Vyacheslav Kochemasov
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18 September 1918
Vyacheslav Kochemasov | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kochemasov in 1985 | |
| Born | Vyacheslav Ivanovich Kochemasov 18 September 1918 |
| Died | 25 August 1998 (aged 79) Moscow, Russia |
| Occupation | Diplomat |
| Political party | CPSU |
| Spouse | Ziniaida Nicolaevna Kochemasova (1921–2008) |
Vyacheslav Ivanovich Kochemasov (Russian: Вячеслав Иванович Кочемасов; 18 September 1918 – 25 August 1998) was a Soviet and Russian diplomat and politician.[1]
He was the Soviet Ambassador to East Germany from 1983 till 1990. His term included the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 which effectively heralded the end, in 1990, of the German Democratic Republic. The Soviet government played a key role in this process.
Kochemasov became a member of the Communist Party in 1942. Directly after the end of World War II he became an official in the international section of the Young Communist League (Komsomol). After that, between 1955 and 1960, he worked at the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin.
From 1966 until 1983, he was deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers for the RSFSR. At the same time he held leadership positions in the "All-union society for protecting Culture and Historical Monuments" and with the Rossotrudnichestvo.[2] Between 1966 and 1983, he was listed as a candidate for membership of the Central Committee: between June 1983 and June 1990 he was a full member of it.[1]
In 1983, Yuri Andropov, the new Soviet leader, appointed Kochemasov to succeed Pyotr Abrasimov as Soviet Ambassador to East Germany. In 1985 a new generation took over at the Kremlin as Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet Party Secretary in March 1985. Gorbachev took a substantially changed approach to relations between Moscow and East Berlin, but Vyacheslav Kochemasov nevertheless remained in his ambassadorial post for more than five of the Perestroika-Glasnost years that ensued.
During the evening of 9 November 1989, as the Berlin Wall came down, there was widespread speculation as to how the Soviet Ambassador to the German Democratic Republic might react. Vyacheslav Kochemasov did nothing.[3] It was later reported that on the evening of 9 November, he had tried, without success, to telephone Mikhail Gorbachev and then the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, for instructions.[3] During the reunification process Kochemasov continued to represent his country's interests.
In this connection it was Kochemasov who on 16 April 1990 handed over to East Germany's recently elected prime minister, Lothar de Maizière, the so-called "Non-paper" which set out, unofficially and in an informal manner, the Soviet Union's eleven ground-rules for the rapidly unfolding reunification of East and West Germany.[4][5] The note recorded that Article 23 of the East German constitution clearly rejected a union of the two German states and also rejected membership of NATO for a reunited Germany.
From June 1990, Kochemasov returned to Moscow to retire. His successor as Soviet Ambassador to East Germany was Gennadi Schikin.
Kochemasov died on 25 August 1998, aged 79, in Moscow. He is buried, with his wife Ziniaida Nicolaevna, a highly qualified medical doctor, in the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery on the western edge of Moscow.[6]
