Ostpolitik Transformation Through Communication and the Quest for Peaceful Change

Ostpolitik Transformation through Communication and the Quest for Peaceful Change

✣ Gottfried Niedhart

In the 1960s the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) had to learn a lesson that was painful for a large part of the population. For others, it proved to be a step toward opening new avenues for an alternative approach in dealing with the German question and the East-West conflict in Europe. The lesson stemmed from President John F. Kennedy’s message that reunification was not a realistic prospect. “We must deal with the world as it is and not as it might have been, had history of the last eighteen years been different,” Kennedy told his audience at American University in Washington, DC, on 10 June 1963.1 The West Germans had to live with the division of their country, and the world had to live with the conflict between East and West. However, Kennedy argued in favor of a “strategy of peace,” seeking an alternative to the Cold War and its “strategy of annihilation.”2 Without closing one’s eyes to the fundamental differences between East and West, one should look for overlapping interests and for an improvement in East-West communication—a policy that became known as detente.´ In Germany an immediate echo to Kennedy’s appeal reverberated not in Bonn but in Berlin. After the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Willy Brandt as governing mayor of West Berlin had been in close contact with Kennedy. Although Brandt had been in favor of a more active policy toward the East since the 1950s and criticized Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s government for its deficiencies in this field, he was deeply disappointed about the soft U.S.

1. John F. Kennedy, “Commencement Address at the American University in Washington,” 10 June 1963, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy 1963 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1964), p. 462. 2. Ibid., p. 464.

Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 3, Summer 2016, pp. 14–59, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00652 C 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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reaction to the building of the wall.3 It was one thing to plead for East-West contacts and quite another to accept the division of the city. Yet, after a while, Brandt understood what Kennedy had in mind. The outcome was the “Brandt- Kennedy alliance and the first steps toward detente.”´ 4 The West German public, which cheered Kennedy during his visit to the FRG and West Berlin in late June 1963, learned about Brandt’s new approach when he and his press officer and close associate Egon Bahr gave speeches in Tutzing, near Munich, in July 1963.5 Bahr coined the phrase “Wandel durch Annaherung”¨ (change through rapprochement), which was widely seen as too passive. Brandt’s speech was more discreet, but the two addresses complemented each other on all basic points: • The realities of the postwar settlement had to be accepted. At the same time, an increase in communication between East and West was essential. Contacts with the Communist East might enable Western ideas to filter into those closed societies, facilitating gradual change. • The “interests of the other side” should be acknowledged as legitimate. The realities of power politics could be changed only after those interests had been accepted. Recognition of the status quo was the initial step to overcoming it. • A rapprochement between East and West might result in the “transformation of the other side.” Rather than being abolished, Communist rule was to be changed. • The division of Germany would last as long as the division of Europe. The German question could be solved only through cooperation with the Soviet Union and not through antagonistic behavior. For the vast majority of the political class (including Brandt’s own So- cial Democratic Party), and the West German population at large, Brandt’s

3. Wolfgang Schmidt, “Die Wurzeln der Entspannung: Der konzeptionelle Ursprung der Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik Willy Brandts in den funfziger¨ Jahren,” Vierteljahrshefte fur¨ Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 51, No. 4 (2003), pp. 521–563. 4. Arne Hofmann, The Emergence of D´etente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 75. 5. Andreas Daum, Kennedy in Berlin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Both speeches are printed in Dokumente zur Deutschlandpolitik (DzD), 4th ser., Vol. 9, pp. 565–575. See also Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten: Die Jahre 1960–1975 (Hamburg: Hofmann und Campe, 1976), pp. 56–57; Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen-Verlag,¨ 1989), pp. 73–76; Egon Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit (Munich: Blessing, 1996), pp. 152–158; and Andreas Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr und die deutsche Frage: Zur Entwicklung der sozialdemokratischen Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik vom Kriegsende bis zur Vereinigung (Bonn: Dietz, 1996), pp. 59–66. For a recent overview of Brandt’s policy, see Wolfgang Schmidt, “Willy Brandts Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik,” in Bernd Rother, ed., Willy Brandts Außenpolitik (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2014), pp. 161–257.

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“strategy of peace,” as he called it in full accordance with Kennedy, was too bold a departure from old habits. So long as people were accustomed to Cold War stereotypes, which no doubt were reinforced during the crises in Berlin and Cuba, Brandt’s and Bahr’s keywords were “communication” and “transformation.” Brandt, although he did not disagree with Bahr in substance, was not particularly fond of Bahr’s formula. Change through rapprochement could be and indeed was misunderstood. Rapprochement (Annaherung¨ )did not mean ideological concessions by the Social Democrats to the Communists in the East. Rather, it meant talking to each other and having contacts on a pragmatic level, initiating a policy of small steps for the benefit of the Berliners in their divided city. When asked by a newspaper in West Berlin about the function of Wandel durch Annaherung¨ in the context of the German question, Brandt pointed out that any policy aiming at reunification must be guided by Kennedy’s “strategy of peace.” This did not mean searching for harmony between East and West. Rather, it meant a “struggle by all means except war.” Brandt ruled out any form of “ideological coexistence” and any rapprochement with the political system of the “Ulbricht regime” in the GDR. On the contrary, this regime could never be acceptable. Yet, Brandt had no alternative to a policy that aimed at the improvement of the situation in divided Berlin and Germany.6 Time and again, Brandt stressed that a relaxation of tensions did not imply the acceptance of the GDR. “We cannot recognize Ulbricht’s state, we can only overcome it by peaceful means,” he told his party.7 Interpreting Bahr’s formula, Brandt sought to clarify what “rapprochement” meant. The two men had no disagreement in substance. Both Brandt and Bahr were convinced that any progress depended on “change” in East-West relations. In fact, change became the main feature of the 1960s and early 1970s. The role of the FRG in East- West relations has to be seen in this context. This was a period of transition in many respects, not only in politics but also in Western society, reaching a peak in 1968, although the social movements of the “1968ers” across the globe were not confined to this symbolic year.8 How societal and political changes were

6. Handwritten notes by Brandt for an interview with Berliner Morgenpost, 23 August 1963, in A3/161, Willy Brandt Archiv im Archiv der sozialen Demokratie der Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Bonn (WBA). 7. Brandt during a meeting of the SPD Parteirat in Hamburg, 28 August 1963, in A3/161, WBA. 8. Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, and Detlef Junker, eds., 1968: The World Transformed (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Gerd-Rainer Horn, The Spirit of ’68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America: 1956–1976 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Philipp Gassert and Martin Klimke, eds., 1968: Memories and Legacies of a Global Revolt (Washington, DC: Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 6, 2009).

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linked is still an open question that cannot be dealt with here.9 In what follows, the focus is on the political level. Without ignoring the broader context of politics, this article concentrates on conceptual frameworks and perceptions of individual decision-makers. How did the foreign policymaking elite, mainly in the FRG but also elsewhere, define national interests and pursue them within an international system that was in a state of transition? In the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, both superpowers undertook efforts to avoid a situation that might lead to war in the future. Both Washington and Moscow were interested in nuclear arms control, and in 1972 treaties were signed on the limitation of strategic offensive weapons (SALT) and antiballis- tic missiles (ABM). On top of that, “basic principles of U.S.-Soviet relations” were agreed on, declaring “the necessity of restraint and of calming conflicts in the world’s trouble spots.”10 The “readiness to mark out a cooperative future” signaled a significant change in East-West relations toward detente´ as a new way of managing conflict.11 This was itself the result of a change. The United States had to accept the military parity of its main rival. Both superpowers were dependent on a calculable relaxation of tensions because they were confronted with the danger of imperial overstretch. The events in Vietnam with the Tet Offensive in January 1968 and in Eastern Europe with the questioning of Soviet hegemony first by Romania and then in 1968 by Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring” marked the limits of the two superpowers’ control of world affairs. At the meeting of the Warsaw Pact’s Political Consultative Committee (PCC) in Budapest in March 1969, the Soviet Union could no longer simply dictate the texts of communiques.´ 12 The Sino-Soviet split had sparked large- scale armed clashes along the Ussuri River days before the PCC meeting, adding

9. An interesting, though unsatisfactory, attempt is made by Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of D´etente (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Unfortunately, the empirical basis of Suri’s argument has not improved with the passage of time. See Jeremi Suri, “Ostpolitik as Domestic Containment: The Cultural Contradiction of the Cold War and the West German State Response,” in Belinda Davis et al., eds., Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), pp. 133–152. 10. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 1150. For the text of the “Basic Principles of Relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” 29 May 1972, see U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. I, pp. 389–391 (hereinafter referred to as FRUS, with appropriate year and volume numbers). 11. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1254. 12. Csaba Bek´ es,´ “The Warsaw Pact and the CSCE Process from 1965 to 1970,” in Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou, eds., The Making of D´etente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 201–220. On the intra-bloc tensions, see Mark Kramer, “Die Sowjetunion, der Warschauer Pakt und blockinterne Krisen wahrend¨ der Breznev-ˇ Ara,”¨ in Torsten

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to Moscow’s self-perception of being on the defensive. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 had alienated most of the West European Communist parties, causing further rifts within the Communist world. The Soviet Union was no longer the undisputed center of world Communism. As for the United States, the Nixon Doctrine and the end of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s heralded a new attitude toward world affairs. The superpowers were still unrivaled in military power, but the clear-cut postwar bipolar system had eroded. China, Japan, and Europe constituted new centers of power. Although Western Europe was still a club of nation- states, the European Communities (EC) entered a new phase of integration and enlargement. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, a desire emerged to make this painful border less threatening. With different emphases but sharing a fundamental wish for change, European governments in the West as well as in the East sought a more active role in East-West relations.13 In the ﬁrst half of the 1970s, a special forum for European issues, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), emerged, bringing together all European states except for Albania and producing results with far-reaching effects on the further course of East-West relations.14 Some years earlier, Charles de Gaulle’s France had marked an impres- sive beginning. The French president envisaged “l’Europe de l’Atlantique a` l’Oural” and proposed the dissolution of the existing military blocs. Accord- ing to de Gaulle, East-West relations should pass through various stages on the way from detente´ to entente and cooperation. In June 1966, he paid a ten-day visit to the Soviet Union, launching a French-Soviet dialogue.15 Simultaneously, France left the integrated military command of the North At- lantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Detente´ and intrabloc dissonances went

Diedrich, Winfried Heinemann, and Christian F. Ostermann, eds., Der Warschauer Pakt: Von der Grundung¨ bis zum Zusammenbruch: 1955–1991 (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2009), pp. 273–336. 13. This is the overriding theme in Loth and Soutou, eds., Making of Détente; Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); Poul Villaume and Odd Arne Westad, eds., Perforating the Iron Curtain: European Détente, Transatlantic Relations, and the Cold War, 1965–1985 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010); and Gottfried Niedhart, Entspannung in Europa: Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Warschauer Pakt 1966–1975 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2014). 14. Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nuenlist, eds., Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki Process Revisited, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008); and Thomas Fischer, Neutral Power in the CSCE: The N+N States and the Making of the Helsinki Accords 1975 (Baden- Baden: Nomos, 2009). 15. Marie-Pierre Rey, “De Gaulle, l’URSS et la securit´ e´ europeenne,´ 1958–1969,” in Maurice Va¨ısse, ed., De Gaulle et la Russie (Paris: CNRS Editions,´ 2006), pp. 213–227. On the French policy of detente,´ see Nicolas Badalassi, En finir avec la guerre froide: La France, l’Europe et le processus d’Helsinki, 1965–1975 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014).

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hand-in-hand, not only in the East but also, and even more so, in the West.16 In December 1967, NATO reacted in a flexible and efficient way by agreeing on the “Harmel Report.” From then on, the alliance pursued a double strategy, aiming at security by military means and striving to reduce tensions through apolicyofdetente.´ 17 The FRG was deeply involved in the deliberations leading to the Harmel Report and in most other features of the process of change during the era of detente.´ In particular, the FRG changed itself as a precondition for not only adapting to change but also influencing and promoting it. When the Cold War started in 1946–1947, the FRG did not even exist. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the FRG, being a product of the Cold War, strove to overcome the East-West confrontation. Although the German question was still regarded as being unsolved and the FRG in that sense remained a revisionist state, the West Germans came to terms with the postwar order.18 This was the major achievement of two coalition governments: the first from 1966 to 1969 of the Grand Coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) with Kurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor and Brandt as foreign minister; afterward, the coalition government formed by the SPD and the small Free Democratic Party (FDP) with Brandt as chancellor and Walter Scheel as foreign minister. During this period, the FRG no longer defined itself as a provisional and transitory state. Rather, it perceived itself as a separate West German state that had ascended to a respected position internationally.19 By 1970, the brief history of the FRG had been a history of integration into the West and thereby into international politics.20 Looking back on a political and economic success story, the West Germans, a quarter century

16. Mary Ann Heiss and S. Victor Papacosma, eds., NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Intrabloc Conflicts (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008). 17. Andreas Wenger, “Crisis and Opportunity: NATO’s Transformation and Multilateralization of Detente:´ 1966–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 22–74. 18. Gottfried Niedhart, “Revisionistische Elemente und die Initiierung friedlichen Wandels in der neuen Ostpolitik,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2002), pp. 233–266. See also Jean- François Juneau, EgonBahr,l’OstpolitikdelaRépublique fédérale d’Allemagne et la transformation de l’ordre européen,1945–1975 (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2014). 19. Dirk Kroegel, Einen Anfang finden! Kurt Georg Kiesinger in der Außen- und Deutschlandpolitik der Großen Koalition (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1997); Daniela Taschler, Vor neuen Herausforderun- gen: Die außen- und deutschlandpolitische Debatte in der CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion wahrend¨ der Großen Koalition (1966–1969) (Dusseldorf:¨ Droste Verlag, 2001); Klaus Schonhoven,¨ Wendejahre: Die Sozialdemokratie in der Zeit der Großen Koalition 1966–1969 (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Verlag, 2004); and Bernd Faulenbach, Das sozialdemokratische Jahrzehnt: Von der Reformeuphorie zur Neuen Unubersichtlichkeit:¨ Die SPD 1969–1982 (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Verlag, 2011). 20. Wolfram F.Hanrieder, Deutschland, Europa, Amerika: Die Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutsch- land 1949–1994 (Paderborn: Schoningh¨ Verlag, 1995).

