Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Federal Republic of Germany to President George H. W. Bush

After the historic and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of reuniting. Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor and later chancellor of the reunited Germany, and George H. W. Bush, president of the United States, engaged in ongoing conversations in the months leading up to reunification, which eventually took place on October 3, 1990. In their telephone conversation from February 13, 1990, initiated by Kohl, the two leaders discussed a variety of issues, including the entrance of East Germans in West Germany, discussions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership, reunification, and the upcoming meeting at Camp David in the United States. This document points to the involvement of the West, in particular West Germany and the United States, in the collapse of communism in the region.