viewed documents referring to Iraq’s atomic weapons program are held for several days. Macedonia votes in a referendum to become independent from Yugoslavia. Fighting between Serbs and Croats spreads to the Dalmatian coast. Croatian militias block access to all Yugoslavian barracks. The security council decides on a weapons embargo against Yugoslavia. In the Slovakian capital Bratislava there is a demonstration for independence from Czech. Austria: In the Öztaler Alps a 5000 year old mummified male corpse is discovered – he is named “Özi”. October: Turkmenistan breaks away from the Soviet Union. Serbia takes power in Yugoslavia. Tudjman announces a general mobilisation in Croatia. Slovenia and Croatia bring their independence into effect. Bosnia-Herzegovina declares its independence. The EC proposes a model for the political future of Yugoslavia as 6 independent republics. Serbia declines. The Middle East peace conference begins in Madrid under the patronage of the USA and the Soviet Union in which Israel and its Arab neighbours sit for the first time at the same table. November: Yeltsin bans the Communist Party in Russia by decree and takes over the leadership of the provincial government. He declares a state of emergency in autonomous Chechen-Ingushtan Republic in the Caucasus but doesn’t receive the support of the Russian Parliament. In Kuwait the last of 727 burning oil fields is extinguished. The warring parties in Yugoslavia agree to the imposition of a peace-keeping force and a cease-fire. South Africa: Representatives of almost all parties, black and white, sit for the first time at the same table for talks. December: Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine set the seal on the end of the Soviet Union and sign a document for the creation of a “Commonwealth of International States” (CIS). The 5 middle Asian republics join the CIS. Yeltsin and Gorbachev agree the dissolution of the USSR at the year’s end. NATO announces its recognition of the USSR successor states. Fighting breaks out in Georgia. Gorbachev resigns from office. Russia’s President Yeltsin takes control of the atomic weapons of the former UdSSR. Fighting intensifies in Yugoslavia. Dubrovnik is destroyed. At a summit meeting, the EC agrees to currency union by 1999. Both Korean states agree to a pact for reconciliation.

1992 – FRG: January: The laws for STASI files come into effect. They make the Gauck authorities held STASI files accessible to all citizens. The exhibition “Jewish Worlds” opens in the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin. A German-French consortium (to-gether with Elf-Aquitain) acquires Minol AG. On the 50th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, in which the decision to exterminate the Jews was taken in 1942, the first German memorial to this event is opened. February: A team selected from the whole of reunified Germany takes part in the XVI Winter Olympics in Albertsville for the first time. STASI accusations are made against Manfred Stolpe and an investigating committee is set up. March: “The Great Utopias”, an exhibition of Russian members of the Avant Garde movement from 1915 – 1932 is opened in Frankfurt am Main. The exhibition, “Degenerate Art – The Fate of the Avant Garde in Nazi Germany”, from the USA begins at the Alte Museum in Berlin. Stoltenberg resigns as Minister of Defense because of unauthorized tank deliveries to Turkey. April: The Hamburg Provost, Maria Jepsen, is elected the world’s first woman evangelical-Lutheran Bishop. Berlin applies to stage the Olympic Games in 2000. May: Marlene Dietrich is buried in Berlin with little ceremony. Hans Dietrich Genscher resigns after 23 years as a minister, 18 of them in the Foreign Ministery. His successor is Klaus Kinkel. June: The IX Dokumenta is opened in Kassel. Federal President von Weizsäcker critices the parties in an interview. He says they are “without concept, power obsessed and sees a spiritual-political power vacuum”. These are the reasons for the political disenchantment of the citizens, he claims. The word “political disenchantment” (Politikverdrossenheit) is made word of the year. Introduction of the new abortion laws. August: The Federal Constitutional Court, following the initiative of the CDU/CSU, blocks the new abortion laws. There are serious anti-foreigner riots in Rostock. Chancellor Kohl talks of a “disgrace for our country”. September: The Congress of International Socialists starts in Berlin. Jochen Vogel reads a letter from seriously ill Willy Brandt: “It concerns us all, wherever there are people suffering. Don’t forget: He who long tolerates injustice paves the way for the next injustice.” The Columbus show “America 1492-1992 – New Worlds – New Realities” is opened in the Martin Gropius Bau. Adam Opel AG begins manufacturing at Europe’s most modern car factory in Eisenach. October: Willy Brandt dies at the age of 78. Green Party politicians, Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian, are found dead at their house in Bonn. Across the whole country there are solidarity demonstrations against racism which are continued in November (candlelit human chains). November: Kohl, Reagan and Gorbachev are declared honorary citizens of Berlin. Honecker’s trial starts. Right-wing extremist violence in Mölln in which a Turkish woman and 2 children are killed. December: Giant candle lit human chains against racism. New asylum laws are prepared. Opening of the Picasso exhibition “The Time After Guernica” featuring his works from 1937-1973 at the New National Gallery in Berlin. - ABROAD: January: Butros Ghali takes over from the Peruvian Perez de Cuellar as General Secretary of the United Nations. EC: The Foreign Secretaries and Finance Ministers of the EC sign a treaty for the realization of a political union as well as economical and currency union. During the course of the year, by means of referendums, this is partly accepted, but also rejected. February: The World Security Council decides to send peace troops to Yugoslavia following various breaks in the agreed cease-fire. March: The first soldiers of the UNO Peace Force arrive. A civil war flares up in Bosnia-Herzegovina between Moslems, Serbs and Croats. Turkey: In the Kurdish area of Turkey there is fighting between Kurds and Turkish security forces. The FRG stops delivering arms because German tanks are being used on the conflict with the Kurds. April: Spain: The World Fair is opened in Seville. May: 5000 women and children are held prisoner for days. May: A blood-bath takes place in a Sarajevo market place. June: Sarajevo airport is reopened for the delivery of aid. A state of war is declared in Bosnia. The break-up of the federation between the two states of Czech and Slovakia is agreed. July: Havel resigns. Steps towards the division of the country are agreed. August: The most comprehensive exhibition of 20th Century painting is opened at the World Fair on the occasion of the Year of Columbus in Seville. November: The evacuation of thousands of inhabitants begins in Bosnia. NATO unanimously decides on a sea blockade of Serbia and Montenegro. Bill Clinton is elected 42nd President of the USA.

