German reunification

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/german-reunification

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the date of formal reunification?October 3, 1990
2. What is the key treaty for external aspects?The Two Plus Four Agreement (1990)
3. What happened to Germany after World War II?Germany was split into two parts: the West became the Federal Republic of Germany, and the East became the German Democratic Republic. The two sides followed different political and economic systems.
4. Why was the Berlin Wall built?The Wall was built to stop people from leaving East Germany for the West. It also became a symbol of the divide between communism and democracy.

Glasnost and Perestroika: Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet policies of openness and restructuring that influenced Eastern Bloc reforms.
Two Plus Four Agreement: A treaty between the two German states and the four Allied powers concerning the external aspects of German unification.
Iron Curtain: A metaphorical and physical boundary dividing Europe into Western and Eastern blocs during the Cold War.
Ossi and Wessi: Colloquial terms referring to people from former East Germany ('Ossi') and former West Germany ('Wessi'), often highlighting post-reunification social and economic differences.