Merkel: Gorbachev wrote world history

Created: 08/31/2022, 10:07 am

The then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev at the German-Russian government consultations in October 2007. © epa Mikhail Klimentyev/epa/dpa

Politicians around the world mourn Mikhail Gorbachev and remember his legacy.

Berlin - Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) praised the Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev as "a unique world politician".

"May the memory of his historic achievement make it possible to pause, especially during these terrible weeks and months of Russia's war against Ukraine," Merkel said in a statement published on her website.

It was with great sadness that she heard the news of Gorbachev's death, the former Chancellor continued.

“Gorbachev wrote world history.

He exemplified how one statesman can change the world for the better,” she added.

Without Gorbachev's courage "in glasnost and perestroika, i.e. in openness and restructuring, the peaceful revolution in the GDR would not have been possible either".

Merkel wrote: "To this day I can still feel the fear I shared with many people in the GDR in 1989, whether tanks would roll again like they did in 1953, when we shouted 'We are the people' and later 'We are one people'.

But this time - unlike in 1953 - no tanks rolled, no shots were fired." Instead, Gorbachev reproached the aged GDR leadership with the sentence "Those who come too late are punished by life".

In 1989/1990, Gorbachev no longer opposed the people's call for freedom in the GDR.

"More than that, he allowed a reunited Germany to become a member of NATO." Unforgotten for her are the pictures of his meeting with the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) in the Caucasus in 1990, which marked the unity of Germany in peace and freedom was within reach.

"Mikhail Gorbachev has also fundamentally changed my life.

I will never forget that,” declared Merkel.

Scholz: Democracy in Russia has failed

Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the late Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev as a courageous reformer.

The former Soviet head of state dared a lot, said Scholz on Wednesday at the sidelines of the cabinet meeting at Meseberg Castle in Brandenburg.

His policies made it possible "that Germany could be united and the Iron Curtain has disappeared".

Thanks to Gorbachev, Russia was also able to attempt to establish a democracy.

He died at a time “when not only did democracy in Russia fail”, but when Russian President Vladimir Putin was also digging new rifts in Europe.

"That's why we think of Mikhail Gorbachev and know how important he was for the development of Europe and our country in recent years," said Scholz.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg paid tribute to the late Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev as a peacemaker and mediator.

"Mikhail Gorbachev's historic reforms led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, contributed to the end of the Cold War and opened up the possibility of a partnership between Russia and NATO," the former Norwegian prime minister wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

"His vision of a better world remains a role model."

Gorbachev died in the Russian capital on Tuesday evening at the age of 91.

He had been the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In 1991 he resigned as Soviet President.

dpa