Thread by @redhistorian

I'm going to tweet out some of the documents on which this article draws, tracing Margaret Thatcher's response to German reunification & its aftermath. Thatcher was an expressive writer & annotator of documents, many of which are available online. [THREAD] newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…

1. This one's from Sept 1989, when Thatcher met Gorbachev for talks on the situation in Eastern Europe. She asked for the recording to be switched off, so she could speak freely about Germany. NATO commitments to unification, she said, shd be "disregarded" margaretthatcher.org/document/112005

2. Thatcher was not impressed by Francis Fukuyama's prediction of "the end of history" (or of "the Common Marketization of international relations"!). She annotated his work in detail, and warned that "there are always evils in the world to be opposed." margaretthatcher.org/document/211165

3. Thatcher's fears of German power were exacerbated by her advisor, Charles Powell, who told her on 9 February 1990 that "For the Germans this is the breakthrough ... They are in the driving seat and Toad is at the wheel".

4. Powell also wrote the summary of the Chequers Seminar in 1990, identifying "angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism" as "an abiding part of the German character" and drawing parallels with the present. It was quickly leaked to the press. margaretthatcher.org/document/111047

5. Only the Soviet Union, Thatcher told President Bush, could "provide balance" against a united Germany in Europe. Bush was appalled. "He could not conceive how you could think of the Russians as possible allies against Germany". Thatcher wrote in the margin, "1941-45".

6. After the leadership election of 1989, Thatcher's team warned that "the result is not as good as the figures". "We are talking about the beginning of the end of the Thatcher era". "She has been magnificent in the Eighties but is not for the Nineties". margaretthatcher.org/document/111437

7. Thatcher declined to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations in Berlin to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. She could not "regard Germany as just another country"; the Germans had "shown a marked inability to limit their ambitions or respect their neighbours" (Statecraft).

More on all of this here, and on the outstanding Thatcher Foundation website - a treasure trove of original documents and materials on the Thatcher era. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…