Brandt Leads the ﬁrst 25 Social-Liberal Coalition

28.10.1969 28 October: Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt leads the ﬁrst 25 social-liberal coalition

In 1959, Germany’s oldest, still existing, political party fundamentally changes its party platform. At its party conference in Bad Godesberg, the Social Democratic ...... Party of Germany, the SPD, conﬁrms its new program, which will enable it to ...... transform away from being a socialist workers’ party into a popular ‘people’s ...... party’. With its commitment to a market economy, the SPD now becomes a ...... plausible alternative to the CDU and the FDP for voters from other social classes...... The ﬁrst success for this transformation occurs with the party’s participation in ...... the Grand Coalition under Kurt Georg Kiesinger CDU. In 1969, the SPD even

...... succeeds for the ﬁrst time since 1945 in becoming the leading government party

...... in West Germany. Their coalition partner is the liberal FDP. When the FDP

...... supports a more conservative, almost nationalist, position on a number of social

...... and political issues – for a period of time, the party was inﬁltrated by old Nazis – the coalition leads the way to a programmatic change for the liberals as well. The ...... FDP implements a liberalisation of its previously revisionist stance, especially with ...... respect to its policies towards the East, and, consequently draws closer to the SPD.

Willy Brandt, who is considered the most significant politician of the ‘Bonn Republic’ after Adenauer, becomes the Chancellor of the new government. Born Herbert Frahm, Brandt chooses to maintain his alias from the time of the Third ...... Reich, which he spent in exile in Norway as a member of the resistance, fighting...... against Nazism. Brandt was born in 1913 in Lübeck, and has been a member of ...... the SPD from 1930. He is a pacifist, a committed social democrat and patriotic...... German. Because of his resistance to the Nazi Regime and time spent in exile, ...... Brandt has to put up with frequent insults from right-wing circles. Endowed with a ...... great sense of charisma, and well known across all of Germany from his time as ......

Governing Mayor of West Berlin 19571966, Brandt heralds a fundamental...... change in German politics with his ﬁrst government speech: ‘Wir wollen mehr......

Demokratie wagen.’ (‘Let’s dare to achieve more democracy.’) Together with...... strong personalities from both sides of the coalition – including Egon Bahr, Walter ...... Scheel, Erhard Eppler, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, Helmut ...... Schmidt – and supported by German intellectuals such as the writer, Günther ...... Grass, Brandt works towards a social and political restructuring of the Federal ...... Republic of Germany, which primarily takes eect in three main areas.

With a policy of Wandel durch Annäherung (change through rapprochement), it is hoped that the so-called ‘New Eastern Policy’ should improve relations with the

GERMANY > CHAPTER 25 > page 1 / 3 > 1969 28 October 28 October: Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt leads the ﬁrst social-liberal coalition

Copyright by the Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity in Warsaw, 2016. The article can be downloaded and printed in unchanged version (indicating source of the article) - only for the educational and not-for-proﬁt purposes...... GDR and with other Warsaw Pact socialist states. Willy Brandt leads the era of ...... détente policy in the Cold War. The goal of this détente policy is to safeguard

...... peace, to facilitate relations between West and East Germans and, in the long

...... term, to bring about the reuniﬁcation of the two German nations. In reality,

...... Brandt succeeds in instigating signiﬁcant changes in the relationship with the

...... GDR. In 1971, unimpeded transit travel through the GDR to and from West Berlin is allowed once again. One year later, in the ‘Basic Treaty’, the hitherto hostile ...... relationship between the two German states is raised to an admittedly not overtly ...... friendly point, but at least now to a more settled level. Further signiﬁcant ...... agreements with the GDR follow. In 1970, Brandt sends out a clear message that ...... he believes it is crucially important to improve relations with Poland, a country ...... that was so brutally oppressed under Nazism, and with the Soviet Union, which ...... was ravaged during the Second World War. The ‘Warsaw Treaty’ regulates ...... relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Polish People’s ...... Republic on 7 December 1970, ahead of even the treaties with the GDR. In August ...... of the same year, the ‘Treaty of Moscow’ is signed with the Soviet Union.

Brandt’s successes in the second key area are no less signiﬁcant. By implementing an educational reform, he seeks to ensure full access to education for children and young people from less wealthy backgrounds. They should have equal opportunities in order to be able to lay claim to ihr Bürgerrecht auf Bildung (their civil right to education), as expressed by the liberal sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf. With a share in an education system for everyone, more people should be able to achieve genuine social advancement. Up until Brandt’s government, the ability to attend an academic secondary school and, thereby, the opportunity to undertake tertiary study is dependent to a very large extent on each individual’s social background. This reality is transformed by the creation of numerous so-called ‘reformed universities’ and the introduction of new types of schools, such as the comprehensive secondary school. Nevertheless, the comprehensive school, nowadays a worldwide standard, is socio- politically, a highly controversial project, and its implementation founders to a large extent due to base- level resistance from the conservative educational elite. Even through to the present day, the German school system has not yet caught up to world-wide standards. The Brandt government’s ‘education campaign’ did, however, achieve the reality that the number of students now completing their school matriculation certiﬁcate and going on to tertiary study is far higher than the level in the early 1970s. This success story is also largely attributable to the introduction of Bafög, a study loan for students from socially disadvantaged families.

In the end, Brandt and his social-liberal coalition do succeed in achieving the liberalisation of German society through legislative reforms and initiatives. Divorce law and the right to have an abortion are liberalised, workers’ rights in the workplace are strengthened, and the voting age is reduced from 21 to 18 years of age.

Unlike any preceding administration, this government is positive and productive. However, it ultimately falls apart over an espionage scandal originating in the GDR. It is cruelly ironic that the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, would smuggle a spy into the Chancellor’s Oce as a personal aide to the very Federal Chancellor who deliberately assumes a constructive approach to the GDR. In this way, Günther Guillaume gains access to secret governmental documents. When Guillaume is exposed, Brandt has to accept the consequences and resigns from his oce in May 1974. His successor in the oce of Chancellor is Helmut Schmidt SPD, who continues to govern in coalition with the FDP through to 1982.

GERMANY > CHAPTER 25 > page 2 / 3 > 1969 28 October 28 October: Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt leads the ﬁrst social-liberal coalition

Copyright by the Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity in Warsaw, 2016. The article can be downloaded and printed in unchanged version (indicating source of the article) - only for the educational and not-for-proﬁt purposes. Schmidt can no longer aord Brandt’s reformist momentum, which has also been aected by internal and foreign policy crises through no fault of his own. Nevertheless, just 15 years later Brandt will live to see the fulﬁlment of one of his primary political goals.

Translated into English by Heather Rae, proofread by Maria-Philippa Wieckowski

Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

References: Bahr, Egon 2013 „Das musst du erzählen.“ Erinnerungen an Willy Brandt. Berlin Bracher, Karl Dietrich 1986 Republik im Wandel 19691974. Die Ära Brandt. Stuttgart, Mannheim Brandt, Willy 1990 Erinnerungen. Berlin und Frankfurt a. M. Grith, William E. 1981 Die Ostpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Stuttgart Noack, Hans-Joachim 2013 Willy Brandt. Ein Leben, ein Jahrhundert. Berlin Schöllgen, Gregor 2001 Willy Brandt. Die Biographie. Berlin

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