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after the end of World War II and total defeat, perceived themselves as being back in the international arena. For them, the immediate postwar period had come to a close. At the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, the FRG was about to go through its formative years, a phase with repercussions on domestic and foreign affairs after the lengthy Adenauer era.21 West Germany by this point had become a “major actor in international politics.”22 Even as the superpowers pursued a policy of detente´ inspired in part by the feeling of going through a crisis as imperial powers, and even as Britain had to come to terms with its withdrawal from East of Suez and obvious symptoms of decline, and even as France, too, struggled between memories of the past and the wish for new “grandeur,” the FRG embarked on its Ostpolitik from a position of psychological, economic, and political strength.23 A new term suddenly began to appear in the language of the FRG political elite; namely, “national interest.” Chancellor Kiesinger wished to preserve West German “national interests” in the enlargement of the EC.24 Foreign Minister Brandt maintained “there is a German policy because there are German interests.”25 Nobody formulated the idea more succinctly than Bahr: “The FRG had become mature and had begun to deﬁne its own interests and its own role in international affairs.”26 The West German self-perception was mirrored by the perception from outside. In Western Europe, the FRG was seen as having overtaken France and Britain as the preeminent power. Also in East-West relations, France lost its leading role when West Germany changed from a latecomer to a pioneer

21. Gottfried Niedhart and Oliver Bange, “Die Relikte der Nachkriegszeit beseitigen: Ostpolitik in der zweiten außenpolitischen Formationsphase der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Ubergang¨ von den Sechziger- zu den Siebzigerjahren,” Archiv fur¨ Sozialgeschichte, Vol. 44 (2004), pp. 415–448. See also Eckart Conze, Die Suche nach Sicherheit: Eine Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von 1949 bis in die Gegenwart (Munich: Siedler Verlag, 2009), pp. 332, 363. 22. For a contemporary view, see Karl Kaiser, German Foreign Policy in Transition: Bonn between East and West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 1. 23. On British decline, see David Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000). On France, see Maurice Va¨ısse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998). 24. Kiesinger during an informal conference of the government dedicated to foreign policy issues, 2–3 May 1968, in Akten zur Auswartigen¨ Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (AAPD), 1968, p. 551 n. 27. 25. Brandt during a meeting of the executive of the SPD, 2 November 1968: “Es gibt eine deutsche Politik, weil es deutsche Interessen gibt, auch außerhalb der Bundnispolitik¨ und des traditionellen Ost-West-Gegensatzes.” See Willy Brandt, Ein Volk der guten Nachbarn: Außen- und Deutschlandpolitik 1966–1974 (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Verlag, 2005), p. 210. For Brandt’s mindset as foreign minister, see Willy Brandt, Friedenspolitik in Europa (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1968). 26. Bahr in a memorandum to Brandt, 30 January 1967, in Bahr Papers 299/3, Archiv der sozialen Demokratie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (AdsD).

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in detente.´ When Bonn refused to comply with the wishes of its partners and revalue the Deutschmark at the end of 1968, the French ambassador was alarmed. He had the impression that the Germans were flexing their muscles again.27 The British ambassador was less disturbed, but in a perceptive analysis titled “Towards a National Foreign Policy” his conclusion was the same, pointing to “a new consciousness of national interest and power” and a “new trend” in West German policy. “Among its features are a greater self-reliance, a feeling that the period of atonement for the war is over, and impatience with restraints on German liberty of action.”28 After the formation of the Brandt/Scheel government in October 1969, the “new trend” became even more apparent. From the outset, Ostpolitik was where the trend was put into operation. Chancellor Brandt and Foreign Minister Scheel were determined to practice what Brandt had enunciated some months before. He had warned against overrating the role of the FRG as an independent actor in East-West relations, but he was also convinced that Bonn should not underestimate itself “as a partner of the Soviet Union.”29 Brandt’s first policy statement as chancellor underscored the FRG’s commitment to NATO. But given this fundamental basis of his policy, he announced “a more independent German policy.”30 Being in close touch with his partners in the West, he wanted the FRG to be “more equal” than before.31 In fact, striving for equality had been a goal since Adenauer and was now confirmed by Brandt in a way that provoked some uneasiness in the West, notably in Paris and Washington.32 Kenneth Rush, the U.S. ambassador in Bonn, did not panic but wondered what Brandt might have had in mind when he claimed to be a “more independent ally.”33 Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser to President Richard Nixon, was much more nervous. He was haunted by the question of whether West German interests and NATO’s interests fully coincided or whether there was a risk of endangering “Germany’s Western

27. François Seydoux, Dans l’intimité Franco-Allemande: Une mission diplomatique (Paris: Editions´ Albatros, 1977), pp. 130–131. 28. Jackling to Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), 9 April 1969, in FCO 33/566, The National Archives of the United Kingdom (TNAUK). 29. Brandt addressing the parliamentary party of the SPD, 4 March 1969, in SPD-Fraktion, 5. Wahlperiode 119, AdsD. 30. Speech by Brandt in the Bundestag, 28 October 1969, in Deutscher Bundestag, 6. Wahlperiode, p. 31. 31. Brandt, Erinnerungen, p. 189. 32. Gottfried Niedhart, “Frankreich und die USA im Dialog uber¨ Detente´ und Ostpolitik 1969–1970,” Francia, Vol. 31, No. 3 (2004), pp. 65–85. 33. Rush to Hillenbrand, 17 November 1969, in FRUS, 1969–1973, Vol. XL, p. 121.

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association as to its reliability as a partner.”34 Furthermore, he regarded the FRG as a rival or, at best, a junior partner that should accept the U.S. lead on detente.´ Hence, from Washington’s (and London’s) point of view, the central rationale of NATO was still valid: the “dual containment” of the USSR and the FRG. The Soviet Union was to be contained by the combined strategy of deterrence and detente.´ The FRG was contained by its ties to the Western alliance and the EC.35 Any West German “dynamism toward the East” could thereby be kept under control.36 Given the West German government’s readiness to bind itself to the multilateral structures of Western institutions, the perception in Bonn was that the German part of “dual containment” had become obsolete and that the FRG was entitled to launch initiatives of its own. Contemporary observers and historians noted that the Brandt-Scheel government had developed a “new approach to the West” and a “semi-Gaullist, seemingly more independent style.”37 Even when serving as foreign minister in the Grand Coalition government, Brandt had pleaded for “more self-reliance also with respect to the United States.”38 Holding to this maxim as chancellor, he was fully aware of the structural asymmetry in relations between the United States as a global power and the FRG as a regional power. But he insisted on his own room for maneuver within the limits of a middle-size power. U.S. ofﬁcials had serious misgivings but never tried to block Ostpolitik. On the contrary, a triangular diplomatic network came into being in which the interests of both superpowers in detente´ and Bonn’s Ostpolitik were intertwined.39 This was true in 1971–1972 when the Berlin agreements were

34. Kissinger in a memorandum to Nixon, 16 February 1970, in FRUS, 1969–1973, Vol. XL, p. 153. See also Kissinger, White House Years, p. 408–409. 35. Nixon in conversation with Pompidou, 26 February 1970, Memorandum of Conversation by Alexander Haig, 2 March 1970, in Presidential-HAK Memcons (Pres-HAK) 1024, National Security Council (NSC), Nixon Presidential Materials (NPM), U.S. National Archives and Records Adminis- tration (NARA). The NPM have since been transferred to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, CA. On “dual containment,” see Hanrieder, Deutschland, pp. 27–61. 36. Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 10 December 1971, in President’s Trip Files 473, NSC, NPM, NARA. 37. Ambassador Rush to F.L. Jennings, 22 May 1970, in Record Group (RG) 59, Lot Files, Entry 5406, Box 4, NARA; and Werner Link, “Ostpolitik: Detente´ German-Style and Adapting to America,” in Detlef Junker, ed., The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990: A Handbook, 2 vols. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Vol. 2, p. 36. 38. Note by Brandt, 3 January 1967, in AAPD, 1967, p. 15. 39. Gottfried Niedhart, “U.S. Detente´ and West German Ostpolitik: Parallels and Frictions,” in Matthias Schulz and Thomas A. Schwartz, eds., The Strained Alliance: U.S.-European Relations from Nixon to Carter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 23–44. See also Judith Michel, Willy Brandts Amerikabild und -politik 1933–1992 (Gottingen:¨ V&R Unipress, 2010), pp. 295–343,

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negotiated, Bonn’s treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland were ratiﬁed, and the U.S.-Soviet summit took place in Moscow.40 This was also true during the CSCE negotiations in Geneva in 1974–1975, when the FRG insisted on a satisfactory formula regarding the peaceful change of frontiers and when Kissinger, albeit with his highly ambivalent image of Germany and the Ger- mans, supported the West German position. In both cases, the FRG was the “most important ally” of the United States.41

The Beginning of a “New” Ostpolitik 1966–1968: Initiatives and Constraints

This status is exactly what made the FRG a promising and attractive partner for the Warsaw Pact. Backed by the United States but not being in full accord with Washington on all issues, the FRG was perceived as an actor with a predictable role in NATO but a relatively independent position that enabled it to be a counterweight to the United States in the Western alliance. For the Soviet Union as the hegemonic power in the East, both facets of West German policy were important. Once the FRG was willing to respect the territorial status quo and to establish “normal” relations with the member- states of the Warsaw Pact, Bonn could be used as a lever to restrict U.S. inﬂuence in Europe and to push for the old Soviet idea of a European security conference. For the governments in Bucharest, Prague, Budapest, and Soﬁa, relations with the FRG simply meant an opening in the Iron Curtain. Poland and the GDR were special cases. The former was anxious to get its Western border acknowledged; the latter already had special relations with the FRG but was increasingly perturbed by Ostpolitik, seeing it as a strategy of subversion and as “aggression on slippers.”42

393–397; and Peter Hoeres, Außenpolitik und Offentlichkeit:¨ Massenmedien, Meinungsforschung und Arkanpolitik in den deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen von Erhard bis Brandt (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013), pp. 371–512. 40. For the interplay between the ratiﬁcation of Bonn’s Eastern treaties and the U.S.-Soviet summit in Moscow in May 1972, see the conversation between Brezhnev and Kissinger, 22 April 1972, in FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. XIV, pp. 536–541. See also memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 21 May 1972, in FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. XIV, p. 968. 41. Memorandum from Kissinger for President Ford, 26 September 1974, in National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Box 5, Gerald Ford Presidential Library (GFPL), Ann Arbor. On Kissinger’s view of his native Germany, see Holger Klitzing, The Nemesis of Stability: Henry A. Kissinger’s Ambivalent Relationship with Germany (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007). 42. The phrase “aggression on slippers” (Aggression auf Filzlatschen) is usually attributed to GDR Foreign Minister Otto Winzer. However, there is no concrete evidence that he actually used the phrase.

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The East German perception of the underlying assumptions of Ostpolitik was shaped by fear. The short-term fear was that Bonn wanted to bypass the GDR; the long-run concern was that a full opening would undermine the East German Communist system. In fact, no political party in Bonn was willing to recognize the GDR in accordance with international law. Consequently, East Berlin under Walter Ulbricht tried to block Bonn’s attempt to achieve diplomatic relations with the Warsaw Pact states and Yugoslavia. As early as January 1967, however, Romania consented to establish diplomatic relations with the FRG. The Grand Coalition government in Bonn also initiated talks in Prague, Budapest, and Sofia, hoping for a quick follow-up. However, the GDR and Poland succeeded in stopping the progress of the FRG in Central and Eastern Europe when the foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact assembled in the Polish capital on 8–10 February 1967 to adopt a common position that would forestall a repetition of Romania’s solo action. For a short period, Ulbricht and Władysław Gomułka were able to place the Warsaw Pact states under the obligation that the FRG must first recognize the GDR and the Oder-Neiße line as the permanent Polish border before further progress could be made in normalizing the FRG’s relations with the East.43 The Soviet Union was in a difficult position because its two main goals were mutually contradictory. Having established an imperial realm at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union was determined to uphold discipline within the Warsaw Pact and the coherence of the socialist camp. As a great power in danger of imperial overreach and economic and technological backwardness, it aimed at some sort of cooperation with the West, especially a lessening of tensions in Europe. As an old-style imperial power, it wanted to keep its bloc states under its control while also taking account of their individual interests. Hence, in accordance with the stance of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union demanded recognition of the GDR.44 At the same time, it was interested in improving

See the accounts by former East German ofﬁcials Manfred Uschner, “Egon Bahr und seine Wirkung auf uns,” in Dieter S. Lutz, ed., Das Undenkbare denken: Festschrift fur¨ Egon Bahr zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1992), p. 129; and Karl Seidel, Berlin-Bonner Balance: 20 Jahre deutsch-deutsche Beziehungen: Erinnerungen und Erkenntnisse eines Beteiligten (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2002), p. 52. For the context, see Oliver Bange, “The Stasi Confronts Western Strategies for Transformation 1966–1975,” in Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach, eds., Secret Intelligence in the European States System 1918– 1989 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 170–208; and Siefried Suckut, “Probleme mit dem ‘großen Bruder’: Der DDR-Staatssicherheitsdienst und die Deutschlandpolitik der KPdSU 1969/70,” Vierteljahrshefte fur¨ Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 58, No. 2 (2010), pp. 403–439.

43. Wanda Jarzabek, “‘Ulbricht-Doktrin’ oder ‘Gomułka-Doktrin’: Das Bemuhen¨ der Volksrepub- lik Polen um eine geschlossene Politik des kommunistischen Blocks gegenuber¨ der Westdeutschen Ostpolitik 1966/1967,” Zeitschrift fur¨ Ostmitteleuropa Forschung, Vol. 55, No. 1 (2006), pp. 79–115. 44. Soviet Ambassador Semen Tsarapkin in conversation with Chancellor Kiesinger, 8 February 1967, in AAPD, 1967, pp. 240, 245.

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relations with the FRG, mainly for economic reasons but also because the “key to European detente´ lay in West Germany.”45 Eventually, Moscow agreed to have an exchange of views on the renunciation of force.46 The FRG seemed to be successful in its attempt to downgrade the GDR. Although talks with the East aiming at the establishment of diplomatic relations were stopped or stagnated, West German leaders were confident that Moscow was intending a new start in its relations with Bonn and would be satisfied so long as the GDR was acknowledged de facto rather than de jure.47 As it turned out, however, the time was not yet ripe for the start of proper negotiations on the renunciation of force. After some months of diplomatic exchanges, the Soviet Union decided in July 1968 not to pursue things any further. In the summer of 1968, after Soviet leaders realized they could not both negotiate with the FRG and keep developments within the Warsaw Pact under control, they established firm priorities. In light of West Germany’s ambivalent attitude toward the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signed on 1 July 1968 by the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain, and in light of the differences between the CDU/CSU and SPD regarding concrete steps in a policy of detente,´ Soviet leaders (who themselves were divided over the issue of detente)´ focused on the immediate challenges in Moscow’s own sphere of interest.48 Seen from Moscow, events in Czechoslovakia were disquieting.49 The FRG seemed to play too active a role in the Prague Spring. Contacts between the FRG and Czechoslovakia had existed since January 1967 and were developed on several private and governmental levels. In May 1967, Foreign Minister Brandt met an envoy from Prague who proposed establishing some sort of formalized relationship and suggested talks about a

45. Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 210. For a succinct analysis of Soviet interest in detente,´ see Vladislav M. Zubok, “The Soviet Union and Detente´ of the 1970s,” Cold War History, Vol. 8, No. 4 (December 2008), pp. 427–447. 46. Conversations between Brandt and Tsarapkin, 12 October, 21 November, and 24 November 1967, in AAPD, 1967, pp. 1366–1367, 1524–1528, 1545–1546. 47. Memorandum from Bahr, on a conversation with Tsarapkin on 8 February 1968, referring also to a conversation with the Soviet ambassador in the autumn of 1967, 12 February 1968, in AAPD, 1968, p. 185. See also a memorandum from Bahr for Brandt, 3 November 1967, in A7/20, WBA. 48. Oliver Bange, “NATO and the Non-proliferation Treaty: Triangulations between Bonn, Wash- ington, and Moscow,” in Andreas Wenger, Christian Nuenlist, and Anna Locher, eds., Transform- ing NATO in the Cold War: Challenges beyond Deterrence in the 1960s (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 162–180. 49. Mark Kramer, “The Kremlin, the Prague Spring, and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” in Vladimir Tisman- eanu, ed., Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion, and Utopia (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), pp. 276–362.

