Margaret Thatcher saw Berlin Wall's fall as German threat to peace, stability
2 Nov 2009, 1751 Hrs

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London, Nov 2 A series of French diplomatic files have revealed that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher considered the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 as part of a German threat to peace and stability led by then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

"France and Great Britain should pull together today in the face of the German threat," The Telegraph quoted Thatcher as having told to the French ambassador to London in March 1990.

A French translation of Thatcher's remarks released for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall further revealed: "Kohl is capable of anything. He has become another man. He doesn't know himself any more. He sees himself as the master and is starting to act like it."

Thatcher and former French President Francois Mitterrand also shared their concerns at a Paris dinner party in January 1990, where the French president told Thatcher that a united Germany could "make more ground than even Hitler had".

Maurice Vaisse, a French historian who supervised the release of the files, said that Thatcher was "horrified" that a German reunification just 44 years after the Second World War would "reinvigorate the country's bid to become the most powerful country in Europe".

The files also disclosed that, two months before the incident, Thatcher told former President of USSR Mikhail Gorbachev that neither Britain nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany.

"This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security," she said. (ANI)

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