Yale University Library Digital Repository
Collection Name: Henry A. Kissinger papers, part II Series Title: Series I. Early Career and Harvard University Box: 9 Folder: 21 Folder Title: Brandt, Willy Persistent URL: http://yul-fi-prd1.library.yale.internal/catalog/digcoll:554986 Repository: Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Contact Information Phone: (203) 432-1735 Email: [email protected] Mail: Manuscripts and Archives Sterling Memorial Library Sterling Memorial Library P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520
Your use of Yale University Library Digital Repository indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use http://guides.library.yale.edu/about/policies/copyright
Find additional works at: http://yul-fi-prd1.library.yale.internal February 4, 1959
Mayor Willy Brandt Berlin ;ermany
Dear Mayor Brandt:
I returned to the United States a few days ago, and want to lose no time in thanking you for the extraordinary und interesting experience afforded to me in Berlin. It was of course a pleasure to have the chance to meet you. It seems to me that the courage and matter-of-factne$s of the Berliners should be an inspiration for the rest of the free world, and in this respect Berlin may well be the conscience of all of us. I want you to know that whatever I can do within my limited iowers here will U.) done.
All good wishes and kind regards.
,Ancerely yours,
iienryrt. Kissinger 2ZRI .4 xlsaldel
Ibnala x1114;
xamtneL
abasme noyAM 11590
eydeb wel a ap.ts.ta be4inU ea pi benlidvi I ea lol pox anlAnadI n1 salt on pool od. /new bas ,oua (34 bebnolls eonsineqxe sni$eels.tni bag losnibPxotraxo ea evict ei image's s ea-woo lo asw it .nllnea n1 em •e woo etti Isa emoi amuse il .uox *sax oa itonsno as ed blmodu elentlesd ea lo ensniosl-lo.nsiJsa bas eta ni bas eenl ad/ lo $een eti loI Als lo Ils to soneiosnoo sa ed Ilew xsm 111110C Ioeqatm cm niditw ob as, I leveJsriw $s41.1 woni o.1 pox insw I .enob 111w vied emLewoki
.ebns3sn balA bas aerielw boos 11A
,enuox laeleonle
Iegabsea .A Tuidi L1
June 1, 1960
Mayor Willy Brandt Berlin Germany
Dear Mayor Brandt:
I am writing to thank you very much for sending me a copy of your publication on "Berlin's Impor- tance for Human Relations between Bast and West." I found it very interesting and informative.
The situation in Berlin has been on my mind a great deal, and I want you to know that your efforts have my sympathy.
With kind regards.
Sincerely yours,
Henry A. Kissinger
raeo r' r'
6 lnu
MTI pLwaqr wwIoi wwIoi
T" -T -T 61 8
ceLmvul
pLirmqc: maXos. maXos. Dews. Dews.
co co rpm* rpm* Ion ALTrrog ALTrrog
°I cob) cob) e e ms ms asucguR asucguR ;cm ;cm mncp mncp A61.1 A61.1
rab3X- S S ii I 00 00 RGITTV brOpTTCIKTOU brOpTTCIKTOU X0111. X0111.
goer pwcasen pwcasen yerwcrous yerwcrous gnissu gnissu cwuce cwuce Vat Vat
rucnsecTuR AGO. AGO. tonne? tonne? TC TC AVIC*, AVIC*, • •
ratoLanTAws • •
Pve EGLITu EGLITu Tu Tu eTCavrTou eTCavrTou LPG LPG
sruci gesr gesr excw; excw; w w wog wog ma ma au au peep peep
puts sttoLca sttoLca %mix %mix cpwc cpwc FMK FMK co co Xon Xon *en *en
▪ ▪
eXtubmcpo
ATM ATM LeRnqs. Ftriq Ftriq
IOALSO 3T3C61.6T2l 3T3C61.6T2l
yigseraws. A tiuLX tiuLX DER REGIERENDE BURGERMEISTER VON•BERLIN
j_DBERLIN-SCHONEBERG, DEN Geschäftszeichen: 24 August 1962 RUDOLPH-WILDE-PLATZ FERNRUF: 71 02 61, APP. 33-5' Y (95) (nur Im Innenbetrieb) Professor Henry A. KISSINGER Ass. Director, Harvard Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge 38, Mass. /U.S.A.
Iii Professor Kissiner, ee-\
I heard with particular pleasure that you are coming to Berlin from November 17th to 19th, 1962 on the occasion of the Third German-American Conference. I want to welcome you in advance to our city and am greatly looking forward to greeting you personally.
The Conference program will leave you little time for looking around our city. It would therefore give me great if, after the close of the Conference, you would remain here an additional day as a guest of the Berlin Senate in order to gain a personal impression of the situation in our city since the erection of the Wall and also the progress made in rebuilding. II shall await your reply with the greatest interest,
Sincerely yours,
( Willy Brandt ) . September 18, 1962
The donorable Willy Brandt Derlin-Schdnebers Rudolph-Wilde-Platz West merlin, Germany
Raw Mayor Irma
I am happy to accept your very nice in- vitation to stay an extra day in Berlin after the German-American Conference.
look forward to hearing further details from you.