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trade agreement.50 Czechoslovakia was the only country in the East in which the FRG did not yet have a trade mission—an institution that could be regarded as a substitute for a regular embassy. This approach was used by the FRG in Eastern Europe and by the GDR in Western countries.51 Brandt agreed to “half private” talks in Prague.52 Three weeks later, Bahr and another official from Brandt’s bureau went to Czechoslovakia to have a confidential exchange of views.53 Bahr now had the opportunity to test his concept.54 As he saw it, Czechoslovak leaders were vacillating between a strong interest in intensified relations with the FRG and fear of the reaction of the Warsaw Pact allies. Bahr and his interlocutors agreed that both Czechoslovakia and the FRG would benefit from “overcoming the East-West conflict,” thereby “changing the status quo.”55 In August 1967 a trade agreement was achieved, and in February 1968 trade missions were opened in Prague and Frankfurt. For the guidance of the first West German head of mission in Prague, Brandt pointed out that the FRG, without pushing matters, was prepared to have full diplomatic relations. On the one hand, the trade mission was obliged to stick to its proper function; on the other hand, trade relations should be regarded as a base for further developing bilateral relations. The head of the mission was told not to drive a wedge between Czechoslovakia and its allies. Even so, the hope was that the West German trade mission might act as a counterweight to the activities of the GDR in Czechoslovakia.56 The opening of the West German trade mission in Prague almost coincided with the takeoff of the Prague Spring. Czechoslovakia was in a state of dramatic change, and contacts with the FRG increased every month, including with government officials, representatives of political parties, bankers,

50. AAPD, 1967, pp. 10–13, 47–50, 60–64. See also Gottfried Niedhart, “Die Ostpolitik der Bun- desrepublik und die Normalisierung der Beziehungen zur Tschechoslowakei 1967–1973,” in Christoph Buchheim et al., eds., Die Tschechoslowakei und die beiden deutschen Staaten (Essen: Klartext, 2010), pp. 109–115. 51. Henning Hoff, Großbritannien und die DDR 1955–1973: Diplomatie auf Umwegen (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2003); Ulrich Pfeil, Die ‘anderen’ deutsch-franzosischen¨ Beziehungen: Die DDR und Frankreich 1949–1990 (Cologne: Bohlau,¨ 2004); and Christian Wenkel, Auf der Suche nach einem “anderen Deutschland”: Das Verhaltnis¨ Frankreichs zur DDR im Spannungsfeld von Perzeption und Diplomatie (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014). 52. Note by Brandt, 22 May 1967, in AAPD, 1967, pp. 769–770. 53. See the declassiﬁed documentation in AAPD, 1967, pp. 898–901. 54. Bahr, Zeit, pp. 220–223. 55. Bahr’s impression after a new round of talks in July 1968, in AAPD, 1967, pp. 1137, 1150. 56. Brandt to Heipertz, 8 January 1968, in B 150/116, Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen¨ Amts (PAAA).

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business executives, academics, and journalists. The wave of Western visi- tors to Czechoslovakia continued to mount.57 Financial support was given to newly founded non-Communist groups.58 Encouraged by Washington’s bridge-building concept, which—analogous to Bahr’s formula—can be called “change through bridge-building,” relations between the FRG and Czechoslo- vakia developed in a way that made full diplomatic relations superfluous.59 This, at least, was Bahr’s opinion a few days before the Soviet Union and most of its allies intervened in Czechoslovakia and forcibly ended the Prague Spring. Bahr’s suggestion that Brandt as chairman of the SPD might pay a visit to Alexander Dubcekˇ became void within two days.60 For a short while, Czechoslovakia seemingly had been an example of the willingness and ability of a ruling Communist Party to introduce reforms. Rapprochement with the West seemed to be leading to change in Czechoslo- vakia. However, anybody who cherished such expectations was profoundly frustrated after 20 August 1968, when Soviet troops moved in en masse to crush the Prague Spring. The Soviet intervention, although it was not totally dismissed in various assessments prior to August 1968, came as a surprise and a shock. The immediate reaction in Bonn was shaped by nervousness and a feeling of insecurity. Soviet-bloc propaganda started a fierce campaign against the FRG and repeated what a Soviet embassy official in Bonn had said some days before.61 Allegedly, the FRG was intending to disrupt the balance of power and to separate Czechoslovakia from its Warsaw Pact allies. In a

57. This topic is still underresearched. But see Hans-Peter Schwarz, “Die Regierung Kiesinger und die Krise in der CSSR 1968,” Vierteljahrshefte fur¨ Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 47 (1999), pp. 159–186; Jan Pauer, “1968: Der ‘Prager Fruhling’¨ und die Deutschen,” in Detlef Brandes, Duˇsan Kova´c,ˇ and Jiˇr´ıPeˇsek, eds., Wendepunkte in den Beziehungen zwischen Deutschen, Tschechen und Slowaken 1848– 1989 (Essen: Klartext, 2007), pp. 263–285; and Christoph Conelißen, “Eine ‘Quelle des Stolzes und des Ansporns’: Die westdeutsche Sozialdemokratie und der ‘Prager Fruhling’¨ im Jahr 1968,” in Dietmar Neutatz and Volker Zimmermann, eds., Die Deutschen und das ostliche¨ Europa: Aspekte einer vielfaltigen¨ Beziehungsgeschichte: Festschrift fur¨ Detlef Brandes zum 65: Geburtstag (Essen: Klartext, 2006), pp. 297–313. 58. Only in July, when evidence came in indicating that the Soviet Union might intervene militarily, did the government in Bonn caution against these activities. See Oliver Bange, “Das Ende des Prager Fruhlings¨ 1968 und die bundesdeutsche Ostpolitik,” in Bernd Greiner, Christian Th. Muller,¨ and Dierk Walter, eds., Krisen im Kalten Krieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2008), p. 421. 59. On this, see Thomas A. Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 133ff.; and Mitchell Lerner, “‘Trying to Find the Guy Who Invited Them’: Lyndon Johnson, Bridge Building, and the End of the Prague Spring,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2008), pp. 77–103. 60. Bahr, at that time head of the Planning Staff in the Auswartiges¨ Amt, to Brandt, 19 August 1968, in AAPD, 1968, pp. 1005–1006. 61. Droscher¨ (SPD) to Brandt, 14 August 1968, on a conversation with Barmichev of the Soviet embassy, in A7/3, WBA. A similar warning had been given by Sakharov, also an ofﬁcial at the Soviet embassy, to Eppler who forwarded the message to Brandt on 17 May 1968, in A7/3, WBA.

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milder but nevertheless painful form, the French government also accused Bonn of having provoked the Soviet Union by irresponsibly encouraging the reform movement in Czechoslovakia. In a private conversation with a British diplomat, Brandt was extremely worried about the lack of solidarity with the FRG:

The East Europeans would attack the Federal Republic in every conceivable form except militarily. This would inevitably have its effect. Both [Brandt] and the Chancellor were disappointed by the moral support given by the Allies. The Americans had failed to understand how urgently and basically Russian action in Czechoslovakia had affected and would continue to affect the population in the Federal Republic. ...The Russians were now about to make an all-out drive against the Federal Government, to put fear into the population, to cast doubt, to drive a wedge between the Germans and their Western Allies.62

Brandt’s emotional outburst was only part of the story. The official reaction to events in Prague was similar to the response given in June 1968 when the GDR impeded transit to West Berlin by demanding passports and visas: “The German Ostpolitik, embedded in the great endeavor for a European peace order, must be continued with determination and without any false hopes.” This comment by Brandt was even more pertinent after Soviet troops moved into Czechoslovakia in August 1968.63 The sentiment was shared by Chancellor Kiesinger who, only two days after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, used almost the same wording.64 The FRG undertook this course with the concurrence of its allies. After all, the Soviet Union had acted within its own sphere of influence. Although the West European approach to detente´ was intended to change Moscow’s thinking, nothing could be done for the time being in the face of the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine. Even the French government, which had always pleaded for the dissolution or at least loosening of the blocs and now suffered from a complete failure of de Gaulle’s vision, commented in a somewhat cynical way. The brutal oppression of the Prague Spring was regarded as a mere speed bump on the road to detente,´ not as a total blockage of traffic.65

62. Brandt in conversation with Lance Pope, counselor at the British embassy in Bonn, 14 September 1968, Embassy to FCO, 16 September 1968, in FCO 33/573, TNAUK. 63. Brandt at a meeting of the SPD Parteirat, 21–22 June 1968, in A3/281, WBA. 64. Philipp Gassert, Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904–1988: Kanzler zwischen den Zeiten (Munich: DVA, 2006), pp. 665–679. 65. Maurice Va¨ısse, La puissance ou l’inﬂuence? La France dans le monde depuis 1958 (Paris: Fayard, 2009), p. 250.

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In the Wake of the Czechoslovak Crisis: Adapting the Concept of Ostpolitik

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia came as a shock to the decision-makers in Bonn and thus had an enormous impact on the next operational steps for Ostpolitik. The lesson drawn from the crisis was twofold. First, the Soviet Union had to be acknowledged as the hegemonic power in Eastern Europe, and negotiations on the improvement of East-West relations had to start in Moscow. Second, detente´ was conceivable only on the condition that the status quo of the postwar borders was acknowledged by the West and particularly by the FRG, which since its founding had been a revisionist power. In order for Ostpolitik to avoid failure at the outset, its protagonists had to take their earlier statements seriously: the recognition of the status quo was still the initial step to overcoming it. From then on, Ostpolitik was not only maintained but also formulated more precisely. Bahr played a central role in recasting the policy. In 1968, he could look back on a remarkable career. After having accompanied Brandt to Bonn in 1966, he was appointed head of the Planning Staff in the Auswartiges¨ Amt in November 1967. The papers produced by Bahr’s team in 1968–1969 served as the conceptual basis for the breakthrough of Ostpolitik in 1970–1971. Bahr was a brilliant analyst and became the FRG’s chief negotiator in dealing with the Soviet Union and the GDR. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Bahr also consulted with journalists and academics. The group of journalists consisted of ten people, among them Peter Bender, an old friend of Bahr since schooldays, and Hansjakob Stehle, who in January 1968 had hosted a secret meeting between Bahr and the Polish diplomat Jerzy Raczkowski in his apartment in Vienna.66 Stehle argued that Ostpolitik had stopped halfway. Because the FRG had never fully acknowledged the European postwar order, the Ostpolitik of the Grand Coali- tion government, Stehle asserted, had failed to provide the Soviet Union with a sufﬁcient feeling of security. The renunciation of force proposed by the FRG as a guiding principle during an exchange of notes with the Soviet Union in 1967–1968 was not enough for Soviet leaders because it left open the possibility that postwar borders might be changed by peaceful means, which from

66. Bahr, Zeit, p. 324. Peter Bender published several books on the German question and Ostpolitik, including Offensive Entspannung: Moglichkeit¨ fur¨ Deutschland (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1964); Zehn Grunde¨ fur¨ die Anerkennung der DDR (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1968); and Die ‘Neue Ostpolitik’ und die Folgen: Vom Mauerbau bis zur Vereinigung (Munich: dtv, 1995). For Hansjakob Stehle’s conception, see his “Zufalle¨ auf dem Weg zur neuen Ostpolitik: Aufzeichnungen uber¨ ein geheimes Treffen Egon Bahrs mit einem polnischen Diplomaten,” Vierteljahrshefte fur¨ Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 43 (1995), pp. 159–171.

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Moscow’s point of view also had to be ruled out. Bender endorsed Moscow’s position on the matter. He was convinced that the Soviet Union must be reassured by an unambiguous first step on the part of the FRG. The status quo had to be accepted for the time being as a precondition for any substantial dialogue with the Soviet Union on detente´ in Europe. On the one hand, this seemed to be a cogent argument. On the other hand, it necessitated de facto recognition of Soviet hegemony in East-Central Europe, including the existence of a second German state under Soviet control, which, as the British ambassador in Bonn noted, meant that “a third” of the German population would be “in effect under Russian occupation.”67 This was extremely difficult for the West German public to swallow. Yet it was a conclusion that could not be avoided. What would have been useful for debates within the FRG had to be suppressed in public for the sake of detente.´ Recognition of the status quo was regarded as only a first step. In the long run, recognition would produce a climate of detente´ and cooperation that would facilitate the gradual overcoming of the status quo in a process of peaceful change.68 To create such a climate of detente,´ which would pay off especially for the FRG and West German national interests, the government in Bonn had to be prepared to make more concessions to the Soviet Union, regardless of the widespread public resentment such a step would provoke. This was the advice given by one of the most eminent academics who made himself heard from time to time in the FRG, Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker,¨ the physicist, philosopher, and peace researcher. He shared the view that the Ostpolitik of the present government had reached an impasse because it had not met the Soviet Union’s basic demand to accept the status quo. Only by complying with this essential demand could a promising starting point for the normalization of West German–Soviet relations be found. The FRG had to make sure that the risk borne by the Soviet Union in any detente´ process remained limited. The FRG could not make the basic conflict disappear—the conflict between the West German goal “to change the status quo in Europe” and the Soviet wish to retain it. But Bonn could deal with this conflict in a more constructive way. Weizsacker’s¨ perception of the Soviet Union differed from the mainstream judgment often heard in public. He did not share the perceived threat of an allegedly expansionist Soviet superpower. On the contrary, he saw the Soviet

67. Jackling to Gore-Booth, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 16 October 1968, in FCO 33/573, TNAUK. 68. The meeting between the planning staff and the journalists took place on 13 September 1968. See Bahr Papers 399/2, AdsD.

