The Role of City Partnerships in the Reconstruction of Ukraine

Abstract

In 2015, there were around 80 city partnerships between Germany and Ukraine. In addition to the major partnerships between Berlin, Munich, and Leipzig with Kyiv or Berlin and Nuremberg with Kharkiv1, these were mostly partnerships between smaller municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. Many of these partnerships were very old and had their basis in the old structures between the Soviet Union and the former Germand Democratic Republic (GDR). Only a few new partnerships were formed after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Ukraine’s independence in 1991. Others resulted from the old peace movement in the West, which organized active support after the Chornobyl accident with vacation stays for Ukrainian children in Germany in conjunction with direct humanitarian and medical support.