 Under this route, reunification could be implemented in just six months, and completely sidestep the West German political conflicts involved in writing a new constitution.Under the pressure of an increasing financial crisis (driven partly by mass emigration to West Germany in early 1990 and partly by the Federal Republic's refusal to grant the loans that would have been needed to underpin a longer transition period), the Article 23 route rapidly became the frontrunner.The cost of this, however, was that East Germany's nascent democracy died less than a year after it was born, with a set of laws and institutions imposed from outside replacing a set of laws and institutions imposed from above.