1993 – FRG: January: The case against Honecker is stopped. He is released and flees to Chile to his wife and daughter. Large demonstrations in Berlin against right-wing extremism on the 60th anniversary of the Nazi power take-over. Thousands of lit candles form the words “NEVER AGAIN”. March: The Federal German Cabinet agrees to the participation of planes from the German Airforce in Bosnia. RAF commandos carry out a bomb attack on a new prison in Weiterstadt in Hessen. Several million marks of damage are caused. April: The Federal Health Office permits outdoor experimentation with genetically altered sugar beet and potatoes. The Federal Cabinet agrees to send soldiers to Somalia to support the UNO aid troops. May: The Bavarian Minister of the Interior Stoiber becomes Minister-President following the resignation of Max Streibl (Amigo affair). In an arson attack in Solingen 5 Turkish girls and women are killed. June: Memorial ceremony for the Solingen attack. The alleged RAF terrorist Wolfgang Grams and a GSG 9 officer die in an exchange of fire in Bad Kleinen. The pursuit is accompanied by a number of slip-ups. The RAF woman Birgit Hogefeld is arrested. July: The new asylum laws come into effect. Access to the asylum process is made more difficult and deportations at the border are made easier. The new 5-figure zip codes come into use. Home Affairs Minister Seiters resigns, accepting responsibility for the slip-ups during the arrest in Bad Kleinen. August: The Russian Minister for Culture Sidorov confirms that the reputedly lost “Treasure of Priamo” is in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. September: Berlin purchases the legacy of Marlene Dietrich in New York for 8 million DM. October: The Aids scandal begins. The Federal Health Office falls under suspicion of having tried to cover-up HIV infected blood donations. November: The Ministry of the Interior bans the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK. – ABROAD: January: The internal European Market comes into force. In the future there will no longer be borders for people, goods or services. Czechoslovakia is divided into 2 separate states. The Czech and Slovakian republics become members of the United Nations. Havel becomes the first president of the Czech Republic. Bush and Yeltsin sign the START II treaty for the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons in Moscow. The USA, France and Great Britain bomb missile installations in the south of Iraq because Iraq has failed to remove air defense systems quickly enough from the no-fly zone. Bill Clinton is sworn into office. February: A car bomb explodes beneath the World Trade Center. 5 people are killed, thousands injured and massive material damage. April: In a plutonium factory in Tomsk (Russia) there is a nuclear accident causing the radioactive contamination of 150 square kilometers. June: The USA bombs the Iraqi secret service central office because of a planned assassination attempt on Bush. July: South Africa: Following a massacre in a church in Cape Town the wave of violence between blacks and whites which has shaken the country for weeks escalates. De Klerk and Mandela set the seal on a new constitution. August: US fighter planes destroy missile installations in the north of Iraq. The Israeli parliament approve the agreed hand-over of the occupied Gaza Strip and the city of Jericho to Palestinian self-administration after negotiations under Norwegian supervision with the PLO. September: Yeltsin dissolves the anti-reformist Deputy Peoples Congress and sets parliamentary elections for December. A power struggle which lasts for days breaks out. The military forces back Yeltsin. Peres and Arafat sign the Declaration of Principles for the temporary autonomy of the Palestinians in the Israeli occupied territories. The Israeli minister Rabin and Arafat shake hands. October: The putsch ends with a victory for Yeltsin. Several of those behind the putsch are arrested. Pope John Paul II publishes the new encyclical “Veritatis splendor” (the splendour of truth) which is concerned with fundamental questions of morality and in which the ban on artificial birth control is reinforced. November: The Maastricht Treaty comes into power in 12 EC member states, thereby creating the European Union (EU). The Nobel Peace Prize goes to de Klerk and Mandela. The historic bridge of Mostar collapses under fire from Croatians. December: For the whole year there has been heavy fighting in the region of Yugo-slavia. Despite agreeing to a Christmas cease-fire the Serbs continue to shell Sara-jevo. The first meeting of the council of transition takes place in Cape Town. This ends a century of white rule. The parliament passes a new constitution for the transition to democracy with a large majority. In London John Major and his Irish colleague Albert Reynolds sign a framework for peace in Northern Ireland.