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Union as an insecure state. Hence, the first task of the West must be to give the Soviet Union “in its state of weakness” some assistance.69 These assumptions about Soviet leaders’ perceptions of their own country had an enormous impact on Bahr when he finalized the concept of Ostpolitik. All steps should be taken, he thought, to limit the Soviet government’s feeling of uncertainty. He believed it was reasonable to accept “some elements of the status quo,” perhaps by issuing a statement acknowledging that the GDR was a state.70 Such a declaration would not mean full recognition of the GDR according to international law, but it would recognize an “element” of the status quo. Given the different positions within the Grand Coalition government regarding any form of recognition of the GDR, Bahr’s position could not yet become the official line. As Brandt pointed out, such a “breakthrough,” which he regarded as appropriate, was not conceivable with elections coming up for the Bundestag.71 Only after the elections and the change of government in September–October 1969 did Brandt feel able to recognize the GDR as a state, though not yet as a foreign country. In March 1969, Western leaders had confirmed that minimal recognition of the GDR was sufficient. The main concern of the Soviet Union was, as Ambassador Anatolii Dobrynin told Kissinger during their meeting on 3 March 1969, “that in its practical policy the United States is prepared to accept Europe as it is, with its system of borders and states.”72 The Soviet terminology implied that Moscow “did not care about formal recognition of Eastern Germany.”73 What mattered for Soviet leaders was “that the United States had no interest in undermining the Soviet position in Eastern Europe.”74 The Soviet side felt relieved that the Nixon administration had distanced itself from the language of its predecessor and did “not intend to interfere in the affairs of Eastern Europe, including by means of so-called ‘bridge-building.’”75

69. Weizsacker¨ in conversation with Bahr, 17 September 1968, in Bahr Papers 399/3, AdsD. The record of the conversation was seen by Brandt. 70. Note by Bahr for Brandt, 19 September 1968, in Bahr Papers 399/3, AdsD. See also Bahr’s memorandum “Ostpolitik after the Occupation of the CSSR,”ˇ 1 October 1968, in AAPD, 1968, pp. 1278–1281. 71. Brandt to Waldemar Besson, a political scientist, 1 February 1969, in Bahr Papers 33, AdsD. 72. David C. Geyer and Douglas E. Selvage, eds., Soviet-American Relations: The Détente Years: 1969– 1972 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007), p. 30. 73. Dobrynin confirmed “that this was correct.” See Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon, 6 March 1969, on the conversation with Dobrynin, 3 March 1969, in Geyer and Selvage, eds., Soviet-American Relations,p.27. 74. Ibid. 75. Dobrynin in his account of the meeting with Kissinger, in ibid., p. 30. From the beginning, Kissinger made a clear distinction between his approach and Lyndon Johnson’s policy toward Eastern

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Two weeks later, the Warsaw Pact’s appeal in Budapest for a European security conference made the new position public. In contrast to earlier Soviet- bloc declarations, the Budapest statement set no precondition for convening the conference, even if certain expectations were expressed with regard to the German question. The “inviolability of existing borders in Europe” was called “a fundamental prerequisite for Europe’s security.” The “existence” of East Germany should be recognized, thereby enabling the GDR to participate in an all-European conference.76 This was also pointed out by the Soviet ambassador in Bonn, whereupon Brandt stressed that the FRG would on no account recognize the GDR as a foreign country. Brandt realized, however, that a European Security Conference would have to include both German states. He welcomed the Eastern bloc’s suggestion that no preconditions existed for convening the conference.77 When exploring the West German reaction to the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the focus is justiﬁably on Brandt and Bahr because their conception proved to be decisive for the further course of Ostpolitik.Onthe one hand, they did not alter their grand design. Ostpolitik, without having an exact timetable in mind, remained a strategy of transformation. It aimed at the gradual change of the Eastern bloc, thereby overcoming the division of Europe through a new security structure and, in this context, overcoming the division of Germany, too. In Bahr’s blunt wording, which he used only behind closed doors, the strategic objective was precisely the opposite of what Dobrynin had requested in his talk with Kissinger—namely, the “disintegration of the Soviet Bloc” and the eventual liberation of Eastern Europe.78

Europe. On 21 February 1969, he told Dobrynin, “You will not hear any statements from us about the need to ‘liberate’ Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union, and we, in all likelihood, will stop using even such expressions as ‘building bridges,’ since we understand the actual situation.” Ibid., p. 21. On the new approach, see Douglas E. Selvage, “Transforming the Soviet Sphere of Inﬂuence? U.S.-Soviet Detente´ and Eastern Europe: 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 33, No. 4 (September 2009), pp. 671–687. 76. Malcolm Byrne and Vojtech Mastny, eds., A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact: 1955–1991 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005), pp. 330–331. 77. Conversation between Brandt and Tsarapkin in Bonn, 4 April 1969, in AAPD, 1969, pp. 446–451. 78. Bahr during a meeting of the U.S., British, and German policy planning staffs in Washington, DC, 18 April 1969. According to a British participant in the meeting, “Bahr said that our main aim was to put an end to the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe. This was something that we could only do slowly, step by step. ...At one and the same time he believes in enlarging the Common Market, maintaining the U.S. commitment to Europe, moving as slowly as possible on European defense cooperation, making gestures to the Soviet bloc, and steadily attempting to achieve the disintegration of the Soviet bloc.” Note by R. A. Burroughs, 25 April 1969, in FCO 49/265, TNAUK. In the U.S. account of the trilateral talks, Bahr is reported to have said, “the Soviets have now consolidated their rule in Eastern Europe.” However, “looking beyond ten years,” an “erosion of Soviet inﬂuence” was conceivable. Bahr wished to launch “projects that link Eastern and Western Europe in ways the Soviets

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On the other hand, a lesson had to be drawn from the tragic example of Czechoslovakia. Bahr and Brandt had underestimated the risks and dangers inherent in the reform movement of the Prague Spring. The consequence was clear. Ensuring stability in East-West relations as the short-term objective of Ostpolitik became an absolute priority. The stability of interstate relations and conﬁdence-building measures with Communist governments, regardless of their undemocratic stance and repressive systems at home, came before any other considerations. Any contacts at the non-governmental level, not to mention contacts with dissidents or opposition groups, had to be postponed or kept under cover. A “peace order among the states” was of absolute priority, as Brandt emphasized in 1973, ten years after the speeches in Tutzing that had pointed the way. International stability was a precondition for transnational change. In the long run, “but only step by step,” Europe would change. The acceptance of the status quo would ultimately lead to a “turn for the better.”79 If the strategy of transformation was still valid and if the West, at the same time, had to make sure that this strategy did not lead to an explosive, uncontrollable reversal, Western governments had to cope with the dialectics of stability and change—how to induce change but keep the process of change under control.80 No precise answer to this challenging question was possible, but the Soviet Union, after having suppressed the Prague Spring, seemingly remained committed to detente,´ demanding guarantees for the maintenance of a stable order in Europe and simultaneously wishing an increase in cooperation with Western countries, particularly in economic relations. At least this was Brandt’s perception of the USSR before and after August 1968, including

don’t consider dangerous. You bring this about only if you don’t put Soviet domination in question. This is a long procedure with its own contradictions, but it is the only way unless you give up the objective of liberating Eastern Europe.” See the memorandum of conversation, 25 April 1969, in RG 59, Lot 73 D 363, Subject and Country Files of the Policy Planning Council and the Planning and Coordination Staff, 1967–1973, Box 401, NARA. I owe this document to Stephan Kieninger. 79. Draft for a speech by Brandt, 15 September 1973, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Otto Wels, the SPD leader who spoke against the Nazi Party’s Enabling Act in 1933, in A3/513, WBA. Brandt took the opportunity to deliver a programmatic outline of social democratic politics. For the published version of the speech, which is much shorter than the draft stored in WBA, see Willy Brandt, Die Partei der Freiheit: Willy Brandt und die SPD: 1972–1992 (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Verlag, 2002), pp. 103–112. The following paragraph, which is highly relevant for Brandt’s outlook on Ostpolitik, was omitted from the ﬁnal version: “Die Anerkennung des Status quo, wie sie durch unsere vertraglich zugesicherte Respektierung der europaischen¨ Nachkriegslage erfolgt ist, schafft auf lange Sicht Moglichkeiten,¨ den Status quo zum Besseren zu wenden. Europa wird sich Schritt um Schritt— aber wirklich nur Schritt um Schritt—verandern,¨ weil in seinen zwischenstaatlichen Beziehungen zwischen West und Ost die ersten Ansatze¨ einer Friedensordnung unter den Staaten geschaffen worden sind. Mehr konnte in der ersten Etappe der notwendigen Normalisierung zwischen West und Ost, notwendig vor allem fur¨ uns Deutsche, nicht getan werden. Wer hoher¨ zielte, hat Zeit und Umstande¨ unseres ersten Schrittes nicht begriffen” (emphasis in original). 80. Bahr to Kissinger, 14 April 1973, in Bahr Papers 439, AdsD.

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during his years as chancellor. The starting point in Brandt’s thinking was the assumption that the Soviet Union and its allies, in a world of rapid change, could not avoid being affected by this process. Looking to Western ideas, Western technologies, and the economic performance of the West, Brandt saw a perfect chance to have some influence on affairs in the “Communist world.”81 Brandt’s belief that, with the help of detente,´ the transformation of the Soviet system could eventually be achieved from outside and that there could be Wandel durch Annaherung¨ , was not shared by some senior figures in the SPD. Helmut Schmidt, the SPD party whip in the Bundestag until 1969 and afterward minister of defense in Brandt’s first cabinet, was a firm supporter of the policy of detente´ as laid down in the Harmel Report, but he was less optimistic than Brandt about any change in the Soviet system or any mitigation of the Soviet Union’s expansionist impulses.82 Schmidt had established himself as an authority in security matters, and he stressed that security could be provided only by counterbalancing the military potential of the Warsaw Pact and by containing the Soviet threat.83 From Schmidt’s perspective, Soviet political leaders and military commanders would be impressed only if NATO displayed an unquestionable ability to ensure the balance of East-West power. The credibility of deterrence must not be lost.84 Accordingly, Schmidt defined detente´ as the continuation of the balance of power by other means.85 He wanted to supplement “security through deterrence” with “security through the lessening of tensions.”86 The proposed mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR) would be a means to this end. He envisaged “the evolution of more

81. This had been Brandt’s ﬁrm belief since the early 1960s. See his speech at a conference of party ofﬁcials on the future course of the SPD, 11 January 1964, in A3/172, WBA. 82. Helmut Schmidt, Menschen und Machte¨ (Berlin: Goldmann, 1991), pp. 30–41. 83. Helmut Schmidt, Verteidigung oder Vergeltung: Ein deutscher Beitrag zum strategischen Problem der NATO (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1961); and Helmut Schmidt, Strategie des Gleichgewichts: Deutsche Friedenspolitik und die Weltmachte¨ (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1969). 84. Speech by Schmidt on “Our Security Policy,” given at a meeting of the Executive of the SPD, 20 February 1970, in SPD-Parteivorstand, AdsD. 85. Schmidt during a meeting of the SPD Parteirat, 13–14 November 1970, in SPD-Parteivorstand, AdsD. See also Schmidt to Brandt, 13 August 1970, in Brandt, Volk, pp. 325–327. On 18 August 1970, Schmidt asked the Planning Staff of the Defense Ministry for an analysis of the Treaty of Moscow. In a memorandum of 28 August 1970, the main points, marked by Schmidt, were the following: The treaty did not remove the differences between both sides; it leaves room for maneuver with respect to peaceful change; it must not lead to an inappropriate feeling of security; the Federal Republic is in need of a solid safeguard in the West against any risks that might come up. See Memorandum, 28 August 1970, in Schmidt Papers, 1649A, Helmut-Schmidt-Archiv im AdsD (HSA). 86. Helmut Schmidt, “Germany in the Era of Negotiations,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 49, No. 1 (1970), p. 46.

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cooperative and less confrontational patterns of relationship in Europe.” His constant admonition, however, was that “peace in Europe cannot be preserved, and efforts to achieve detente´ will not be successful, unless the relative balance of forces which we have today continues to be maintained. The point of MBFR is that the balance would be lowered, not changed.”87 Brandt had no doubt that the military power of NATO and especially of the United States would be crucial for safeguarding Western security interests for years to come. In a medium-term perspective, security for Western Europe and especially for the FRG depended on NATO. Additionally, however, Brandt insisted on an open-minded reaction to the Budapest appeal because he was convinced that military power was not the only thing that mattered in East- West relations.88 Brandt differed from Schmidt (and from Kissinger too) not with respect to the urgency of talks and negotiations with the Soviet Union but with regard to the notions of detente,´ power, and security. Detente,´ for him, was more than looking for stability on the basis of a military balance, power was not only military power, and security was not only a matter of arms limitation treaties. Brandt questioned the traditional notion that the balance of power and the recognition of spheres of interests could secure peace best. He stood for a wider notion of security that covered also economic and human security. In contrast to the situation during the early Cold War years, the Soviet Union, under the auspices of detente´ and in need of Western technology, goods, and capital, could be impressed by means of soft power. This was a strong argument in favor of a “liberal” approach to East-West relations. Un- like the “realist” school of thought, stressing the role of states as international actors and their ability to demonstrate power and counter-power, the liberal theory assumed that there was a good chance for the operation of non-military politics and for the replacement of the confrontational Cold War ideology by “a rational, ‘economic’ modus operandi.”89 True, European security could be achieved only by the transformation of Europe through an all-European network on different levels, something that became an issue in the context of the CSCE process from 1972–1973 onward and created the “Helsinki effect” after 1975.90 The barriers to economic exchange and freer movement

87. Ibid., p. 50. 88. See, for example, Brandt during a meeting with his colleagues of the Three Powers in Washington, 9 April 1969, in AAPD, 1969, p. 468. See also Brandt, Erinnerungen, p. 181. 89. The phrase is taken from Patrick O. Cohrs, The Unﬁnished Peace after World War I: America, Britain and the Stabilisation of Europe: 1919–1932 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 9. 90. Daniel C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). See also Sarah B. Snyder, Human

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of people and ideas had to be removed. Brandt’s agenda provoked three big questions. First, did the transformation of Europe mean a change of Soviet policy, more room for maneuver for the individual Warsaw Pact states, or even a certain liberalization in the East conceivable in the foreseeable future? Second, was such a change desirable? Third, if so, could it be promoted from outside? The answer to the first question, given, for example, by Nixon and Kissinger in Washington or by Schmidt in Bonn, was either in the negative or at least highly skeptical. This did not mean the West should not try for detente,´ but it should do so without any expectations of securing a change in the hostile stance of the East and its unceasing strategic goals. Even if the Cold War confrontation was replaced by greater flexibility on both sides and by a will to cooperate, the East-West conflict would go on and remain dangerous. Bahr’s answer to this position was that one could not see inside the Kremlin. Sovietology was a philosophy with different schools of thought. He himself did not rule out the possibility of influencing the course of Soviet policy.91 With regard to the desirability of transforming Europe, the answer was mostly in the affirmative. Particularly from the West German point of view, it was a promising goal. Such a change would alleviate the situation at the German-German border, and it could perhaps even lead to reunification. However, for the Soviet Union, this would mean a retreat from its hegemonic position in Eastern Europe. The GDR even faced Hamlet’s question: to be or not to be. Hence, from Moscow’s perspective, the preservation of the existing order was to be preferred. For different reasons, Nixon and Kissinger concurred with this view, mainly because they feared a drift of the FRG to the East and a general situation of instability. If the transformation of Europe was conceivable and desirable, as it was for Brandt and Bahr and their aides within the government and their supporters in public, the crucial question was the third one: how could they achieve it? The basic answer had already been given at Tutzing in 1963: the West should not hesitate to start all sorts of communication and contacts with the East. More specifically, this could best be started in the field of economic relations, where interests already overlapped. Trade with the GDR was already an “important

Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Christian Peterson, Globalizing Human Rights: Private Citizens, the Soviet Union, and the West (New York/London: Routledge, 2012); and Matthias Peter and Hermann Wentker, eds., Die KSZE im Ost-West-Konﬂikt: Internationale Politik und gesellschaftliche Transformation (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2012). 91. Bahr in conversation with former Chancellor Kiesinger, 23 February 1970; and Bahr to Duckwitz, 20 February 1970, both in Bahr Papers 429B/1, AdsD. See also Bahr, Zeit, p. 337.