With kind regards.
Sincerely yours,
Henry A. Kissinger op sol ,81
-.311 yilrw sidsloaoh orrf
sislq -obi y.nairsa4) ,a11-1,11
ToitaK las4
--Ica 9212 NW, 21,a% ScAsail al vAsd ma I Is3la nitnissi via Anus as roe *2 1102362/v 4WINSVOIODD as:4171m.1smlo0
altslub sallised oi ly:sw=1 'loci I .uox wet
.airsags2 4.1111
(aluoy Icials3nIt
isgallal2 .A vast! WILLY BRANDT 1 Berlin 62 (Schöneberg), March 18, 1963 Rathaus
Mr. Prof. Henry A. Kissinger Littauer Center Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass. / USA
Dear Professor Kissinger,
The "BerlinBriefing" enclosed with this letter is the first of a series that will reach you and a few other friends.
When you receive one you may be sure that it is well informed and
intended to pass on thoughts that are of genuine concern to us herer
I hope that these communications will become useful to you in your deeply valued efforts on behalf of Berlin.
Sincerely yours,
Etc3
BERLIN BRIEFING March 18, 1963
personal
+ The Berlin elections which brought an overwhelming victory to Willy Brandt's party, enabling him to create a new government in record time, will have important consequences for Berlin and, perhaps, for Germany.
Willy Brandt has strengthened the executive arm of his government. The new Senate is younger, more prominent and probably more imaginative than the last. Brandt persuaded the renouned economist Karl Schiller to remain in Berlin as Senator for Economics, and one of German democracy's most impressive legal minds Adolf Arndt has joined the executive team as Senator for Scientific and Cultural Affairs.
A reorganisation in City Hall brings the administration of security matters closer to the chief executive and provides a firmer basis for conducting viability planning. Heinrich Albertz, hitherto Senator for Internal Affairs, has become Brandt's debuty Mayor. The two men function well together; Albertz will relieve Brandt of many time-consuming routine chores. Willy Brandt wants more time for the major problems devolving on Berlin from the East-West conflict.
The election returns reveal a clear-cut constellation of political opinion: SPD 61.0, CDU 284, FDP 7.9%, and a mere 01.4% for the communist SED. With only 20.889 votes left the communists have lost, since 1958, one- third of their following in West Berlin.
Willy Brandt was elected to the legislature with the highest vote given to any candidate: 75.8$.
Although the election results are clear, the meaning of the vote has been confused by some western commentators who exaggerated outside influences on the outcome or even implied, as the communists did in a desparate attempt to cover-up their defeat, that Berliners have gone "soft".
Regarding "outside" influences, the Brussels development and the Bonn- Paris treaty did aggrevate the Berliners, who knew they were of one mind with Willy Brandt. However, these events - and criticism of de Gaulle - were not what cost the Berlin CDU so many votes. Since last Fall, and throughout the campaign, polls showed no basic change in the relative strength of the two major parties.
Aggrevation over repeated government crises in Bonn did present the Berlin CDU with a serious handicap, but not necessarily an insurmountable one. Berliners are open-minded. The local CDU failed to make any headway with them in an up-hill fight because it chose to campaign in a style and with issues that were not convincing here.
Perhaps the CDU's first mistake was to pose the issue as one of personal- ities without having a candidate who could rival Willy Brandt. Before the campaign West Berliners had a favorable impression of Franz Amrehn as a selfless debuty Mayor and loyal "Beamte". . -2-
But Amrehn and the CDU damaged this modestly advantageous image by the style of their attack on Willy Brandt: with slogans and dramatic stunts intending to show Brandt up as an adventurer with illusions. The climax was intended to be Amrehn's ultimatum threatening to break up the SPD/CDU coalition government if Brandt did not cancel his appointment with Khrushchev.
West Berliners did not buy that. They feel protected under Willy Brandt's leadership. With hindsight a great many people here felt that Brandt should have seen Khrushchev anyway. But even his decision not to do so, with a shattered government at his back, was more evidence to Berliners that the CDU's charges were false: Brandt's behavior was in character as a dependable and as a democratic leader.
West Berliners are realistic about the chances of opening the Wall and soon seeing relatives on the other side. The level of their expectations is rather low, but they do want reliable leaders to keep trying. When Willy Brandt tried, his coalition partner tripped him up. After that the CDU could only lose.
Hitherto, Berlin resistance norms have required the democratic parties to agree on principle matters; the "great coalition" in Berlin between SPD and CDU lay under the sanctity of a taboo, and since the early days of the blockade there has, in consequence, never been a foreign-policy debate in the Berlin legislature.
These standards are now being questioned. The coalition taboo is broken. When the CDU insisted on becoming the opposition, the SPD formed a new government with the FDP. A constructive opposition could be good for B'rlin. Harmful, however, would be a feud over foreign policy issues inside Berlin's common resistance front.