1994 – FRG January: In an all-party discussion with Chancellor Kohl a move to Berlin by 2000 is agreed. February: The Bundestag votes 292 for, 223 against for the Berlin Reichstag to be wrapped by the Bulgarian-American packaging-artist Christo. March: § 175 (homosexual paragraph) is removed from the penal code. April: The new name legislation is brought into force where married couples are no longer forced to choose a joint married name. The department store blackmailer “Dagobert” is caught. The Federal Constitutional Court establishes that denial of the Nazi persecution of Jews is no longer protected by freedom of opinion. The “Auschwitz-lies” are a proven untruthful factual claim. May: The Bundestag makes a change to the penal code stating that denial of the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi period is a criminal offence. The Federal Assembly elects Roman Herzog to Federal President and successor to Richard von Weizsäcker. June: In Bonn, the “House of History” announced by Helmut Kohl in 1982 is opened. The 3 western allies bid farewell to the people of Berlin with their last joint parade of troops on the Straße des 17. Juni. Farewell parade of the Russians in Köpenick. July: President Herzog makes his speech of inauguration. He warns against the question of the German nation being left to “some rat-catchers”. August: Herzog asks for forgiveness for the actions of the Germans between 1939 and 1945 at a memorial ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising in Poland. The FRG sets up the first foreign mission in Jericho. September: The military forces of the 3 western allies officially leave Berlin. In an official exchange of notes between the states which have troops stationed in Germany, the last legal step towards the absolute sovereignty of Germany is completed. October: Germany is elected for a third time for 2 years to non-permanent member of the UN security council. November: The 13th German Bundestag is formed. The parliamentary session is opened in the Berlin Reichstag by the independent PDS member and oldest member of the Bundestag acting as president, Stefan Heym, whose speach is given a very cool reception by the (CDU) governing party. Federal Chancellor Kohl is reelected. December: The Treuhandanstalt is closed after four years of work. Its duties will in future be carried out by various successor companies. - ABROAD: January: An until now unknown Indian guerilla movement, the “Zapatista National Liberation Army” occupies several towns and communities in the poorest Mexican federal state of Chiapas. February: PLO leader Arafat and Israel’s Foreign Minister Peres sign an agreement about details of partial Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. In a Mosque in Hebron an Israeli settler shoots dead 29 Palestinians during prayers. There are also many injured. Israel decides on strong measures against extremist settlers and releases 500 Palestinian prisoners. In Bosnia the Serbs continue their offensives. In response NATO undertakes its first combat missions. March: Representatives from Israel and the PLO sign an agreement for the protection of Palestinians in Hebron by international troops. Moslems and Croats found their own state within Bosnia-Herzegowina. May: Rabin and Arafat sign the historical autonomy agreement for Gaza and Jericho, by which 800,000 Palestinians receive for the first time their own self-governed territory. Mitterand and Queen Elisabeth II officially open the 50 km long railway tunnel (Eurotunnel) beneath the English Channel. Nelson Mandela is elected as the first black president of South Africa. 4 Moslem fundamentalists are sentenced to 240 years imprisonment each for the attack on the New York World Trade Center on the 2.26.93. The Russian Nobel Prize winner for literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, returns to Russia after 20 years in exile. June: Russia is the 21st country to sign the NATO initiative “Partnership for Peace”. Election of the European Parliament by 259 million voters in 12 countries. July: After 27 years in exile PLO leader Arafat travels to the Gaza Strip and to Jericho. Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan end 45 years in a state of war between Jordan and Israel by signing the Washington declaration. South Africa is ceremoniously readmitted to the Commonwealth in London. August: Treaty for the extension of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank. September: The Estonian ferry Estonia sinks close to the Finnish coast. 900 Ferry passengers drown and only about 150 can be rescued. October: 200,000 t of crude oil leak from a pipeline in northern Russia and contaminate the surrounding countryside. The alternative Nobel Prize is awarded to Astrid Lindgren for her “life-long struggle” for childrens’ rights. The Nobel Peace Prize goes to Peres, Rabin and Arafat. December: 3 years after Chechnya’s declaration of independence, Russian troops march into the renegade Caucasus republic. Russian troops begin a large-scale offensive on the capital of Chechnya, Grozny.

1995 – FRG: January: The taxpayers burden is increased. Solidarity costs of 7.5% from tax liability are added. Nursing care insurance. Large-scale flooding on the Rhine, Main and Mosel cause serious damage. February: Federal Minister of the Interior Kanther bans the extreme right-wing party FAP. In Hamburg the NL (Nationale Liste) is banned. March: Dagobert, the department store blackmailer Arno Fuchs, is sentenced to 7 years in prison. The Federal Constitutional Court decides: Peaceful sit down blockades are not an act of intimidation and therefore may not be punished as such. The World Climate Conference of the UNO starts in Berlin. During the discussions a wide gulf between ecological and economical requirments becomes apparent. Ernst Jünger celebrates his 100th birthday. Germany blocks deliveries of arms to Turkey because of its interventions into Kurdish areas. May: At the “first Bavarian Beer Garden revolution” more than 20,000 citizens protest against the planned closing time of 9.30PM – Stoiber wants to implement a “State Order for the Protection of Beer Gardens” with a closing time of 11.00PM. June: The Reichstag is wrapped. July: Siemens AG announces its withdrawal from plutonium processing in Hanau, reasoning that the political framework in Germany is no longer acceptable for this. August: The Federal Constitutional Court decides that the hanging of crucifixes in state schools is in principle contrary to the constitutional law guaranteeing freedom of religion. This means that the Bavarian school constitution is against the law because it requires a crucifix to be hung in every classroom. September: The so-called “church petition for a referendum” in the 11,000 catholic parishes in Germany begins. It concerns the abolition of compulsory celibacy, the introduction of a women to the priesthood and the right to share in decisions for church laymen and laywomen. In Munich 25,000 Catholics demonstrate with Stoiber and Waigel under the motto “the cross stays – yesterday, today, tomorrow”. October: The new abortion law comes into force (advisory law). November: The Federal Constitutional Court confirms its judgement of the Tucholsky quote, “soldiers are murderers”. According to this, the statement is not punishable by law when understood as a general criticism of soldiering and of the craft of war. If, however, individual soldiers are implied or the Bundeswehr (Federal German Army) as an institution is insulted, then a legal prosecution is possible. The Bundestag approves the application to expel the Iranian Foreign Minister for his comments justifying the murder of Rabin as “the revenge of God”. December: The Bundestag to raise the wages of members of parliament after months of controversy. - ABROAD: January: Finland, Austria and Sweden join the European Community. There are now 15 member states. Scientists find more parts of a 4.4 million year-old human skeleton from which some remains had already been found in 1992. They supposedly belong to mankind’s oldest ancestor. 