Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany
With his fellow foreign ministers James Baker of the United States and Eduard Shevardnadze of the Soviet Union, Genscher is widely credited with securing Germany's subsequent peaceful unification and the withdrawal of Soviet forces. He negotiated the German reunification in 1990 with his counterpart from the GDR, Markus Meckel. On 12 September 1990 he signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany on behalf of West Germany. In November 1990, Genscher and his Polish counterpart Krzysztof Skubiszewski signed the German-Polish Border Treaty on the establishment of the Oder–Neisse line as Poland's western border. Meanwhile, he strongly endorsed the plans of the Bush Administration to assure continued U.S. influence in a post-Cold War Europe.