Hungary was the earliest of any eastern bloc nation to institute reform under its reformist Prime Minister Miklós Németh, who took office in November 1988.[4] Its government was still notionally Communist but planned free elections and economic reform as part of a strategy of "rejoining Europe" and reforming its struggling economy.[5] Opening the border was essential to this effort; West Germany had secretly offered a much-needed hard currency loan of DM 500 million ($250 million) in return for allowing citizens of the GDR to freely emigrate.[6] The Hungarians went ahead in May 1989 by dismantling the Iron Curtain along their border with Austria.