2 suicide bombers (“Jihad”) blow themselves up taking the lives of 21 people with them. In response to this the borders to the West Bank and Gaza are closed. February: In Cairo Arafat, Rabin and Mubarek meet for the first Arab-Israeli summit. The desire for peace in the Middle East is confirmed. A new cease-fire comes into effect to stop the fighting in Chechnya. Since the beginning of the fighting in December 1993 thousands have been killed. March: The Schengen Agreement is brought into force in 7 EU countries. It’s objective is to systematically abolish border controls. In his latest encyclica “Evangelium vitae”, Pope John Paul II castigates abortion and euthanasia as part of a “culture of death”. Heads of state and government of 118 countries gather in Copenhagen for a World Social Summit in which a total of 185 state representatives participate. This is the largest summit meeting up to this point in the history of the UNO. The following goals are expressed: By 1996 all national programs against poverty should be reworked and by 2000 the death rate of mothers and children should be reduced. The start of the largest offensive so far against PKK followers in northern Iraq by the Turkish army. In the Tokyo subway there is a poison gas attack allegedly by the “Aum Shinryko” sect. April: Again there are 2 suicide bombings in Israel. The Kurdistan parliament in exile establishes itself in the Hague. May: Jacques Chirac be-comes French president replacing Mitterrand. July: In Germany a wave of protests by Kurds begins with hunger-strikes and arson attacks against Turkish institutions. NATO fighter planes bomb a Bosnian Serb munitions depot because they have refused to withdraw their heavy weapons according to an ultimatum. The Bosnian Serbs renounce all of their existing agreements with the UNO. Bosnian Serb troops conquer the declared safe area of the Moslem enclave Srebrenica, expelling approximately 55,000 Moslems. August: A grenade fired into a Sarajevo market place costs the lives of many people. The rapid reaction force and NATO begin massive attacks on Serb positions in Bosnia. September: Arafat and Rabin sign an extended autonomy agreement. An army attack on a convoy of trucks in Algeria with armed fundamentalists leaves 800 dead. Escalation of the bloody conflict. The Bosnian Serbs sign an agreement to withdraw their heavy weapons outside of a 20 km exclusion zone around Sarajevo. The air lift is reintroduced for Sarajevo. The air assault which began on the 30th August is suspended. November: Israel’s President Yitzhak Rabin is shot dead during a peace rally in Tel Aviv by a Jewish extremist. During the Bosnia conference in American Dayton an agreement is signed to bring an end to the war in Bosnia. A peacekeeping force under NATO command will be sent to secure the cease-fire and rebuilding work. Germany will contribute 4000 soldiers. December: After three-and-a-half years of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Dayton peace treaty is signed by the presidents of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. The time on office of Lech Walesa comes to an end after 5 years. His successor to office is Aleksander Kwasniewski.

1996 – FRG: January: Telephone costs become more expensive. First official day of memorial for the victims of Nazism. Former GDR foreign exchange obtainer, Schalck-Golodkowski is sentenced. February: Property speculator Jürgen Schneider is extradited with his wife from the USA. March: The state treaty for the fusion of Berlin and Brandenburg is declared constitutional. April: In Düsseldorf 16 people die in the worst fire disaster at a German passenger airport. The Treasure of Priamos is displayed publicly for the first time in more than 50 years. May: Nelson Mandela speaks before the German Bundestag and thanks those who supported the struggle against the apartheid regime. June: Pope John Paul II begins his first visit to a reunified Germany in Paderborn. July: The Bavarian Provincial Parliament decides that women are obliged to provide a reason for aborting a pregnancy. August: The 1992 law securing a right to a place at kindergarten comes into effect. September: The songwriter Konstantin Wecker is arrested for the possession of drugs. The Federal Upper House of Parliament (Bundesrat) decides to move together with the Government and the Bundestag to Berlin. October: The Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been in office for 5,144 days, one day longer than the previous “record holder” Konrad Adenauer. November: A new law for the opening hours of shops comes into effect. Shops can stay open until 8.00PM and Bakeries can also sell bread rolls on Sundays. December: Germany and Czech agree 50 years after the 2nd World War to a highly controversial declaration of reconciliation. – ABROAD: January: The socialist Jorge Sampaio succeeds in the presidential elections in Portugal. The 200 year old opera house in Venice, La Fenice, burns down. February: Russia becomes the 39th member of the Council of European. March: In Taiwan the first free presidential elections take place. April: In Verona the EU finance ministers agree to the new currency system of the “Euro”. May: In the first direct presidential elections in Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is the winner. June: China undertakes its 44th atomic test. July: The UN war crimes tribunal issues arrest warrants for the Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic and his army chief Mladic. August: The former SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke has the charges against him of war crimes dropped in Rome. Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce. September: The opening of the 2,500 year old Hasmoneishen tunnel beneath the Jerusalem old town leads to the heaviest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians since 1993. Almost 100 people are killed. October: PLO leader Arafat meets State President Weizman in Cesarea on his first official visit to Israel. November: Bill Clinton gets 50% of the vote for his second term in office as American president. December: The new general secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, calls on the 185 UNO member states to “unity and engagement”.

