JCC: Two Germanys Enter, Only One Germany Leaves: German Reunification, 1989 - Socialist Unity Party of Germany (West Germany)

APPROXIMATE COMMITTEE SIZE: 25 delegates

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has spent his Chancellery integrating West Germany closer and closer to Western Europe and the United States. The first West German leader to host a state visit from any East German leader, Kohl was not afraid of cooperation between the East and West and believed that Germany should one day be reunified. The constitution of West Germany even provides two possible structures for reunification (article 23 allowing for reunification under the current constitution and article 146 allowing for reunification under an entirely new constitution). Despite the West German government’s plans for reunification the West German public was less keen on the idea. Opinion polls showed that the public saw East Germany as a separate nation which did not share the same national identity as them. They also saw the Communist East as an economic burden on the thriving Capitalist West.

ISSUES TO CONSIDER

Framework for Reunification

Managing Public Opinion

Foreign Diplomacy and Alignment

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Determine how reunification should occur: under Article 23 (accession under West German constitution) vs. Article 146 (to create a new constitution).

• How to leverage media and civil society to promote a shared identity.

• How to coordinate with NATO allies to gain support and navigate skeptical powers to advance reunification without souring relations.

About the Chair

Maria Razborova is a member of the School of Foreign Service class of 2028, where she plans on majoring in Science, Technology, and International Affairs and minoring in French. She secretly really loves math and chemistry, something which she’s too ashamed to admit to her SFS peers. She hails from Chicago (real Chicago, not the suburbs), but was born in Princeton, New Jersey. She is also a Russian-American dual citizen and she will make sure to let everyone know about this. She loves learning languages, and speaks Russian, English, French and some Swedish. Her love for Model UN started when she joined her school’s team her freshman year, and she ended up competing as a devout crisis delegate for four years. At Georgetown, she proudly served as a crisis analyst for NCSC LII in the Cabinet of Yemelyan Pugachev and NAIMUN LXII in Ad Hoc. Now, she is the Director of Business Development or NCSC (NAIMUN’s sister conference). When she’s not sending countless emails or reading 200 pages for a class she has tomorrow, she is either watching a pretentious artsy film with no plot, trying a new overpriced coffee shop, buying too many books at a hipster bookstore, or attempting to master a new piano sonata. She is honored to serve as your Crisis Manager and can’t wait to see the arcs that delegates come up with!

About the Crisis manager

Jackson Schnabel is a member of the School of Foreign Service class of 2027 He is from Norwalk, Connecticut, and is studying Science, Technology, and International Affairs. He has staffed NAIMUN and NCSC, Georgetown’s conference for college students. He has focused on crisis committees, chairing the Cabinet of Hilarión Daza at NAIMUN LXII and as director for the USS Nimitz at NCSC LII this past year. He is also a member of the Georgetown University Space Initiative and led the Initiative’s science team during the 2024-25 school year. During the summer, he is interning at the American Foreign Policy Council, where he will research the future of space policy. During the fall of the 2025-26 school year, he is studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain, to immerse himself in the culture of a different country and become proficient in a second language. Outside of schoolwork, Jackson is a massive fan of New York sports (Let's go Knicks!) and terrible movies. He cannot wait to meet all of you delegates and see what you will do!