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element” in German-German relations, as Brandt pointed out in June 1968. But with respect to the overall concept of Ostpolitik, trade with the East was about to become of even greater significance.92 Trade and economic integration had been the bridge for West Germany when, after the war, it was allowed to reenter the international arena. Al- though the FRG played an outstanding role in NATO’s defense planning— Chancellor Schmidt in 1976 regarded NATO practically as a U.S.–West German alliance—the FRG perceived itself as mainly a trading state.93 Eco- nomic power was always regarded as an efficient instrument for securing influence internationally. As for relations with the East, trade ties served as a door opener for political contacts. In the mid-1960s, the participation of West German companies in trade fairs in Moscow and Plovdiv, Bulgaria, was used by officials of the Auswartiges¨ Amt in Bonn to conduct political talks. On other occasions, businessmen could act as economic diplomats aiming at the promotion of political relations.94 An outstanding example was the role played by the Krupp manager Berthold Beitz. He frequently visited the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact states. In particular, he was well acquainted with Polish Communist leaders and in 1969 and 1970 served as a messenger between Bonn and Warsaw.95 Tradewith the East had a long tradition in German foreign trade, and even during the Cold War confrontation in the 1950s West German Osthandel to some extent developed well.96 During the initial stage of the “new” Ostpolitik, West German–Soviet trade grew considerably. The FRG became the biggest Western trading partner of the Soviet Union. The contract signed by Thyssen

92. Brandt during a meeting of the SPD Parteirat, 21–22 June 1968, said: “In der ostpolitischen Gesamtkonzeption gewinnt die Frage des Osthandels immer großere¨ Bedeutung,” transcribed in A3/281, WBA. 93. Note by Schmidt, “Erwagungen¨ fur¨ 1977,” December 1976, in Schmidt Papers 6567, HSA. 94. Christiane Fritsche, Schaufenster des “Wirtschaftswunders” und Bruckenschlag¨ nach Osten: West- deutsche Industriemessen und Messebeteiligungen im Kalten Krieg (1946–1973) (Munich: Martin Mei- denbauer, 2008); and Karsten Rudolph, Wirtschaftsdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg: Die Ostpolitik der westdeutschen Großindustrie: 1945–1991 (Frankfurt am Main: Camus Verlag, 2004). 95. Joachim Kappner,¨ Berthold Beitz: Die Biographie (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2010), pp. 221–230, 377–378; and Gottfried Niedhart, “‘Phase widerspruchsvollen Wandels’: Willy Brandts Entspan- nungspolitik und die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen 1966–1974,” in Friedhelm Boll and Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, eds., “Nie mehr eine Politik uber¨ Polen hinweg”: Willy Brandt und Polen (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Verlag, 2010), pp. 49, 53–54. 96. Robert Mark Spaulding, “‘Reconquering our Position’: West German Osthandel Strategies of the 1950s,” in Volker R. Berghahn, ed., Quest for Economic Empire: European Strategies of German Big Business in the Twentieth Century (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1996), pp. 123–143. See also Robert Mark Spaulding, Osthandel and Ostpolitik: German Foreign Trade Policies in Eastern Europe from Bismarck to Adenauer (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997).

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and the Soviet Union in April 1969 for delivery of gas pipes and the February 1970 natural gas pipeline deal signaled a new start in West German–Soviet commercial relations and were also of symbolic political importance.97 When Brandt commented in September 1971 on the state of West German–Soviet relations, which in his view had improved significantly since the late 1960s and in particular since the Treaty of Moscow, he stressed the importance of trade: “More trade and less polemics.”98 The increase in commercial exchange and political detente´ went hand in hand. Trade was seen as helpful for broadening the basis of detente´ and for securing peace.99 Peace through trade was a liberal maxim of long standing, propagated in the Western world since the late eighteenth century. After both World Wars, the liberal peace concept was central to the U.S. attempt to organize an international order on the basis of economic cooperation and financial interdependence. The general settlement of Locarno in 1925 became possible only when the United States returned to Europe with its financial power and when it supported Germany and France in overcoming their financial and economic difficulties—on the condition that they buried their enmities. The U.S. approach got a positive reaction from Aristide Briand in France and Gustav Stresemann in Germany. Both believed in the blessings of an economic peace and praised the linkage between economic cooperation and peace. Stresemann’s policy of rapprochement with France was a break with the traditional German policy and met with opposition in German politics, com- parable to the opposition against Brandt’s Ostpolitik several decades later. In the 1920s, the SPD, which was not part of the governing coalition, supported Stresemann’s policy of reconciliation with Germany’s western neighbors. This stemmed from the internationalism of the SPD, which, after the split of the party in 1917, tended to pursue a liberal course rather than a socialist one and was inspired more by Wilsonianism than by Marxism. This tradition was still shaping the outlook of the Social Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s. During World War II, the United States again proposed a postwar order on liberal terms. Eventually, the Allies agreed on the main institutions: the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.

97. Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German–Soviet Relations: 1955–1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 165–169; and Werner D. Lippert, The Economic Diplomacy of Ostpolitik: Origins of NATO’s Energy Dilemma (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), pp. 47–50. 98. Brandt, Begegnungen, p. 463. 99. See, for example, Foreign Minister Scheel, 18 May 1972, in Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamts der Bundesregierung, 1972, No. 74, pp. 1061ff.; and Chancellor Schmidt after his trip to Moscow in October 1974, in Deutscher Bundestag, 7. Wahlperiode, p. 8529.

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However, after the war the Soviet Union felt unable to accept a concept that, despite seeming to be useful with respect to the reconstruction of Europe (including the USSR), served the interests of the United States and other Western countries. Consequently, the U.S.-inspired European Recovery Program was implemented only in Western Europe. The Cold War prevented the liberal peace concept from becoming an all-European concept. Only later, when the East-West conflict entered the period of detente,´ did a window of opportunity appear to open for expanding the West European zone of peace toward the East. Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union had reached parity as a military power and no longer resisted its gradual opening toward the West by financial, economic, and technological assistance from the West. The Marshall Plan had been perceived by Iosif Stalin as a threat because it appeared as an attempt to establish a Pax Americana worldwide. In contrast to Stalin, Brezhnev liked to visit Western countries, enjoyed their products, and was in favor of economic cooperation with the West. In Brandt’s perception, the Soviet Union, despite being ready to use its military power within its sphere of influence in a brutal way, was not only interested in economic exchange with the West but also dependent on it. Militarily powerful, the Soviet Union had an economy plagued by structural weakness and backwardness. But as an industrial society the Soviet Union could not help cooperating with the West. The widespread supposition that the Soviet Union, through its industrial and technological evolution, would become more “bourgeois” could also be found in the Free Democratic Party (FDP) that from 1969 to 1982 formed the social-liberal coalition government with the Social Democrats.100 Two months after the Soviet move against Czechoslovakia, Brandt maintained that the use of force by the USSR had not solved the structural problems of the Soviet empire and the USSR’s own economic and social systems. As chancellor, he continued to expect that the Soviet Union had a genuine interest in detente´ and in “a greater degree of communication with the West” in order to gain “better contacts in trade and technology.” It seemed to him “to be almost a law governing all modern industrial states, whatever their political systems, that the development of science, technology and so on leads to greater contacts.” For Brandt, Soviet leaders were under an illusion if they believed “that they can combine greater political discipline with freer contacts with the Western countries.”101

100. Bundesfachausschuss fur¨ Deutschland-, Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), “Thesen zur Interessenlage der Außenpolitik der UdSSR,” 24 January 1969, in BFA 964, Archiv des Liberalismus, Gummersbach (AdL). 101. Conversation between Brandt and Heath, 6 April 1971, in PREM 15/397, TNAUK. See also AAPD, 1971, p. 596.

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In the Communist terminology, which Brandt knew quite well, discipline was a key notion. At the turn of the 1960s to the 1970s, it meant the maintenance of discipline in the Soviet bloc, the preservation of the Soviet Union as a preponderant power, and the ability of the East-European Communist parties to control their societies. In all these respects, Brandt’s Ostpolitik wanted to overcome the status quo. Brandt was sure that the Soviet Union could not have it both ways, moving toward a modern industrial society and keeping the centralized power structures intact.102 He did not maintain that political freedom in Communist countries would necessarily be the result of detente.´ But he imagined that a gradual change toward democracy was possible. He did not speculate on whether the immediate effects of detente—East-West´ trade, tourism, cultural exchange—would directly contribute to “great changes” of the Eastern political systems, but he did believe “they might help.”103 Re- garding another possible effect of detente,´ Brandt had no doubts at all. The normalization in East-West relations would change both the internal com- plexion of the Warsaw Pact and the attitudes of its member states toward the FRG, making it impossible for them to continue depicting West Germany as an enemy.104 Eastern propaganda would have to give up the enemy image of the FRG, thereby canceling a central argument for demanding discipline in the Warsaw Pact.105 Since the 1920s, Western observers had debated whether the Soviet Union might be integrated into the West through economic incentives. During the Brezhnev era, this seemed to have become more plausible, at least in the long term. If satisfactory talks could be held on the reduction of troops and armaments—something that never proved feasible—political and economic factors would become increasingly important in dealing with the East. The FRG’s political and diplomatic inﬂuence and economic dynamism could become more relevant than military power. What Kissinger later claimed was a

102. During a meeting of the executive of the SPD on 2 November 1968, Brandt analyzed the situation in the East that had emerged after the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. He believed that Soviet leaders were in a difﬁcult position. Rather than having solved the problem that, in Moscow’s view, the Prague Spring had brought about, the Soviet Union was now confronted with “new problems” (which in fact were old ones). In Brandt’s view, Soviet leaders faced two main problems: the “national factor”—that is, the increasingly salient national identities within the War- saw Pact that tended to undermine its coherence—and the dynamics of modern industrial societies, whose degree of interdependence would almost certainly perforate the Iron Curtain. See Brandt, Volk, p. 214. 103. Brandt in a talk with Joseph Rovan, 22 August 1973, in Brandt, Volk, pp. 491–494. 104. Note by Brandt in preparation of a Cabinet meeting, 7 June 1970, in A8/91, WBA. See also AAPD, 1970, p. 921. 105. See, for example, Brandt in conversation with Pompidou, 3 July 1970, in AAPD, 1970, pp. 1074– 1075.

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“revolutionary conclusion” was in fact the central rationale of Ostpolitik—as Bahr frankly disclosed. A carefully planned expansion of economic relations with the East would aggravate the internal inconsistencies in the Warsaw Pact countries and thereby contribute to further modiﬁcations of the Communist systems.106 In the end, as a British observer speculated, this might lead to “Finlandization in reverse.”107 These expectations differed totally from the then-widespread theory of convergence. Brandt himself stressed that his policy of communication with the East had “nothing to do with convergence,” but with the maintenance of “our system”—a statement he made during the parliamentary election campaign in 1972 because, for domestic purposes, he had to highlight the contrast between Social Democracy and Communism.108 Brandt claimed to stand for an “offensive convergencism.”109 What he expected as the eventual effect of detente´ was the opening of Communist societies toward the West and the promotion of the independence of the Warsaw Pact states. When asked by an interviewer in 1972 whether he believed that the Eastern bloc would still be the same in the foreseeable future, he said “no” and repeated his usual arguments. But he also anticipated that the Prague Spring would not remain a singular event and that a similar process would recur in other countries, including the Soviet Union, preferably under more favorable circumstances. One could not look into the future and rule out setbacks like the suppression of the Prague Spring. The West could not give direct support to the East, but the example of Czechoslovakia showed that the striving for greater independence and political participation could also be found within the Communist ruling classes. Soviet leaders were hostile to the social democratic form of socialism, which they derided as Sozialdemokratismus and believed was infectious. Even so, the attraction of social democracy in the USSR was increasing, as indicated by reports “not only from the Russian underground” but also from other sources indicating that many young people had come to see Soviet Communism as

106. Bahr to Kissinger, 14 April 1973. Bahr tried to come back to this point two weeks later on the occasion of Brandt’s visit to Washington, 30 April 1973, but Kissinger did not respond to it. See AAPD, 1973, p. 611. Kissinger’s retrospective characterization is in the second volume of his memoirs, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little Brown, 1982), p. 147. 107. Minute by Tom McNally, political adviser to Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, 11 November 1975, in Documents on British Policy Overseas, 3rd ser. (DBPO), 1975, Vol. III, p. 404. See also Juhana Aunesluoma, “Finlandisation in Reverse: The CSCE and the Rise and Fall of Economic Detente:´ 1968–1975,” in Bange and Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975, pp. 98–112. 108. Speech by Brandt in Worms, 16 November 1972, in A3/475, WBA. 109. For the terminology, see Georges-Henri Soutou, “Convergence Theories in France during the 1960s and 1970s,” in Loth and Soutou, eds., Making, p. 25.

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stultifying and too rigid.110 Having said this, Brandt asked the interviewer not to publish his assessment of Soviet politics and his vision of how the East-West conﬂict might end. As an acting statesman who wanted to push for an all- European security system, Brandt had to guard against suspicion in the East (and to a certain extent also in the West) about the ultimate goal of Ostpolitik. In public, the chancellor emphasized short-term objectives such as the search for overlapping interests or the reduction of tensions in Europe. Expressing the “offensive” components of Ostpolitik would have been counterproductive because of the negative effects on talks with Soviet leaders and because it would have strengthened the opponents of detente´ in the East.111

The Turn to Ostpolitik, 1969–1975

Against this backdrop, the FRG launched its Ostpolitik. The change of government in October 1969 was a key date for the implementation of Brandt’s concept, but this does not mean that it was a caesura in every respect.112 When the SPD-FPD government took ofﬁce, the stage was already well prepared for the start of negotiations with the Soviet Union and Poland, leading to the treaties of Moscow in August 1970 and Warsaw in December 1970. Both superpowers as well as the Europeans wished to overcome the Czechoslovak crisis as soon as possible. After taking ofﬁce on 20 January 1969, Nixon called for an era of negotiations. With regard to U.S.-Soviet relations, he followed Kissinger’s advice. Detente´ was desirable but was conceivable only as the result of a carefully designed linkage strategy. Talks on the limitation of strategic weapons, which the Soviet Union proposed on the occasion of Nixon’s inau- guration, were welcome. But Nixon emphasized from the outset “that crisis or confrontation in one place and real cooperation in another cannot long be sustained simultaneously.”113 Detente´ depended on the linkage of such

110. Brandt in conversation with Golo Mann, 23 March 1972, in Mann Papers A-2–1972–6, Schweiz- erisches Literaturarchiv. For Brandt’s expectations regarding the impact of detente,´ see Gottfried Niedhart, “‘The Transformation of the Other Side’: Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik and the Liberal Peace Concept,” in Fred´ eric´ Bozo et al., eds., Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990 (New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 149–162. 111. For the published text, which left out Brandt’s long-term views, see Dagobert Lindlau, ed., Dieser Mann Brandt: Gedanken uber¨ einen Politiker von 35 Wissenschaftlern, Kunstlern¨ und Schriftstellern (Munich: Kindler Verlag, 1972), pp. 173–187. 112. Julia von Dannenberg, The Foundations of Ostpolitik: The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008). 113. Nixon to Rogers and some other members of the Cabinet, 4 February 1969, drafted by Kissinger. See Kissinger, White House Years, p. 135.