1997 – FRG: January: Temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees - the freezing weather leads to the deaths of over 50 people. February: An Evangelical Church in an area along the north of the Elbe will in future allow gay couples to be blessed by their pastor. March: The controversial transfer of nuclear waste arrives at the stop-over camp at Gorleben. Blockades by anti-nuclear protestors are broken up by 30,000 police. The action costs 66 million DM. April: Chancellor Kohl announces on his 67th birthday that he will again be running as candidate for chancellor in 1998. Federal President Roman Herzog denounces the inability to reform and the self-blocking nature of politics in Germany in a brilliant political speech. May: The Bundestag agrees with a large majority to a law making rape within marriage a criminal offence. June: A decision is made at the conference for ministers of internal affairs for the authorities responsible for the defense of the constitution to observe the Scientologist organization with all intelligence means available to them. The “flood of the century” arrives via the river Oder in the Federal State of Brandenburg. At one of the largest civilian operations during a disaster, 45,000 helpers struggle with millions of sandbags to secure the dikes. August: The Berlin provincial court sentences the last GDR state and party leader Egon Krenz for the manslaughter of those attempting to flee from the GDR. September: After months of negotiations, the efforts to introduce large-scale tax reforms within the period of legislation finally fail. October: In his ceremonial speech during the presentation of the German book trade’s peace prize to the Turkish-Kurdish author Yasar Kemal, Günter Grass criticizes the asylum and Turkey politics of the federal government. November: The city parliament of Hamburg elects the first red-green government for the Hanseatic city. A court voices criticism against planned grammatical reforms for the first time. December: The Ministry of Defence in Bonn confirms that Manfred Roeder, a symbolic figure in the neo-nazi scene, held a speech at the leadership academy of the Bundeswehr in 1995. ABROAD: January: The French citizen Laurence de la Ferrière is the first woman to cross Antarctic alone. February: The US scientist and holder of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Daniel C. Gajdusek admits abusing his 15 year-old adoptive son. First female member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, in existence since 1842, is the harpist Anna Lelkes. March: The French parliament issues tighter laws for immigrants. April: In a ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica in northern Spain, Germany officially admits its guilt for the destruction caused by “Legion Condor”. May: In elections, the Conservatives are voted out of the House of Commons in Great Britain. The Labour Party under Tony Blair achieve their greatest success. June: Evan Holyfield defeats Mike Tyson in Las Vegas in the world championship heavy weight fight but loses a piece of his ear. July: Hong Kong is returned to China after 156 years of British colonial rule. August: British Princess Diana dies in Paris in a car crash. The sensationalist press is criticized worldwide for taking pictures at the location of the accident. September: In Calcutta, dignitaries from around the world bid farewell to Sister Mother Teresa, who was worshipped like a saint during her lifetime. October: The remains of Ernesto Che Guevara are brought from Bolivia to Cuba and buried. The Guggenheim Museum is opened in Bilbao, which is described as the most audacious, whackiest and fascinating piece of architecture by the Architect Frank O. Gehry. November: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. Chinas most famous political prisoner, Wie Jingshen is deported to the USA after almost 18 years in jail. December: The British Ministry of Agriculture bans the sale of beef-on-the-bone because of warnings about BSE. Nevertheless some Britons stockpile T-bone steaks and oxtails before they are removed from the shops.

1998 – FRG: January: The state post office monopoly ends in Germany. The Bundestag decides with a 2/3 majority the controversial Basic Law change for the introduction of covert bugging. February: The Federal Institute for Employment announces a new record of 4.82 million unemployed. Germany overcomes one of the most important hurdles on the way to currency union with a gross national product deficit of 2.7%, very clearly beneath the 3% limit set in the Maastricht Treaty. March: The Catholic church apologizes for the first time for a lack of resistance to the nazi mass-murder of the Jews. The Italian coach of FC Bayern Munich, Giovanni Trapat-toni, complains that his lethargic players were “weak as an empty bottle” (sic) (“schwach wie eine Flasche leer”) and ends the press conference with the words “I have finish” (sic) (“ich habe fertig”). April: As a consequence of the Schengen Agreement border controls between Germany, Austria and Italy are dropped. The terrorist Red Army Faction declares in writing that it is disbanding. May: After years of arguing, the German Bundestag issues a law which should rehabilitate several 100,000 victims of nazi justice. June: The second-worst train crash in post-war history as several carriages of an ICE train are smashed to pieces against a road bridge. 101 passengers are killed. Because of Atlantic low pressure a myriad of hungry slugs slither through Germany’s gardens. July: Reforms to child laws come into effect. Among other things, they make joint custody of children possible for unmarried or divorced parents. Hosts France become world champions at the soccer world cup. August: The 37th anniversary of the building of the wall sees the inauguration of a memorial in the Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, which was split by the Berlin Wall from 8.13.1961 to 11.9.1989. Grammatical reforms to the German language are brought into force. September: After 16 years of CDU government, the SPD with Gerhard Schröder is clear winner in the elections for the 14th German Bundestag. In the Bavarian local elections, however, the CSU’s position of 36 uninterrupted years alone in power is confirmed with 52.9% of the vote. October: The author Martin Walser receives the German book trade’s peace prize and during his speech in the Frankfurt Paulskirche he criticizes Germany’s coming to terms with its past and the planned holocaust memorial in Berlin. Gerhard Schröder is elected 7th Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. November: A large majority in the Bundestag voices its support for involving the Bundeswehr in the NATO aerial observation of Kosovo. Germany initially declines the extradition of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalam from Italy. Deutsche Bank announces its purchase of the American investment house Bankers Trust. A banking giant with 95,000 employees and a balance of more than 1.3 trillion DM is expected to be formed. December: The Bundestag reverses the cuts to wage payments during sickness and to protection from dismissal pushed through by the previous government. The new festival theatre in Baden-Baden is financially and artistically the disgrace of the year. – ABROAD: January: Pope John Paul II condemns the economic embargo imposed by the USA on Cuba at the end of his visit. The American physicist Richard Seed announces the first laboratory prepared human clone. February: During a low-level flight in the Dolomites a US fighter plane severs the cable of a mountain cable-car. One of the carriages falls leading to the deaths of 20 people. The death sentence is carried out on a woman in Texas for the first time since 1863. March: An uncomplicated and effective pill to help counter male impotence is sold under the name Viagra. In Jonosboro, Arkansas, an 11 and 13 year-old shoot dead 4 school colleagues and a teacher in the playground of their school during a break. April: Israel celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding. The Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern and his British counterpart Tony Blair shake hands. After 30 years of war, Northern Ireland looks set for peace. May: In Lisbon the last World Fair of the century is opened. Frank Sinatra dies aged 82 in Los Angeles. June: Bill Clinton begins a 9 day tour of the Peoples’ Republic of China. In Solano, two criminal bosses, the Camorra leaders Autorino and Cesarano disappear before the eyes of an astonished judge by means of a tunnel beneath the cage in which they stand before the court. July: The United Nations decides to found an international court for the prosecution of persecution and genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In China large areas of land disappear beneath the water-masses of the Yangtse. August: Following attacks on US embassies in Africa, Islamic fundamentalists declare war on the USA. The financial crisis in Russia and a threat to Russian reformist politics lead to a massive stock market collapse. September: The deepest casino in the world is opened in the Jordan Valley, 400 meters below sea level near to Jericho. The UNO Security Council intensifies its course against Iraq. October: 8 years after surrendering power the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London. He is accused of terrorism, torture and genocide. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemns the crimes of apartheid in its concluding report. November: The new permanent European Court of Human Rights is ceremoniously opened in Strasbourg. US President Bill Clinton pays Paula Jones 850,000 dollars in an out-of-court settlement to withdraw her charge of sexual harassment. December: The USA and Great Britain begin massive air attacks against Iraq in the “national interest” of the United States. 27 years after the introduction of the right to vote for women in Switzerland, the United Federal Assembly in Bern elects Ruth Dreifuss as President.

