The fall of the Berlin Wall and negotiations on German reunification
In the course of discussions in Moscow about the possibility of the German nation living in a single, politically undivided state after the fall of the Berlin Wall — in the context of negotiations on German reunification.
Key points:
On February 9, 1990, in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
Baker used the phrase "not one inch eastward" several times, asserting that NATO's jurisdiction would not extend eastward beyond the territory of a unified Germany if Germany remained in NATO.
On February 10, 1990, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl confirmed a similar assurance to Gorbachev.
Earlier, in January–February, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had expressed a similar thesis, including in a speech in Tutzing on January 31.
These statements were part of a "cascade of assurances" that Western leaders, including Bush Sr., Thatcher, Mitterrand, and others, gave to Gorbachev to obtain the consent of the then-still-existing Soviet Union for German reunification within NATO.
It is not known whether such a fundamental agreement was recorded in any official diplomatic interstate document prohibiting NATO expansion eastward beyond Germany. If these promises were oral, they are certainly recorded in diplomatic memoranda of conversation, declassified documents, and notes (for example, from the National Security Archive).
The final treaty on German reunification ("Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany", September 1990) restricted only the deployment of foreign NATO troops in the former East Germany, but did not in writing prohibit NATO expansion to other Eastern European countries.
Many sources (including Gorbachev's later statements) confirm that it remained only at the level of oral promises and records of negotiations, not in a legally binding form. The Russian side in diplomatic rhetoric often mentions this as a "violation in substance" or disregard for the "spirit of the agreements" (violation of the spirit).