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issues as strategic weapons, the Vietnam War, and the situation in the Middle East, as Nixon explained to Dobrynin when he met him for the first time on 17 February 1969. At this very moment, the linkage approach proved to have important consequences for the FRG. Nixon told Dobrynin that any deterioration of the Berlin situation would have a negative impact on U.S.-Soviet relations and could even make approval of the NPT in the Senate more difficult.114 Nixon’s admonition followed the repeated blockage of transit traffic from the FRG to West Berlin after the FRG announced its intention to hold the election of the next federal president by the Bundesversammlung there. Dobrynin reassured Nixon that his government would use “its influence to ensure that the situation remained calm.”115 Shortly afterward, the GDR was “advised” accordingly.116 Although transit crossings were still interrupted from time to time, Soviet diplomats urged the West not to interpret this as a crisis. When Kissinger and Dobrynin had their conversation on 3 March 1969, Kissinger said that for the United States “it was essential to get the access procedures to Berlin regularized.” Dobrynin refused to go into any details, but he indicated “that Moscow’s attitude was ‘positive.’”117 A leading official in the Auswartiges¨ Amt concluded, correctly, that the vital interest of the Soviet Union in limiting the arms race was a guarantee that the confrontation over Berlin would not end up in a major crisis.118 Roughly a year later, the Four Powers talks on Berlin began. After complicated negotiations, an agreement was reached in September 1971. Despite persistent disputes over the interpretation of the Quadripartite Agreement, the looming settlement of the Berlin problem had been clear since March 1969. The month of March—which saw the beginning of the close relationship between Kissinger and Dobrynin, the petering out of the difficulties in Berlin, the Soviet-Chinese clashes on the Ussuri River, and the Budapest appeal of the Warsaw Pact—was a turning point toward the final breakthrough of detente.´ How the various actors would move and what kind of accord could be attained

114. On this, see also a memorandum from Rogers to Nixon, 15 February 1969, in RG 59/2666, NARA: “Berlin is an American state interest. ...There is some opposition to the NPT in the Senate which could substantially increase if the Soviets make real trouble over Berlin (or anywhere else).” 115. Geyer and Selvage, Soviet-American Relations,p.10. 116. Niedhart and Bange, “Relikte,” pp. 435–486; and Gerhard Wettig, Die Sowjetunion, die DDR und die Deutschland-Frage 1965–1976: Einvernehmen und Konﬂikt im sozialistischen Lager (Stuttgart: Verlag Bonn Aktuell, 1977), pp. 57–59. 117. Geyer and Selvage, Soviet-American Relations, pp. 27–28. 118. Sahm in a memorandum on the future course of German-Soviet relations, 7 March 1969, in AAPD, 1969, pp. 332–334.

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were not yet certain, but a general desire to ease East-West tensions in Europe was evident. This trend was reinforced in May 1969 when the Polish leader Gomułka signaled his interest in a normalization of the relationship with the FRG. Brandt declared publicly that the FRG was willing to negotiate on the renunciation of force and the border question.119 On top of that, he asked Beitz, who was about to travel to Poland, to convey a conﬁdential message to Polish leaders. The FRG regarded the improvement of its relations with Poland as one of the most important foreign policy issues.120 The crucial question was how West German–Soviet relations would develop. Both sides, without shouting from the rooftops, had a keen interest in resuming their dialogue.121 Other talks were not hidden from the public. After the gas pipeline deal of April 1969, the Thyssen manager Ernst Wolf Mommsen was invited to Moscow to explore the possibilities of further cooperation.122 Bahr agreed with Mommsen that the Soviet Union attached political importance to these contacts, and he regarded “economic East-West interdependence” as being in “our interest” anyway.123 Two political delegations soon followed. Their visits pointed into the near future because they represented the political parties that were to form the SPD-FDP government in October 1969. Immediately after Mommsen left Moscow, FDP Chairman Scheel arrived there with two colleagues. One month later, Schmidt followed.124 His assessment of what he was told was positive. He considered the Soviet attitude “pragmatic” and had the impression that Soviet leaders were serious, a perception that proved to be accurate.125 Shortly

119. Brandt, Begegnungen, p. 243. 120. Brandt to Beitz, 4 June 1969, in Brandt, Volk, p. 235. 121. Brandt, in retrospect, during a meeting of the SPD executive, 25 August 1969, in Protokolle des Parteivorstands, AdsD. 122. Mommsen was invited by Dzhermen Gvishiani, chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology and Kosygin’s son-in-law. He reported on his talks in a letter to Brandt stressing the “eminent political importance” of the pipeline contract of April 1969. Mommsen to Brandt, 23 July 1969, in Bahr Papers 121/1, AdsD. See also Mommsen to Schmidt, 30 July 1969, in Schmidt Papers 5317, HSA. 123. Note by Bahr after having met Mommsen, 25 July 1969, in AAPD, 1969, pp. 857–858. 124. Mathias Siekmeier, Restauration oder Reform? Die FDP in den sechziger Jahren: Deutschland- und Ostpolitik zwischen Wiedervereinigung und Entspannung (Cologne: Janus Verlag, 1998), pp. 414–415; Gottfried Niedhart, “Friedens- und Interessenwahrung: Zur Ostpolitik der FDP in Opposition und sozial-liberaler Regierung 1968–1970,” Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung, Vol. 7 (1995), pp. 112– 113; and Hartmut Soell, Helmut Schmidt: Vernunft und Leidenschaft: 1918–1969 (Munich: DVA, 2003), pp. 822–829. 125. Schmidt in his report for the SPD executive, 25 August 1969, in Protokolle des Parteivorstands, AdsD.

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after Schmidt’s trip to Moscow, the Soviet government decided to enter a new phase in its relationship with the FRG by starting concrete negotiations that would lead to an agreement with Brandt as the next head of government.126 Contrary to the White House and its preference for a CDU-led government, the Soviet side was pleased when, for the ﬁrst time in West German history, a Social Democrat was appointed chancellor.127 After the election of 28 September 1969, the Christian Democrats held the largest number of seats in the Bundestag, but the SPD and FDP together had a slim majority. The decisive link between them was a coherent approach to Ostpolitik, one based on a few core components and capable of being pursued within a favorable international framework established by the superpowers. First, even though West German leaders rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine, they acknowledged from the outset the Soviet Union’s role as a predominant power. Moscow was reassured that nothing would happen behind its back.128 On the contrary, when Bahr and Gromyko held talks in 1970, they dealt not only with bilateral matters but also with the whole range of the normalization process in West German–Eastern relations, including issues that clearly touched Polish and Czechoslovak interests. Second, by the same token, the Soviet Union regarded the FRG as its main partner in Western Europe. Any progress in detente,´ as far as the global di- mension was concerned, depended on the relationship with the United States. With respect to Europe, and in particular to the Soviet interest in a Euro- pean security conference, a settlement with the FRG was indispensable. The two levels were intertwined, as became evident in 1972 when the ratiﬁcation of the Eastern treaties by the Bundestag helped to ensure the success of the U.S.-Soviet summit in Moscow. Third, both superpowers treated the FRG in a privileged way when the negotiations on Berlin entered a decisive stage in 1971. Kissinger and Dobrynin reached agreement that a step forward in the effort was needed to improve U.S.-Soviet relations.129 Berlin was one of the problems that had to be solved. To intensify the negotiations on Berlin that had been held on the ambas- sadorial level since March 1970, the two superpowers decided to establish a

126. Gromyko in conversation with Winzer, 1 September 1969, quoted in Karl-Heinz Schmidt, Dialog uber¨ Deutschland: Studien zur Deutschlandpolitik von KPdSU und SED (1960–1979) (Baden-Baden: Nomos 1998), p. 207. 127. Valentin Falin, Politische Erinnerungen (Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1993), pp. 58–61. 128. Referring to the forthcoming negotiations with Poland, Foreign Minister Scheel declared this in a conversation with Tsarapkin, 17 November 1969, in AAPD, 1969, p. 1309. 129. For their meetings on 22 December 1970 and 23 January 1971, see Geyer and Selvage, Soviet- American Relations, pp. 241–248, 265–273.

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special back-channel system comprising not only U.S. and Soviet officials but also Bahr in Bonn, although the issue per se fell under the exclusive competence of the Four Powers. Two of those powers, Britain and France, were not informed—and it goes without saying that the U.S. State Department and West German Foreign Ministry were left in the dark.130 Bahr was admitted to the inner circle of superpower diplomacy.131 In the end, he greatly appreciated Kissinger’s role and called the channel one of the important factors paving the way for the agreement on Berlin.132 Not surprisingly, Kissinger echoed this assessment in his memoirs.133 Fourth, the Berlin back-channel was part of a much wider system of back- channels. Special channels of communication that were secret and ran parallel to the usual diplomatic exchange have often been used over the centuries. Yet the era of detente´ is a particularly outstanding case of the use of additional instruments that were meant to establish direct contacts on a personal level. The transition from Cold War to detente,´ from confrontation to negotiation and some form of cooperation, could be achieved only by an increase in communication between East and West that, in turn, required additional intrabloc tuning. Hence, the era of detente´ became the age of back-channels. By late 1969 the FRG had been invited to participate in this system. When Bahr paid a visit to Washington to inform the White House about the imminent steps of Ostpolitik (even before Brandt was elected chancellor), Kissinger proposed to establish a back channel by which both sides “could stay in touch outside the formal procedures.”134 Bahr saw this as possibly the greatest success for a government not yet officially in place.135 After Brandt and Bahr took office, the channel with Washington was supplemented by one with Moscow. Just before Christmas, a Soviet envoy came to see Bahr and offered the installation of a channel between the chancellery in Bonn and the Kremlin in Moscow.136

130. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 805–810; Bahr, Zeit, pp. 354–355; David C. Geyer, “The Missing Link: Henry Kissinger and the Back-Channel Negotiations on Berlin,” in David C. Geyer and Bernd Schaefer, eds., American D´etente and German Ostpolitik: 1969–1972 (Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2004), pp. 80–97; and Klitzing, Nemesis, pp. 313–314. 131. For an appreciation of Bahr’s role, see Kissinger, Upheaval, p. 146. 132. Bahr to Kissinger, 17 August 1971, “Viele Faktoren mussten zusammenkommen fur¨ eine Berlin- Regelung; der gute Draht zwischen uns war vielleicht nicht der unwichtigste,” in AAPD, 1971, p. 1247. See also Bahr, Zeit, p. 366. 133. Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 604. 134. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 411. 135. Bahr, Zeit, p. 271. 136. Note by Bahr, 24 December 1969, in AAPD, 1969, pp. 1465–1466. See also Bahr, Zeit, pp. 282– 283; and Wjatscheslaw Keworkow, Der geheime Kanal: Moskau, der KGB und die Bonner Ostpolitik

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Both channels proved to be useful when sensitive information was needed or when a breakthrough in negotiations had to be found.137 Fifth, Bonn’s Ostpolitik was embedded in the general Western detente´ approach. To a great extent, it depended on the state of relations between the superpowers. At the same time, it was based on speciﬁc West German expe- riences, assumptions, and interests.138 Ostpolitik stemmed from the particular German situation that had emerged after 1949. The FRG had to cope with the legacy of two wars: not only the Cold War but also World War II. With respect to the Second World War, Ostpolitik aimed at reconciliation with the Eastern neighbors that had suffered from the German occupation; as for the Cold War confrontation, the goal of Ostpolitik was the normalization of West German–Eastern relations. As Brandt stated time and again, he wished for a “more secure” peace. However, this did not mean that the peace of detente´ could take the place of a formal peace treaty. The quest for a modus vivendi in the relationship of the two Germanys and for a solution of the German question in a not-foreseeable future went hand in hand. Hence, the FRG refused to recognize the status quo legally and to regard the GDR as a foreign country. Bahr’s analysis was clear: “The Soviet goal is to legalize the status quo. Our goal is to overcome it. It is a real conﬂict of interests.”139 Sixth, both objectives—reconciliation with the East and bridging the German and European dividing line—required a bilateral as well as a multilateral approach. Although, in the beginning, Ostpolitik was mainly a bilateral affair, a multilateral context was present throughout as a result of the international debate on a European Security Conference (ESC, later CSCE) and on a mutual and balanced force reduction (MBFR). Brandt used the multilateral framework of the NATO ministerial meetings of June 1968 (“Signal of Reykjavik”) and April 1969 calling for balanced arms reductions and a constructive reaction from NATO to the Warsaw Pact’s Budapest appeal for an ESC. This permitted the “Europeanization” of Bonn’s Ostpolitik.140 Thus,

(Berlin: Rowohlt, 1995), pp. 47–62. After the signature of the Moscow Treaty on 12 August 1970, the channel was improved and consolidated. Bahr, Zeit, pp. 331–332. 137. The Eastern channel was explicitly acknowledged by one of the specialists for Soviet affairs in the Auswartiges¨ Amt, which time and again felt marginalized. See Andreas Meyer-Landrut, Mit Gott und langen Unterhosen: Erlebnisse eines Diplomaten in der Zeit des Kalten Krieges (Berlin: Edition Q, 2003), p. 102. 138. As Brandt underscored in his memoirs, Ostpolitik was in accordance with the Western course of detente,´ but it was more than just an echo of U.S. initiatives. Brandt, Erinnerungen, p. 190. 139. Memorandum by Bahr, 18 September 1969, in AAPD, 1969, p. 1040. See also his memorandum, 1 October 1968, in AAPD, 1968, p. 1279. 140. In retrospect, Brandt called it “Europaisierung¨ der Ostpolitik.” Brandt, Erinnerungen, p. 181. See also Brandt, Begegnungen, pp. 248–249.

