This week in history saw East Germans vote decisively for Helmut Kohl's conservative Alliance for Germany in the country's first free elections, backing a platform of rapid reunification with the West. The result strengthened Kohl's hand, paving the way for formal German reunification later that year.
In a special three-year retrospective on the Iraq war, The Independent branded the conflict a 'march of folly' in a front-page illustration by Ralph Steadman. Foreign reporter Robert Fisk condemned the invasion's ideological origins, describing it as created by the 'loonies of the American right' and foisted on President Bush, leading to 'the hell disaster that Iraq now represents'.
A bizarre food scare gripped Europe as Italian mozzarella was linked to pollution, corruption and the mafia. The crisis stemmed from illegal toxic dumping by organised crime rings in southern Italy, contaminating local grazing lands and prompting several countries to temporarily halt imports of the buffalo cheese.
In other events, US envoy Richard Holbrooke delivered a final warning to Slobodan Milosevic as Nato prepared airstrikes over Kosovo, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe arrived in the UK after years of detention in Iran, following a landmark debt settlement.