1999 – FRG: January: With a large amount of money and ideas, Weimar sets out to be recognized as the “Culture City of Europe 1999”. A judgement by the Federal Ad-ministrative Court in Berlin that beer gardens must close by 10.00PM leads to a “Biergarten revolution” in Bavaria. In Berlin the Jewish Museum is opened after six years of building work, rich in symbolism, a labyrinthine, branching zigzagging building designed by the American architect Daniel Libeskind. February: The Germans Karl and Walter LaGrand are executed in Arizona after 15 years on death-row. In Hessen the red-green government is replaced by the CDU in the provincial elections. March: Oskar Lafontaine quits the SPD after 30 years of work in leading political posts. April: After 99 accident-free years the Wuppertal overhead monorail collapses as a result of sloppy work. The first plenary session takes place in a completely renovated Reichstag provided with a spectacular glass dome by the architect Sir Norman Foster. May: The Green Party argues about the NATO mission against Serbia at a special party meeting. Furious pacifists rebel and throw a bag with paint in it at Joschka Fischer. Children born in Germany with foreign parents receive German citizenship if one of their parents has been legally resident in Germany for eight years. June: The sporting personalities of the century, Steffi Graf and Boris Becker retire. The new head conductor of the Berlin Philarmonic orchestra is the Briton Sir Simon Rattle. The Israeli author Amos Oz criticizes the Eisenman design for a holocaust memorial and has doubts that a classic memorial could be the answer to such a monstrous crime. July: Johannes Rau is sworn into office as the 8th German Federal President. The abortion pill, Mifegyne is now also permitted in Germany. August: Goethe’s 250th birthday is celebrated all across Germay. 50,000 customers storm the department store Kaufhof on Alexanderplatz in Berlin when it opens for five hours on a Sunday. September: Günter Grass receives the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm and pledges the 1.8 million DM prize money to good causes. In order to strengthen the “awareness of values” amongst young people, grades for “order, discipline, hard work and collaboration” are reintroduced. German Bishops bow to pressure from Pope John Paul II and withdraw from legal advice for pregnant women. October: Born in 1936 in Silesia , the German-American Günter Blöbel receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine for research leading to a better understanding of some genetic diseases. He expresses a wish to donate a considerable part of the prize money for rebuilding the Frauenkirche and the synagogue in Dresden. November: On the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall celebrations are held but the mood is some-what gloomy. The board of the building concern Philipp Holzmann announces a loss of millions but is rescued initially by a Federal grant of 250 million DM. December: Chancellor Kohl, at the center of the CDU donation scandal admits to having maintained an entire network of secret finances. 54 years after the end of nazi rule there are still about a million slave laborers still waiting for compensation. – ABROAD: January: Following accusations of corruption, six IOC members are expelled. US basketball star Michael Jordan retires. He is the most successful basketball player of all time. In 11 European countries the euro is now a legal means of payment. February: Heavy snow fall causes murderous avalanches in Alpine valleys. PKK leader Öcalan is captured by Turkish pursuers and sentenced to death. Around 13 months after US President Bill Clinton’s “love-play” first became known, the impeachment trial of his political opponents fails. March: 51 people die in inferno-like fires in the Montblanc and Tauern tunnels. The first successful balloon flight to circumnavigate the earth by Bertrand Piccard from Switzerland ends after 46,759 km in the Egyptian desert. In the mini-Gulf state Qatar, women are permitted to go to the ballot boxes for the first time. The right-wing populist Jörg Haider succeeds in making his party, the FPÖ, the strongest party in Austria. April: In Littleton near Denver/Colorado, two youths create a bloodbath. They shoot a teacher, twelve school children and then themselves. In the north of Canada the Inuit receive their own territory: Nunavut with its capital Iqaluit stretches across over two million square kilometers. May: Cyclones of up to 500 km/h cause great destruction in Oklahoma and Kansas. Leonardo’s “Last Supper” can again be seen in all its stunning beauty in Milan after more than twenty years of restoration. June: Nelson Mandela, epochal political figure, retires from politics at the age of 80 and hands over his presidential office to Thabo Mbeki. The ashes of Greta Garbo, who died in 1990, are buried in a Stockholm forest cemetery. The sprinter Maurice Greene gets a world record 9.79 seconds in the 100 m race in the olympic stadium of Athens. July: John F. Kennedy jr. with his wife and her sister crash in a private plane. Iran experiences the most serious unrest since the revolution against the Shah regime twenty years previously. Students demonstrate against tougher press laws and the closing of a liberal newspaper. August: Two heavy earthquakes in Turkey cost the lives of almost 18,000 people. An Indian fighter plane shoots down a Pakistani reconnaissance aircraft. The Pakistanis counter with an unsuccessful missile attack on an Indian helicopter. September: Just 13 years after Chernobyl, the Japanese nuclear power station goes out of control for 20 hours. In Moscow explosions reduce several apartment blocks to rubble, presumably terrorist attacks by Chechnyan assassins. October: The six-billionth citizen of the Earth views the light of the world for the first time in Bosnian Sarajevo. Christies auctions the estate of Marilyn Monroe in New York. November: In the Egyptian oasis Bahiriya a giant cemetery is discovered beneath a palm tree grove. Researchers estimate that 10,000 mummies are within the grave chambers, untouched by robbers. The French cabinet of the prime minister Lionel Jospin loses its most prominent member Dominique Strauss-Kahn, economics and finance minister, who due to serious allegations is forced to resign. December: For two years the American Julia Hill has fought against the timber industry and lived in the crown of a giant redwood tree in north Californian Humboldt County

