July 1990
Meeting between the research ministers Heinz Riesenhuber (FRG) and Frank Terpe (GDR)
It was agreed that the Science and Humanities Council [Wissenschaftsrat] of the FRG would evaluate the AdW institutes of the GDR and draw up recommendations on the following:
– the continuation of individual institutes
– or changes to their academic research profiles and/or funding sources
– or the closure of institutes
Minister Terpe and AdW president Horst Klinkmann addressed the staff of the institutes in an open letter. They explained the need for the reorganization process and called upon the institutes to quickly discontinue work on projects that could no longer be supported by research (technological tasks, production, and services).
August 31, 1990
The Unification Treaty between the FRG and the GDR was signed. Article 38 of this treaty set December 31, 1991, as the date by which all AdW institutes had to close.
October 3, 1990
Unification
Federal states were created in East Germany in accordance with the West German model. The new federal states are:
– Mecklenburg-West Pomerania
– Brandenburg
– Saxony-Anhalt
– Saxony
– Thuringia
East Berlin was incorporated into the city-state of Berlin.
The individual AdW institutes became dependent institutions of the federal states and affiliated with the federal state in which they were based. The new federal states agreed to form a coordinating office from among the central leadership organs to deal with all the issues relating to the dissolution of the AdW institutes (Coordination and Phase-out Office for the Institutes and Facilities of the Former Academy of Sciences of the GDR [Koordinierungs- und Abwicklungsstelle für die Institute und Einrichtungen der ehemaligen Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR or KAI-AdW]).
December 12, 1990
Adlershof Declaration
In this declaration, twenty-one AdW professors called for its immediate and unconditional dissolution on account of its lack of willingness to deal with the political past.
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