German reunification (German: Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called "East Germany") were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in English commonly called "West Germany"). The start of this reunification process is commonly referred to as Die Wende (The Turning, The Change).
After the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, negotiations between the GDR and FRG culminated in a Unification Treaty, whilst negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Two Plus Four Treaty" granting full independence to a unified German state.
The reunified Germany remained a member of the European Community (later the European Union) and NATO. There is debate as to whether the events of 1990 should be properly referred to as a "reunification" or a "unification". Proponents of the former use the term in contrast with the initial unification of Germany in 1871. Popular parlance is deeply impacted by the 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall (and the rest of the inner German border) and the physical reunification of the city of Berlin (itself divided only since 1961). Others, however, argue that 1990 represented a "unification" of two German states into a larger entity which, in its resulting form, had never before existed (see History of Germany). For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term "reunification" during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende. The most common term in German is "Deutsche Einheit" or "German unity"; German unity is the term that Hans-Dietrich Genscher used in front of international journalists to correct them when they asked him about "reunification" in 1990.
After 1990, the term "die Wende" became more common. The term generally refers to the events that led up to the actual reunification; in its usual context, this term loosely translates to "the turnaround", without any further meaning. When referring to the events surrounding the German reunification, however, it carries the cultural connotation of the time and the events in the GDR that brought about this "turnaround" in German history.