2000 – FRG: January: The Central Council for Jews in Germany elects Paul Spiegel as its president. He is the successor to Ignatz Bubis who died in August 1999. The European Central Court that women can no longer be excluded from bearing arms. Following the judgment the Bundestag correspondingly makes a change to the law. February: In a speech which is valued as historical in Israel and in Germany, Federal President Johannes Rau begs before the Knesset for: “forgiveness for that which the Germans have done”. On the 55th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden, the Duke of Kent presents a new cross for the dome of the Frauenkirche. March: With its container-show “Big Brother”, RTL establishes a new, controversial form of TV entertainment. Horst Köhler is the first German to head an important world-wide organization. He becomes the general director of the International Monetary Fund. April: The German soccer federation cashes 750 million DM from the Kirch Group for the TV rights to all Bundesliga (Federal League) games through to mid-2004. In a heated argument, members of the federal German parliament are confirmed as art critics about the construction of a work of art. They are deciding about a project by the conception artist Hans Haacke. May: For the 40th time since 1634, the passion-play takes place in Oberammergau. The federal cabinet decides to introduce a green card for specialists from the hi-tech industry who are primarily expected to be recruited from India and eastern Europe. June: The European soccer championship ends in a disaster for the German team, they are forced to return home after some catastrophic performances in the qualifying rounds. After a child is killed by a fighting dog, federal and local government immediately introduce strict regulations, which dog-owners quickly protest against. Bill Clinton receives the international Karl Prize in Aachen. July: Goethe’s Faust is performed in its entirety at the Expo in Hannover – 12,111 verses in 22 hours. The FAZ newspaper announces that it will be returning to its original orthography after a year. August: 6 large concerns and consortiums pay a total of 98.8 billion DM for UMTS licences which will allow them to participate in the future mobile communications business in Germany. September: More than 60 years after the confiscation of works of art by the nazis, German authorities and museums find over 80 paintings, graphics and objects of art from the descendents of the collector Gustav Kirstein. October: The planned next German soccer coach, Christoph Daum flees to Florida after a hair analysis test proves positive for cocaine. Gregor Gysi gives up his position as Chairman of the PDS Bundestag faction. November: Federal minister for transport Reinhard Klimmt announces that the company report for Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) is 20 billion DM over the planned budget. A dubious performance by soccer club 1. FC Saarbrücken forces Reinhard Klimmt to resign. December: The dream couple Boris and Barbara Becker separate. A stock market collapse of the new economy sends share values plummeting and indicates the beginning of the end of the dream of ever-rising share prices. – ABROAD: January: Millions of people dance and go wild at enormous New Years Eve parties on the night of 12.31. through to 1.1. The new millenium is celebrated a year too early. The dreaded computer chaos fails to materialize at the turn of the year. The bursting of a dam in a Romanian mine causes more than a 100,000 cubic meters of a solution of highly toxic cyanide water to flow into diverse southeast European rivers causing the greatest European ecological disaster since Chernobyl. Maradona begins treatment for hard drug addiction in a psychiatric clinic in Havana. February: The entrance of Jörg Haider’s right-wing populist party the FPÖ to power sends Europe into crisis. The EU places a boycott on Austria. Disastrous rain floods and a tropical cyclone bring flooding to Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world. International public attention recognizes the seriousness of the situation very late before sending aid. March: Pope John Paul II travels to the Holy Land and affirms in the name of the church the sense of mourning for injustices committed by Christians against Jews. The former military dictator from Chile, Augusto Pinochet, is allowed to leave London and is greeted with military pomp and German marching music in Santiago de Chile. April: A commando unit of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf seizes 21 tourists, among them German citizens, on the Philippine island of Jolo. A racial and social conflict against wealthy white land owners escalates on the 20th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence. A computer hacker from the Philippines incapacitates computers world-wide by sending his e-mail virus “I love you” through the internet. As a result of criminal negligence a fireworks factory in Enschede explodes and leaves the entire city quarter in smoke and ashes. Putin succeeds Boris Yeltsin in the first ever change of head of state in the young Russian democracy. June: 20,000 black-footed penguins are coated with life-endangering oil after crude oil leaks from a freighter near to Cape Town and are painstakingly cleaned by South African animal-lovers. After 50 years of war between North and South Korea, Kim Jong Il from North Korea and the South Korean President Kim Dae Jung agree to sound out the possibilities of easing tension and of reconciliation. A burning Air France Concorde crashes into a hotel near to Paris. 113 people die. The film actor Sean Connery is knighted in Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II. August: One of the largest and most modern Russian submarines sinks with 118 crew on board in the Barent Sea. The Queen Mum celebrates her 100th birthday in London. The worst fires for 50 years devastate enormous areas of forest in the northwest of the USA. September: The holders of power from 155 different nations meet at the UNO headwuarters in New York for the millenium summit. US President Bill Clinton and the Cuban regent Fidel Castro shake hands, which is embarrassing for both of them afterwards. Denmark will not take the euro, initially. October: In Wallis and Tessin, storms which last for days cause catastrophic floods. Gao Xingjian a Chinese man living in France receives the Nobel Prize for Literature. November: A fully occupied passenger train in the cable car tunnel near Kaprun catches fire. 155 people die. The world climate conference in the Hague fails because of American resistance to a treaty tied to human rights issues for the reduction of greenhouse gasses. December: In the Egyptian Bay of Abukir, divers discover the remains of a second city of the Antiquity meter-deep beneath the sand. 5 weeks after the presidential elections in the USA votes are still being counted and the courts are being bombarded with new claims. The candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore conduct the most expensive election campaigns in the history of the USA.