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the bilateral approach leading to the treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland, the GDR, and Czechoslovakia and the multilateral endeavor of a ESC/CSCE were closely connected. Additionally, multilateralism was facilitated by the EC when it prepared a common platform for the forthcoming negotiations on European security, thereby enlarging the West German Ostpolitik to a “Euro- pean Ostpolitik.”141

Process and Results

The details of the negotiations with the Soviet Union and its allies from 1969 to 1973 have been covered elsewhere and need not be rehashed here.142 Nor is there any need here for a treatment of the predominantly multilateral phase of detente´ and Ostpolitik leading to the Helsinki summit in 1975.143 Rather, the focus will be on three central topics: the increase in communications with the East, the FRG’s persistent demand for change by peaceful means, and the question of whether the results of Ostpolitik met the expectations of its proponents. The term “communication” was a keyword in the language of detente´ and Ostpolitik. For President Kennedy, it served as a cipher for gradual change in East-West relations from duel to dialogue. Any relaxation of tensions required “increased contact and communications.”144 Ten years later, Nixon, by no means an optimist with regard to the building of trust in U.S.-Soviet relations, attached great importance to having a dialogue with the adver- sary: “We have changed the world because of this dialogue and these agreements. There are improved chances that confrontation will not explode into

141. Per Fischer (from 1967 to 1969 a member of Bahr’s planning staff in the Auswartiges¨ Amt, thereafter in the foreign policy department of the chancellery) during an interministerial meeting in Bonn on the topic of a ESC, 25 August 1971 (record of the meeting 26 August 1971), in B 40/193, PAAA. For the EC context, see Daniel Mockli,¨ European Foreign Policy during the Cold War: Heath, Brandt, Pompidou and the Dream of Political Unity (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), pp. 56–98. 142. See Dannenberg, Foundations of Ostpolitik; Dieter Bingen, Die Polenpolitik der Bonner Republik von Adenauer bis Kohl 1949–1991 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1998); Katarzyna Stokłosa, Polen und die deutsche Ostpolitik 1945–1990 (Gottingen:¨ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011); and Oldˇrich Tuma,˚ “The Difﬁcult Path to the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between Czechoslovakia and the Federal Republic of Germany,” in Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer, eds., Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 58–79. 143. For the FRG’s attitude toward the CSCE up to 1975, see Petri Hakkarainen, A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011). See also Tetsuji Senoo, Ein Irrweg zur deutschen Einheit? Egon Bahrs Konzeptionen, die Ostpolitik und die KSZE 1963–1975 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2011). 144. Kennedy, “Commencement Address,” p. 463.

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war.”145 Likewise, Brandt was convinced that “we need as many points of real contact and as much meaningful communication as possible.”146 During his tenure as mayor of West Berlin, he operated on the basis of this concept and practiced his policy of “small steps.”147 When he became foreign minister in Bonn in December 1966, he envisaged two main goals in Europe: the “advancement” of the EC and “communication with Eastern Europe.”148 Communication was not meant to harmonize fundamental antagonisms, but to de-escalate existing conﬂicts. Communicative methods introduced a new element to East-West relations, providing for the exchange of information and thus introducing greater precision in each side’s perception of the other. Since the late 1960s, a completely new network of lines of communication had emerged. Contacts proliferated on various political and non-political levels, ranging from summit meetings and ministerial talks to all sorts of visits and exchanges. No longer were the two sides separated from each other as they were during the height of the Cold War, when the number of contacts was strictly limited and every East-West encounter appeared to be an aberration. Unprecedented in East-West relations were the talks Bahr had with Gromyko from 30 January to 22 May 1970, lasting a total of 55 hours. On top of this he met with Kosygin and with his extremely supportive back-channel partners, Valerii Lednev and Vyacheslav Kevorkov.149 When Bahr set off for Moscow, he did not have any idea of their position within the decision-making process. For him, the Soviet Union was a “closed book,” albeit one he thought he could read after some time.150 Correspondingly, Bahr discovered on the Soviet side a certain ignorance of the West.151 Apart from Gromyko, Soviet leaders had no ﬁrst-hand experience of the Western world. Until 1970, Brezhnev’s most Western interlocutor was Ulbricht.152 Even in 1974 the new chancellor, Schmidt, found that Soviet

145. Nixon in conversation with Golda Meir, 1 March 1973, in NPM, NSC, Presidential HAK Memcons 1026, NARA. 146. Brandt in his speech at Tutzing, 15 July 1963, in DzD, 4th ser., Vol. 9, p. 567. 147. Wolfgang Schmidt, Kalter Krieg, Koexistenz und kleine Schritte: Willy Brandt und die Deutschland- politik 1948–1963 (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001). 148. Notes by Brandt in preparation for his ﬁrst statement as foreign minister in the Bundestag, 6 December 1966, in Brandt, Volk, p. 106. 149. Bahr, Zeit, pp. 290–293. 150. Ibid., pp. 293, 305–306. 151. Referring to Kosygin, Bahr noticed “eine gewisse ‘West-Fremdheit.’” Bahr to Brandt, 7 March 1970, in AAPD, 1970, p. 403. 152. Brandt pointed this out after his meeting with Brezhnev in August 1970. Brandt also used the term “Westfremdheit.” See Brandt comments at a meeting of the SPD executive, 14 September 1970, in Brandt, Volk, p. 336.

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leaders had little knowledge of Western countries and Western thinking, which made frequent contact indispensable to preventing misperceptions.153 An outstanding event in East-West communication was the meeting of Brandt and Brezhnev in Oreanda, the summer resort in Crimea for high- ranking Soviet officials. Brandt was the first Western leader to travel there in a series of top-level East-West encounters, followed by French President Georges Pompidou in October 1971 and Nixon in May 1972. The West German– Soviet summit took place shortly after the signature of the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin. As early as May 1971, the Soviet ambassador to the FRG, Valentin Falin, had told Brandt that Brezhnev wanted to resume the talks they had had in Moscow in August 1970 before the signature of the West German– Soviet treaty.154 On 1 September 1971, Falin returned to this proposal with an invitation from Brezhnev to hold an informal exchange of views on the “whole range of bilateral issues and the international situation.” Brandt was asked to see Brezhnev as quickly as possible, ideally before the end of September. Brandt welcomed the Soviet initiative and agreed to an early summit, pending the resolution of scheduling difficulties.155 The Western allies were informed that Brandt wanted to meet with Brezh- nev to find out the Soviet leader’s intentions concerning, first, Berlin and the difficulties in the German-German relationship and, second, the European security conference and talks on MBFR.156 Prior to receiving the information via the usual diplomatic procedures, the White House learned about Oreanda via the special channel.157 In Bonn, Defense Minister Schmidt was among the few people who knew about the proposed summit before the press was informed. In a handwritten note, Brandt gave two reasons why he had accepted the invitation: First, he expected that the imminent negotiations with the GDR on the transit to West Berlin would be difficult, and he therefore wanted to convince Soviet leaders that some sort of “soft pressure” on the GDR might be useful. Second, he saw a good chance to play a prominent role in the further process of detente´ as it entered a new phase with the transition from bilateral to multilateral negotiations and the impending visits of Brezhnev to

153. Schmidt’s notes for a press conference, 22 October 1974, in Schmidt Papers 131, HSA. 154. Note by Bahr on a conversation with Falin, 12 May 1971, in AAPD, 1971, p. 753. 155. Brandt in conversation with Falin, 1 September 1971, in AAPD, 1971, pp. 1311–1312. 156. AAPD, 1971, pp. 1354–1356. See also Brandt’s notes in preparation of a cabinet meeting, 15 September 1971, in A8/92, WBA. 157. Bahr to Kissinger, 2 September 1971, in Bahr Papers 439, AdsD.

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Paris and Nixon to Moscow.158 Bahr repeated and underscored both points in a final paper for Brandt before taking off for the Crimea: (1) The talks with Brezhnev should help to soften the attitude of the GDR. (2) The Soviet Union regards the FRG as its “strongest partner in Western Europe” and wanted to strengthen the FRG’s international position.159 The meeting took place from 16 to 18 September 1971, beginning at the airport of Simferopol, with Brezhnev coming from Moscow and Brandt coming from Bonn in a Luftwaffe aircraft, the first time a plane of the West German air force had landed in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev was waiting for Brandt at the gangway. Before driving to Oreanda, they were taken by surprise when Soviet Ukrainian officials offered food and drinks on the spot.160 Al- though a dinner was waiting in Oreanda, the party stayed at the airport for the whole evening. Brezhnev and Brandt traded jokes and consumed a good deal of alcohol in a relaxed opening meeting. Over the next two days, there was no formal agenda, allowing ample time for non-political conversations, swim- ming, and a boat trip on the Black Sea.161 The two leaders got acquainted on a personal level and began to feel they could trust each other. This type of encounter at the highest level was new not only in West German–Soviet relations but also in East-West relations generally. Brandt’s visit became a milestone in the endeavor to create a mood of personal closeness. If personalities matter in international affairs, the Oreanda meeting was an important event. Brezhnev later underscored the meeting’s outstanding importance for the course of West German–Soviet and East-West relations.162 On the political level, talks between Brezhnev and Brandt were held in parallel with talks between Bahr and Andrei Aleksandrov-Agentov, Brezhnev’s chief adviser in matters of foreign policy and security. The discussion of bilateral relations focused on the timetable for ratification of the Treaty of Moscow and the prospects for economic and scientific cooperation and cultural exchange. Berlin was a difficult topic. Brandt complained about the GDR and the disagreement that stemmed from the problem of the German translation of

158. Brandt to Schmidt, 5 September 1971, in Korrespondenz Innenpolitik 1971, Helmut Schmidt Private Archives, Hamburg. 159. Memorandum by Bahr for Brandt, 15 September 1971, in Bahr Papers 430, AdsD. 160. This information was given to Bahr via back channel. Note by Bahr, 11 October 1971, in Bahr Papers 430, AdsD. 161. For the atmosphere of the meeting, see Brandt, Begegnungen, pp. 460–461; and the account by Meyer-Landrut, Mit Gott, p. 90. Meyer-Landrut was a member of Brandt’s delegation on behalf of the Auswartiges¨ Amt. 162. For instance, in May 1973 when Brezhnev visited the FRG. See Brandt, Begegnungen, p. 475; and Brezhnev to Schmidt, 20 September 1975, in Bahr Papers 1/EBAA 001072, AdsD.

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the Four Powers agreement. Brezhnev maintained that the agreement would not become effective before ratification of the Moscow Treaty. This meant that Brandt’s position (no ratification of the treaty without a satisfactory agreement with the GDR on transit to West Berlin) was met by Brezhnev’s counter- position, which Brandt, who was unable to change the Soviet attitude, had to accept. However, he stressed that any further progress on the multilateral preparatory talks on CES was dependent on the satisfactory resolution of all questions pertaining to the situation in Berlin.163 In principle, however, both sides agreed that an all-European conference (plus the United States and Canada) should be held.164 As for MBFR, the Soviet Union consented to negotiate on it. That issue was the main topic of Bahr’s conversations with Aleksandrov-Agentov, which led to the interim formula that troops should be reduced “without any disadvantages for either side.”165 For Brandt and Bahr, Oreanda indicated that bilateral relations were improving. They were deeply impressed by the frankness of the talks and the open-mindedness of the Soviet side.166 Both states had entered a phase “of natural and normal” relations that included both conflict and cooperation, the very essence of Ostpolitik and detente:´ “Both sides know where they agree, where a rapprochement is conceivable, and where they have differences.”167 What had been said about CES and MBFR was “fundamental and not discouraging.”168 Further information was given to the chancellery in Bonn via the back-channel. The West Germans were reassured that Brezhnev deemed the talks helpful to the overall process of detente´ and that he was looking forward to further meetings of this kind. As for the timing of the ratification of the Treaty of Moscow, West German officials were told that the Soviet side would not apply pressure. A further message was that the Soviet Union was interested in deepening economic cooperation with the FRG on a hitherto unknown scale.169 Brandt and Bahr believed they had new insights into the way Soviet policy was formulated and which role was played by whom in the decision- making process. They even regarded themselves as being ahead of their allies

163. Memorandum of conversation, 17 September 1971, in AAPD, 1971, pp. 1385–1399. 164. Brandt, Begegnungen, p. 467. 165. Bahr, Zeit, p. 499. 166. Note by Bahr, 21 September 1971, in Bahr Papers 1/EBAA 000972, AdsD. 167. Notes taken by Brandt for a press communication, 18 September 1971, in A8/92, WBA. See also Brandt, Begegnungen, p. 471. 168. Notes by Brandt for a meeting of the parliamentary party of the SPD, 21 September 1971, in A8/92, WBA. 169. Note by Bahr, 11 October 1971, in Bahr Papers 430, AdsD.

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in the West. The main impression was that Brezhnev’s firm orientation toward detente´ was undisputed in Moscow and that he was clearly the No. 1 in Soviet politics.170 Oreanda further enhanced the mutual wish for regular contact. Meetings between the ministers for foreign affairs as well as the ministers of other depart- ments were the order of the day. This applied also to delegations of members of parliament, political parties, and trade unions, not to mention visits by journalists, academics, and business executives. On the top level, Brezhnev traveled to the FRG in May 1973. Confidential correspondence between Brandt and Brezhnev was carried out through the back channel. Schmidt, after Brandt’s resignation, proceeded in the same way.171 The quality of this new communication did not remove the fundamental differences between the FRG, as a middle-size Western state, and the USSR, as the Communist superpower. But, given the renunciation of force, these differences and even conflicts of interest did not hinder a political modus vivendi and the development of cooperative projects. The wish for communication on both sides and the ensuing experience of communicative actions led to a constellation in Europe in which the East-West conflict went on but conflict behavior changed. The process of transformation through communication was further as- sisted by the strong inclination of other Warsaw Pact states to perforate the East-West divide. Any increase in East-West communication served the quest for change. Although “communication” was a key term in the concept of Ostpolitik, change was its key objective. As a short-term goal, change meant a growing feeling of security from the mutual renunciation of force, the gradual petering out of enemy images, and freer movement of people and information in Europe, particularly between the two Germanys. In a middle-range perspective, change meant the reduction of troops and arms in Europe and the partial opening of Eastern societies toward the West. Finally, in a long-term view, change meant the transformation of the Communist systems and the overcoming of the division of Europe, including the division of Germany. For the Warsaw Pact countries, change was welcome to a certain extent, provided that it did not go too far. Given the experience of 1968, the predominant position of the ruling Communist parties had to be maintained. Above all, the territorial order with two German states was sacrosanct. The border issue was a “question of war or peace.”172 ThemainpurposeoftheSoviet

170. Bahr to Kissinger, 20 September 1971, in AAPD, 1971, pp. 1432–1433; and Bahr, Zeit, p. 414. 171. Bahr, Zeit, pp. 332–333. 172. Gromyko in conversation with Brandt in New York, 8 October 1968, in AAPD, 1968, p. 1292.

