Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher warned France’s ambassador months before Germany’s 1990 reunification of a domineering Chancellor Helmut Kohl who “sees himself as the master,” diplomatic notes revealed on Thursday.
In secret archives unveiled to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, French diplomats describe an “obsessed” and “bitter” Thatcher’s fear of a united Germany and her proposal to join forces with Russia to contain the threat.
“Kohl is capable of anything,” France’s ambassador to Britain, Luc de La Barre de Nanteuil, quoted Thatcher as telling him during a dinner with French businessmen at his residence in London on March 13, 1990.
“He has become a different man, he does not know himself any more, he sees himself as the master and begins to act like that. You have to see for example how he behaves with [then Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev,” she said according to the confidential report.
Nanteuil was struck by Thatcher’s bitterness, noting that while she was pleased with the end of communism, she did not express any joy over eastern Europe’s new-found freedom.
“The 1990s begin with euphoria, they risk ending in catastrophe,” said Thatcher, whose anti-EU stance culminated in her forced resignation in December 1990.
France and Britain, western Europe’s two nuclear powers, needed to link up in the face of the “German danger,” but this alone would not be enough, she told Nanteuil.
Once Russia was transformed into a free-market democracy, it could act as a necessary counterweight, she said.
While Thatcher’s opposition to German reunification is known, the diplomatic notes cast a slightly more ambiguous light on the role of former French president Francois Mitterrand.
Mitterrand shared Thatcher’s concerns — he has previously been cited as warning her in January 1990 that the Germans were turning “bad” again.
But the diplomatic records also describe his delicate balancing act as he tried to show Germany he was not fundamentally hostile to its reunification.
A report of a meeting between French diplomat Francois Scheer and the East German ambassador on Nov. 14, 1989, mentions Mitterrand’s position days after the Berlin Wall came down.
The thought of German reunification “did not frighten [Mitterrand] but this did not signify that he would say yes to reunification tomorrow and in any fashion,” Scheer said, according to the report.
Archivists presenting the notes and letters to reporters cautioned that diplomats may have been biased while leaders could have tried to manipulate their counterparts.
The full archives from the period will be officially opened on Monday, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.
But even as a partial account, Nanteuil’s report confirmed Thatcher’s increasing isolation as the Iron Lady lost the power to convince others.
“Mrs Thatcher was, as usual, attentive, reflective and combative, but she was basically much more negative than imaginative. She spoke of Germany with a striking anxiety and passion,” Nanteuil wrote. “She wanted to be right and be right on all points, even when her worry did not suggest any solution. She was, as always, convinced that her instinct was right.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS