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Acknowledgments Day-to-day politics sometimes have a pleasant, at other times, frustrating way of complicating a scholar’s ongoing research. Such was the case with this study. When I began, German unification seemed a remote, if not improbable, possibility. By the time of this publication, German unification had become an accepted reality. In hindsight, many pundits claim they anticipated such a development. While I cannot claim to have predicted history’s course, I can assert that I foresaw rapidly progressing peaceful change in official East-West relations. Yet no one could have predicted the courage and utter heroism of the people of Eastern Europe. What I witnessed firsthand in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1989, as well as at the Berlin Wall on November 9 that year, cannot be adequately described. These were the people who made peaceful change happen. To them I am grateful and hope for their everlasting peace and freedom. On a more personal level, I have many people to thank for the successful fruition of this work. My graduate cohort from the University of Maryland has been a continuous source of emotional support; for intellectual support the list is long, as is my gratitude—my thanks to Davis Bobrow, Beverly Crawford, Peter Dombrowski, Lily Gardner Feldman, Helga Haftendorn, Peter Katzenstein, Janie Leatherman, Andy Markovits, Monika Medick-Krakau, Ben Radcliff, and last, but certainly not least, Simon Reich, a genuine mentor. And finally, to Alan and my family, without whom none of this would have been possible, all my love and everlasting appreciation. Alan was an eternal source of inspiration, wisdom, and comfort. To have such a fountain of support has been a true treasure. I would like to acknowledge that the research for this study was assisted by a grant from the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies of the Free University of Berlin and the Social Science Research Council with funds provided by the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. ...

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