Russia - Eduard Shevardnadze | European Journal

Germany could not have been reunited without the assent of the Soviet Union. The Germans had a staunch ally in the Soviet Union's then-Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost policies contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The fact that Germany was reunited less than a year later is due in large part to Shevardnadze. He convinced Gorbachev that German unity was urgent. The path to it, however, was lined with problems. In particular, it was hard for the Soviets to accept that unified Germany would belong to NATO.