19.4

 Solidarity Union ◦ Leader: Lech Walesa ◦ Union in Poland that wanted the gov’t to recognize them  Unions were illegal under SU law ◦ Solidarity workers went on strike at the Gdansk shipyard  Millions of Poles supported the action and the gov’t gave into the union demands  Walesa becomes a national hero

◦ Next year, gov’t rebanned Solidarity and declared martial law  Lead to an economic crisis in Poland  People started to strike, walking off their jobs  Wanted Solidarity recognized and an increase in wages  1989 – Solidarity is legalized and free elections held  Poles vote the Communists out of power and Solidarity candidates into power  Lech Walesa becomes president

 Lech Walesa ◦ Tried to use shock therapy on the Polish economy  Didn’t work: inflation, loss of jobs, unhappy people ◦ Voted out of office in 1995  Aleksander Kwasniewski (a former Communist) is voted in  Kwasniewski’s Poland ◦ Connected Poland to the rest of Europe economically ◦ Became a NATO member ◦ Supported the US in Iraq

 East Germany and Berlin remained in ruins while the W. rebuilt ◦ Many E. Germans tried to escape and some succeeded, over 200 were killed trying ◦ 1989 Hungary opened its borders to Austria which allowed Eastern European people a way into Western Europe  Thousands of people took this opportunity

 After Hungary opened its borders, E. Germany closed theirs ◦ Led to riots  Demanded the right to travel freely and vote in free elections ◦ Reagan gave his famous “Tear down this wall!” speech in 1987  E. German leader, Egon Krenz, assumed he could restore control by allowing people to cross the border  9 Nov 1989 he opened the Berlin Wall  A month later the Communist party in E. Germany ceased to exist  Germany started to reunify, merging the two countries back together ◦ Many people still feared a united Germany and wanted to stop this  Officially unified 3 Oct 1990 ◦ Leader: Helmut Kohl  Leader of W. Germany before reunification and he took control after reunification happened

 Serious Problems with Reunification ◦ E. Germany was still in ruins  RRs, telephones, highways had not been updated since WWII  Goods produced by factories were not good enough to be competitive in a global market  Factories started to close – people lost their jobs  Banking system was bankrupt

 1998 Kohl voted out of office ◦ Gerhard Schroeder is voted in but was not able to fix the economic problems because of a slow economy  Unemployment increased  Economy shrunk  2006 – Angela Merkel elected chancellor ◦ Unemployment fell ◦ Budget was reduced below EU limits ◦ Now largest economy in Europe

 Did not call for democracy and change like other countries in the Soviet Bloc  Milos Jakes was the leader of Czech ◦ Arrested all protestors ◦ Ruled the country with an iron fist ◦ This can only last for so long  Wenceslas Square Protests ◦ 10,000 people gathered in Wenceslas Square to demand democracy and freedom  Hundreds were arrested but it sparked the revolt  Velvet Revolution: 25,000 students gathered in Prague to protest ◦ Brutally attacked by the police – many were injured and killed ◦ But it angered the Czech people  After Wenceslas and the Velvet Revolution, 500,000 people protested in Prague ◦ Jakes stepped down and the Politburo resigned within a month

 Reformers used shock therapy to fix the economy ◦ Unemployment hit Slovakia (a region of the country) hard  Because of economic troubles Slovakia drifted apart from the rest of Czechoslovakia  Pleas for unity failed  1 Jan 1993 Czechoslovakia split into two countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia  Both countries are now members of NATO and the EU

 Initially led by Josef Broz Tito after WWII ◦ Skilled at playing the US and SU off each other ◦ Led to prosperity in Yugoslavia ◦ Skill of Tito kept the country together during the Cold War  But Tito died in 1980 leaving Yugoslavia struggling

 After Tito’s death, resentment within the country turned into bloody conflict ◦ Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosnians, Kosvan, and others wanted their own countries ◦ Serbian Slobodan Milosevic came to power after Tito

 Slovenia and Croatia declared independence ◦ Milosevic ordered Serbian-led Yugoslavian armies to invade both republics  Led to months of bloody fighting but both countries managed to free themselves ◦ After the success of Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovina tried as well  Disagreeing forces in B-H  Bosnian Muslims and Croats wanted independence  Bosnian Serbs did not  Bosnian Serbs attack the Muslims and Croats in 1992  Used violence and chemical warfare to ethnically cleanse Bosnia of its Muslim population