It is an open question whether the Berlin CDU will confine its opposition to urban government issues or continue to campaign with suspicion of "talks" and "flexibility" by construing up "fundimental differences" on forc,ign policy.
Immediately after the elections Willy Brandt tooK action to encourage loyal opposition by creating a consulting gremium in which he could discuss confi- dential matters with leaders of the parliamentary opposition. Helpful may be the fact that a local CDU opposition cannot reasonably expect to gain much by debating foreign policy in Berlin. For both the Berlin Senate and the Bonn Government are truly obligated to act in unison where such matters pertain to the city.
Rather than developing a Berlin foreign policy of its own - which is what Willy Brandt has been charged with wanting to do - he evidently does intend to have Berlin exercise a stronger influence on the molding of the Federal Republic's foreign policy. In the future he may be expected to make greater use of his seat in the Bonn parliament's upper house, the Bundesrat; he is chairman of that body's foreign-affairs committee.
Brandt's decision to form a coalition with the FDP rather than to govern solely on the basis of the SPD's firm majority provides Berlin with an additional link to Bonn's CDU/FDP coalition government. At the same time, a number of commentators have called Berlin's new SPD/FDP coalition the "model" for a future Federal Government. _ Be that as it may, it is the prospect of facing a rival capable of one day gaining an absolute majority of the West German vote that has stunned CDU leaders in Bonn. The Berlin elections provide an outstanding example of the rapid way in which Germany's traditional parties - once based on the loyalty of class and church groups - are being transformed into a system of democratic alternatives, of genuine people's parties that can appeal on their records to almost any citizen. In West Berlin this has meant the eclipse of left-wing romanticism within the SPD. The election landslide not only returned to the Berlin legislature many old supporters of Ernst Reuter; elected for the first time were also numProus young and intelligent moderates. The Berlin development has its parallel in West Germany. There, as a recent opinion poll showed, the social stratification of persons favoring Willy Brandt's party no longer diverges significently from the social structure of the population as a whole.
+ Prompt attention will be given to enquiries. Your suggestions and ideas are most welcome. They will be treated as private communications.
The Editor
HAROLD HURWITZ • 30 KILSTETTERSTRASSE i BERLIN 37 (ZEHLENDORF; /14
411111116 N 1
April 5, 1963
The Honorable Willy Brandt 1 Berlin 62 (Schoneberg) Rathaus, Germany
Dear Mayor Brandt:
I appreciate your sending me the "Berlin-Briefing".
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your great success in Parliament.
Kind regards.
Sincerely yours,
Henry L. Kissinger CÒQI (Z 117qA
eldssossil sd? (gaidrods2) to sh11 I yessase sassit322
1360278 Texan 7220
MO Whom soy s3ast2s7qqa I .npals171-2.ther *di
aldi sia3 oS e1I bluely I mo imoT s3slu3signoo os Vinvlloqqo .ftems11101 al sas3uus Soon luoy
.eblsgsi ball
g aluoy xlirman12
2samiss12 .A rural L.it
December 24 1966
Mr. Willy Brandt Foreign Minister Bonn, Germany
My dear Mr. Foreign Minister:
F rst let me take the opportunity to tell you with how much pleasure T use this title and with how much confidence I look forward to all you will be able to accomplish.
This note is primarily to tell you that I will be in Bonn between January 23 and the 27th and that I would very much appreciate an opportunity to renew our acquaintance. So as to have some order in my calendar, my old friend Johannes Imhof, who is First Secretary of the United States Embassy, has agreed to make my appointments; he will be calling your office. However, my visit will be entirely private.
Looking forward to seeing you and with warm regards.
Sincerely yours,
Henry A Kissinger !Li c.t)
41CS: 7DimsDa1
3basla 111W .714 sslelnIM n316301 ynsm763
:76381a1M nalslol .114 issb yM
1191 ol y3lauiloqqo sel sAs3 om 391 lal I ditw bas 91/13 81d3 eau I s7u6ss1q (tom wod dllw uoy 111w uoy ils 03 b7awlol Aool I 63usblInoD :bum wod .disliqmoDDs 03 sldb twei
I 'eel uoy Ilei ol yiliamliq 61 *Jon aldT bag dlTS sd3 bas ES y7sunst mewled naoa n1 cd 111w 01 y3InuJlociqo ne 9311367qqs dpum yisv bluow I Jed3 al -zebu) smog saved 03 ea 02 .83ns3a15up31 WO wonsl at odw ,lodmI 8ennsdot basIll blo cm e 7sbna1s3 yin sit4 ,yeamdm3 861638 bs31aU exil Io vis3slos2 3871g 8n11163 ed 111w ed ;s3nsm1nloqqa ym °Aim 03 boons yleilins sd 111w 3181v Tm ,isvewoH .alo =toy .636v/iq
mvsw d3lw bas uoy gnIsse ol bisw301 ainblood .8b7sgs7
,a7u0y y1979on12
7ssalea1l .A vinsH