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In the mid-summer of 1989 the German Democratic Republic-- known as the GDR or East Germany--was an autocratic state led by an entrenched Communist Party. A loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, it was a counterpart of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which it confronted with a mixture of hostility and grudging accommodation across the divide created by the Cold War. Over the following year and a half, dramatic changes occurred in the political system of East Germany and culminated in the GDR's \"accession\" to the Federal Republic itself. Yet the end of Germany's division evoked its own new and very bitter constitutional problems.The Imperfect Uniondiscusses these issues and shows that they are at the core of a great event of political, economic, and social history. Part I analyzes the constitutional history of eastern Germany from 1945 through the constitutional changes of 1989-1990 and beyond to the constitutions of the re-created east German states. Part II analyzes the Unification Treaty and the numerous problems arising from it: the fate of expropriated property on unification; the unification of the disparate eastern and western abortion regimes; the transformation of East German institutions, such as the civil service, the universities, and the judiciary; prosecution of former GDR leaders and officials; the \"rehabilitation\" and compensation of GDR victims; and the issues raised by the fateful legacy of the files of the East German secret police. Part III examines the external aspects of unification.

In the mid-summer of 1989 the German Democratic Republic-- known as the GDR or East Germany--was an autocratic state led by an entrenched Communist Party. A loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, it was a counterpart of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which it confronted with a mixture of hostility and grudging accommodation across the divide created by the Cold War. Over the following year and a half, dramatic changes occurred in the political system of East Germany and culminated in the GDR's \"accession\" to the Federal Republic itself. Yet the end of Germany's division evoked its own new and very bitter constitutional problems. The Imperfect Union discusses these issues and shows that they are at the core of a great event of political, economic, and social history.Part I analyzes the constitutional history of eastern Germany from 1945 through the constitutional changes of 1989-1990 and beyond to the constitutions of the re-created east German states. Part II analyzes the Unification Treaty and the numerous problems arising from it: the fate of expropriated property on unification; the unification of the disparate eastern and western abortion regimes; the transformation of East German institutions, such as the civil service, the universities, and the judiciary; prosecution of former GDR leaders and officials; the \"rehabilitation\" and compensation of GDR victims; and the issues raised by the fateful legacy of the files of the East German secret police. Part III examines the external aspects of unification.

This article analyzes the attempts to prosecute border guards on the East German Border who utilized deadly force. The article analyzes applicable legal concepts & lists seven possible approaches to cases for finding criminal liability in this instance. Each approach is then analyzed for its possible effectiveness & possible criticism by other parties. The author also discusses the use of non-retroactivity laws in this type of historical circumstance & lists reasons why they may or may not apply. The author concludes with a discussion on the legal situation that this historical event presents within the special context of German reunification. E. Miller

Transitions from dictatorship to democracy often raise the perplexing question of whether a new government may punish actions which, although reprehensible, were considered legal under the old regime. In these instances, the desire for condign punishment of evil acts confronts the principle that forbids retroactive criminal prosecutions. After German unification, problems of this type arose in trials of East German border guards for the use of deadly force at the Berlin Wall, along with prosecutions of military and civilian officials higher in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) chain of command. In this article, the author discusses these prosecutions and analyzes the response of the German courts to the difficult problems of retroactivity that the cases raise. In its concluding section, the article suggests that these cases may evoke issues concerning the legitimacy of the GDR that were the subject of bitter debates during Germany's divided past.

Unification is one of the great themes of modern German history. Unlike England and France—which had formed unified nation-states in the Middle Ages—Germany came into the nineteenth century as a variegated collection of kingdoms, duchies, city-states, and other principalities, loosely held together in the political league of the Holy Roman Empire. The empire was dissolved in 1806 at Napoleon’s order and, following the Congress of Vienna and Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815, the “Germanic Confederation” arose in its place. Like the Holy Roman Empire, however, this was more in the nature of a treaty community (Staatenbund) than any