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demand for an ESC was to gain formal international recognition of the postwar borders. Soviet territorial gains as well as the German losses would be recognized. Above all, the German-German frontier would be declared unal- terable, thereby perpetuating the division of Germany. Thus, the Soviet Union strove for an ESC as a substitute for a peace treaty. The position of the FRG was more flexible and also more realistic. On the one hand, Bonn accepted the “results of history” and did not question Poland’s Western border.173 Given the atrocities during the war, any search for reconciliation with neighbors in the East had to begin with the acceptance of the postwar frontiers. On the other hand, pending a peace treaty, the FRG could not bind the government of a possibly reunited Germany.174 Legally, the border issue was beyond the competence of the FRG and was a matter for the Four Powers responsible for Germany as a whole. The main reason this point was crucial was not any territorial revisionism directed against Poland. Rather it was the determination to keep the German question open. The GDR was recognized as a state but not as a foreign country. Consequently, the border between the two German states was regarded as fundamentally different from any other frontier in Europe. When Gromyko during his talks with Bahr in Moscow demanded the recognition of all European borders according to international law, Bahr argued that Bonn simply was not entitled to do this because of the responsibility of the Four Powers.175 Thus, the notion of recognition could be avoided in the text Gromyko and Bahr eventually signed. The Moscow Treaty stated that the borders in Europe were inviolable (rather than unchangeable).176 The Soviet side did not accept any reference to eventual reunification in the text of the treaty, but it acknowledged a letter declaring that the wish for reunification did not contradict the Treaty of Moscow. Given the antagonism between the two systems, any idea of reunification seemed to be wishful thinking, but the possibility of a peaceful change of the German- German border in a not-foreseeable future was not blocked.

173. Brandt on the occasion of the signature of the Treaty of Warsaw, 7 December 1970, in Brandt, Erinnerungen, p. 213. 174. See the clariﬁcations in December 1970, when the Treaty of Warsaw was signed, and in De- cember 1971, when the ratiﬁcation process was started. Bulletin: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1970, No. 171 (8 December 1970), pp. 1818–1819; and Bulletin: Presse- und Infor- mationsamt der Bundesregierung, 1971, No. 186 (15 December 1971), p. 2019. For the Polish reaction, see Wanda Jarzabek, “Polish Reactions to the West German Ostpolitik and East-West Detente,´ 1966–1978,” in Villaume and Westad, eds., Perforating the Iron Curtain, p. 45; and Wanda Jarzabek, “Deutsche (Neue) Ostpolitik aus polnischer Perspektive 1966–1972,” in Boll and Ruchniewicz, eds., “Nie mehr eine Politik uber¨ Polen hinweg,” p. 80. 175. Bahr, Zeit, pp. 287–288. 176. For a summary, see Dannenberg, Foundations, pp. 59–61.

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The issue of the peaceful change of borders was again on the agenda during the multilateral CSCE talks in Geneva. For the Soviet Union, the CSCE talks were the last bid to achieve what had not been attained by the Treaty of Moscow; namely, unambiguous recognition of the postwar territorial order. In messages to Western governments in January 1974, Brezhnev insisted that the inviolability of borders must be “set forth with crystal clarity and purity.” Anything else “would mean leaving a loophole for those who still live by the spirit of revanchism.”177 The FRG never disputed that frontiers should be inviolable. At the same time, Bonn, like Moscow, wanted to improve the position it had attained via the Treaty of Moscow. Hence, it claimed that the possibility of the peaceful change of borders must explicitly be mentioned in the Declaration of Principles (Basket I) in any final document of the CSCE.178 Brandt reminded Brezhnev of earlier Soviet as- surances that inviolability and peaceful change of borders did not contradict each other.179 Like Brandt, Schmidt was determined to accept nothing in the Declaration of Principles that would be detrimental to the idea of German reunification.180 The FRG was—and had to be—in a key position. Besides an agreement on Basket III that was, with certain modifications, in the interest of the West in general, the success of the CSCE depended on a peaceful change formula that was acceptable to the FRG. Ostpolitik had an impact on the CSCE in two ways. Without Ostpolitik (and the Four-Power agreement on Berlin plus German- German accords), CSCE would never have started. With Ostpolitik,CSCE could not be concluded unless a concession was made to the FRG regarding a satisfactory formula on the peaceful change of borders. A breakthrough in the negotiations had to be achieved at the superpower level. In February 1975, Kissinger and Gromyko paved the way for a solution, which finally stipulated that “frontiers can be changed, in accordance with international

177. Undated message from Brezhnev for the British prime minister, delivered by the Soviet ambassador in London, 11 January 1974, in DBPO, 1974, Vol. II, p. 236 n. 4. President Nixon received a similar message, delivered by hand from the Soviet embassy in Washington, 9 January 1974, in FRUS, 1969–1973, Vol. XXXIX, pp. 537–539. 178. See, for example, memorandum from van Well, 9 April 1973, and minutes by Frank, 11 April 1973, both in AAPD, 1973, pp. 482–485. 179. Brandt to Brezhnev, 7 February 1974, in AAPD, 1974, pp. 153–154. This was a reply to Brezhnev’s undated message to Brandt in AAPD, 1974, p. 153 n. 2. For a fuller account, see Gottfried Niedhart, “Peaceful Change of Frontiers as a Crucial Element in the West German Strategy of Transformation,” in Bange and Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975, pp. 39–52. 180. Schmidt in conversation with US Ambassador Hillenbrand, 6 June 1974, in AAPD, 1974, pp. 826–827.

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law, by peaceful means and by agreement.”181 With respect to the German question, the Helsinki Final Act was a declaration on the modus vivendi and, as Schmidt noted shortly before he went to Helsinki for the signing ceremony, in terms of international law was not a surrogate peace treaty.182 With the Helsinki accord, “Europe’s postwar era finally came to an end.”183 The Cold War paradigm had lost its validity. The ensuing CSCE process transformed the structure of East-West relations. At the same time Helsinki by no means signaled the end of the East-West conflict. The Helsinki Final Act was perceived and interpreted in remarkably different ways. The Soviet bloc stressed the accord’s static components, emphasizing the inviolability of frontiers and the non-interference with internal affairs, whereas Western governments underlined its dynamic potential with respect to peaceful change and the freer movement among persons and institutions. In the FRG, the SPD-FDP government led by Schmidt and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher encountered sharp criticism from the vast majority of the Christian Democrats, who still had not accepted the implications of Ostpolitik.The government presented the Final Act as a substantial contribution to East-West detente´ despite the still immense obstacles to a fully relaxed relationship with the East. For instance, Schmidt had first-hand experience of the patience needed to achieve lasting progress in relations between Bonn and Warsaw. In the Treaty of Warsaw, both sides had expressed their willingness to work for the “normalization” of bilateral relations. But achieving this aim proved to be long and arduous. Not until 1975, during the Helsinki summit, did Schmidt and Polish Communist First Secretary Edward Gierek, in a private conversation, reach a breakthrough in the protracted negotiations over issues of vital interest to both sides (compensation for Polish citizens who had suffered from the German occupation; emigration of Germans from Poland). Although Brandt had always warned against illusions, the slow progress in the West German– Polish rapprochement was a profound disappointment to him.184

181. Talks between Kissinger and Gromyko and between Assistant Secretary of State Hartmann and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Kovalev, 16–17 February 1975, in FRUS, 1969–1973, Vol. XXXIX, pp. 791–806. 182. Memorandum, “Wertung der bisherigen ubersehbaren¨ Ergebnisse der KSZE-Beratungen unter deutschland- und berlinpolitischen Aspekten” (with Schmidt’s handwritten marginalia, among them “‘Ersatzfriedensvertrag’ ist vermieden”), n.d., in Schmidt Papers 6655, HSA. 183. Jussi M. Hanhimaki,¨ “Detente´ in Europe, 1962–1975,” in Melvyn P. Lefﬂer and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War,Vol.2,Crisis and D´etente (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 199. 184. See, for example, a note from Brandt after a conversation with Ryszard Frelek, head of the International Department of the Polish United Workers’ Party, 11 April 1974, reproduced in Willy

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Already in 1973, detente´ in Europe was encountering obstacles even as it made progress. On the one hand, 35 European and North American states agreed on the agenda of the CSCE. Stage two of the conference, the multilateral negotiations proper, thus could begin in Geneva. According to Brandt, the CSCE was a constructive step forward that was inconceivable in the early 1960s.185 On the other hand, the prospects for immediate change in East-West relations were limited. The GDR, shortly after its admission to the UN, dou- bled the amount of money every visitor had to pay to enter. Negotiations with Czechoslovakia dragged on for months before finally resulting in the Prague Treaty in December 1973. The Munich Accord and the status of West Berlin proved to be major sticking points. Generally, the Four-Powers agreement, although it had settled earlier disputes, remained a source of conflicting in- terpretations. In December 1973, Brandt complained that European detente´ had not yet reached the quality of a self-sustaining process.186 A year-and- a-half later, Schmidt and Brezhnev argued over the implementation of the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin.187 Mixed feelings existed in Eastern Europe too. Expectations about the benefits of economic cooperation and the FRG’s readiness to extend financial aid proved to be unrealistic. Despite an enormous increase in trade with the East and treaties on economic cooperation that were signed with every Warsaw Pact state in 1973–1975, the growth of West German Osthandel was limited because of differences in the economic systems, not to mention the international economic turmoil resulting from the oil crisis of 1973–1974.188 When Brezhnev visited Bonn in May 1973 and asked his host to breathe new life into the existing treaties and to proceed vigorously with detente,´ he stressed the need for greater economic cooperation but gave top priority to the political and security aspects, in particular to CSCE.189 Indeed, although European detente´ could be supported by the search for common economic interests, it depended fundamentally on progress in the

Brandt, Uber¨ den Tag hinaus: Eine Zwischenbilanz (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe: 1974), p. 162. Frelek’s “non-paper” summarizing the Polish position is transcribed in AAPD, 1974, pp. 505–508. 185. Speech by Brandt at the Weizmann Institute during his visit to Israel, 11 June 1973, in Brandt Papers A3/502, WBA. 186. Brandt to Brezhnev, 30 December 1973, in AAPD, 1973, pp. 2076–2078. 187. Schmidt in conversation with Brezhnev in Helsinki, 31 July 1975, in AAPD, 1975, pp. 1100– 1108. 188. On views of the potential for and the limits of East-West trade after 1973, see Rudolph, Wirtschaftsdiplomatie, pp. 308–325; and Lippert, Economic Diplomacy, pp. 111–148. 189. Conversation between Brandt and Brezhnev, 18 May 1973, in AAPD, 1973, pp. 717–719; and Brandt, Begegnungen, pp. 475–477.

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realm of international security. From the outset, the proponents of Ostpolitik emphasized the central importance of mutual and balanced force reductions.190 Contrary to the initial West German position, the negotiations on troop reductions in Europe did not become an integral part of CSCE. Prior to Brandt’s trip to Oreanda, Schmidt, who was then minister of defense, insisted that CSCE was inconceivable without negotiations on MBFR.191 This proviso was secured when the Soviet Union agreed to hold such negotiations. However, instead of having formally linked CSCE and MBFR, the FRG had to be content with a “close relationship” between them.192 When the talks on MBFR started in Vienna in October 1973, the FRG’s vital interest in the reduction of armaments was well known. But Soviet leaders were not much impressed with warnings from Bonn that an atmosphere of tension might emerge if detente´ did not lead to troop reductions.193 Brandt’s corresponding appeal to Brezhnev did not achieve the hoped-for response.194 The chancellor also publicly criticized the ongoing rise in the military potential of the Warsaw Pact.195 When Schmidt became chancellor, the issue of a new balance on a lower level, which had been his ceterum censeo for some time, was given even more attention.196 The key question for Schmidt was how the imbalance between East and West could be resolved. He was concerned not only about Soviet troops and tanks but also about Soviet SS-20 missiles.197 Because of the ongoing buildup of Soviet arms, Ostpolitik did not achieve what Bahr had envisaged as the second stage of European detente.´ In early 1975, he pointed out that East-West relations had developed best in the ﬁeld of economic exchange but that agreements on arms control were still missing. Consequently, the complicated process of detente´ might

190. Oliver Bange, “An Intricate Web: Ostpolitik, the European Security System and German Uniﬁ- cation,” in Bange and Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975, pp. 23–38. 191. Schmidt to Brandt, 14 September 1971, in Bahr Papers 430, AdsD. 192. Helga Haftendorn, “The Link between CSCE and MBFR: Two Sprouts from One Bulb,” in Wenger, Mastny, and Nuenlist, eds., Origins, pp. 248–249. 193. Bahr in conversation with Gromyko in Moscow, 9 October 1972, in AAPD, 1972, pp. 1474–1475. 194. Brandt to Brezhnev, 19 December 1972, in AAPD, 1972, p. 1851. 195. Brandt in the Bundestag, 18 January 1973, in Deutscher Bundestag, 7. Wahlperiode, p. 123. For the increase in Soviet armaments of all kinds, particularly in the GDR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, see Kramer, “Die Sowjetunion,” p. 286. 196. See, for instance, conversation between Schmidt and Gromyko in Bonn, 16 September 1974, in AAPD, 1974, p. 1190. 197. Schmidt in conversation with Brezhnev in Moscow, 29 October 1974, in AAPD, 1974, p. 1377. See also Schmidt, Menschen,p.64.

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stagnate if the Soviet Union were to intensify its troop reinforcements and arms program.198 In the middle of the 1970s, neither Nixon’s “structure for peace” nor Brandt’s “European peace order” was achieved.199 But in Washington as well as in Bonn, leading political ﬁgurers declared that the term “Cold War” was no longer appropriate for describing the state of East-West relations. When President Nixon insisted on a “realistic” perception of Soviet politics, he did not mean “we’re still in the Cold War.”200 Kissinger spoke of “modern methods” in his approach to the Soviet Union, “which are not those of the cold war period but are entirely new.”201 Chancellor Schmidt, who was known for his skeptical attitude toward Bahr’s “change through rapprochement,” was ready to point out that East and West were going to “overcome” the Cold War.202 The language of detente´ marked a departure from the confrontational rhetoric used during the “Cold War conﬂict in its 1940s and 1950s form.”203 Detente´ transformed the state of Cold War to a state of antagonistic cooperation. However, it was still an open question whether the cooperative elements could be strengthened.

198. Bahr addressing a conference on international affairs, organized by the SPD, 17–19 January 1975, in SPD-Parteivorstand, Internationale Abteilung 11296, AdsD. Brandt reiterated this admonition when he met Brezhnev in Moscow on 3 July 1975. See Brandt’s after-dinner speech and his conversation with Brezhnev, in Willy Brandt, Die Entspannung unzerstorbar¨ machen: Internationale Beziehungen und deutsche Frage 1974–1982 (Bonn: Dietz, 2003), pp. 136, 144, 150. 199. President Nixon’s inaugural address, 20 January 1969, in Public Papers of the President of the United States: Richard Milhouse Nixon, 1969–70 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1971), pp. 22–24. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1477; and Brandt’s ﬁrst statement as Chancellor in the Bundestag, 28 October 1969, in Deutscher Bundestag, 6. Wahlperiode, p. 20. 200. Nixon in conversation with Golda Meir, 1 March 1973. 201. Kissinger during a meeting with Takeo Miki, 5 August 1975, in FRUS, 1969–1973, Vol. XXXIX, p. 988. 202. Schmidt addressing the Bundestag, 30 January 1975, in Deutscher Bundestag, 7. Wahlperiode, p. 10,040. 203. Odd Arne Westad, “The New International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 24 (2000), p. 563.

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