2001 – FRG: January: Women are permitted to serve in the German army for the first time. The BSE crisis in Schröders’ Cabinet leads to the resignation of the health minister Andrea Fischer and the minister of agriculture Karl-Heinz Funke. February: The German Jutta Kleinschmidt is the first woman to win the Paris-Dakar rally. In the German press photos of foreign minister Joschka Fischer fighting in a brutal attack against Frankfurt police in the seventies can be seen. March: 10,000 opponents of nuclear power protest in Wendland against the first Castor Transport of the red-green era. The SPD wins the provincial elections in Rheinland-Pfalz and Baden-Württemberg. In a tunnel approaching Frankfurt Airport an ICE train driver takes an untroubled break. April: The Bavarian state government names the all-round-entertainer Günther Jauch “TV personality of the year”. The largest wooden roller-coaster in the world comes into service in Heidepark Soltau and in Brühl 63 people are injured in a roller-coaster fire. May: In Bernried am Sternberger See, Bavaria’s Minister-President Edmund Stoiber opens the “Museum of Imagination” in which Buchheim’s collection of German expressionists are kept valuing 200 million DM. With the agreement of the Federal Council, the red-green pension reforms clear the last hurdle. The “Riester-Rente” (private pension scheme with state contributions) becomes a new burden for the Germans. June: The provincial court of Baden-Württemburg decides that a Moslem teacher is not allowed to wear a head-scarf in a state school because it is a “political symbol”. July: The Bundestag gets rid of a 70 year-old Nazi discount law, German customers are now permitted to haggle and barter. August: The sad remains of the group of companies traditionally known as Mannesmann now carry the name “Vodafone” after 115 years. September: Ronald Barnabas Schill, infamously known as “Judge Merciless”, wins in Hamburg a position of 19.4% of the votes forcing a change of power after 44 years of SPD rule. October: The SPD man Klaus Wowereit is elected governing mayor of Berlin and risks an alliance with the PDS. The Bundestag rules that prostitution is no longer illegal and with the agreement of the Federal Council allows prostitutes to contribute to unemployment benefits, medical insurance and pension funds. November: After 3 years of building work the first new synagogue in eastern Germany is inaugurated in Dresden. December: The first of five cultural buildings in Berlin, the restored Alte Nationalgalerie is opened as a “place of new consciousness”. ABROAD: January: During a lecture by the research minister Edelgard Buhlmann in Hightech-Dorado California, there is a power cut. A deregulation order which forbids companies from passing on price increases, amongst other things, is responsible. Around 770,000 liters of diesel and crude oil leak out of a tanker and threaten the Galapagos Islands. February: Siberia and Mongolia are blasted by the most deadly-cold winter for 50 years with freezing temperatures as low as minus 50°C. The hardliner Ariel Sharon becomes Israel’s new Minister-President. 24 American and British fighter-bombers attack Iraqi airforce installations near Bagdad. March: The Islamic Taliban blow up two 1500 year-old Buddha statues in the Banian Valley. Near to Porto a 19th Century bridge collapses which was originally built for packhorse wagons and horse-drawn carriages but is now crossed daily by approximately 1,800 cars. April: The Netherlands is the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia. In Cincinnati, Ohio, a 19 year-old unarmed black man is shot dead by white police. This leads to some of the most serious race-riots in recent years in the USA. May: The Cuban photographer Alberto Korda dies. He leaves behind him the most famous photo of the young revolutionary Che Guevara. Erik Weihenmayer is the first blind person to climb Mount Everest. June: German Gregor Schneider is awarded the Golden Lion by the specialist jury at the Biennale in Venice for his fantastical work “Totes Haus ur”. The Nepalese crown prince Dipendra kills his father, King Birendra, his mother, Aishwarya, and seven other family members and then himself. July: Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano errupts again after nine years. The rendition of the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde by the Berliner Staatskapelle conducted by Barenboim at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem leads to uproar. August: North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il visits President Putin in Moscow. Swiss environmental authorities have purified mountain lakes of hazardous substances so diligently that the fish begin to starve and the fishing industry complains about a dramatic drop in the fishing quota. September: On 11th September, planes captured by Islamic terrorists crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and into the defense ministry in Washington. Thousands die. Supported by an international alliance the United States goes to war against terror. October: The tennis couple Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf get a son: Jaden Gil. After a truck crashes in the Gotthard Tunnel eleven people die in the inferno. November: Deadly anthrax spores contained in letters kill five people in the USA. There is a swing to the right in the Danish parliamentary elections. The social democrat Rasmussen is replaced by his namesake Rasmussen from the right-wing liberal party Venstre. ...