638 Chapter 32Despite the conflict in Southeast Asia, détente be-
tween east and west—which Chancellor Willy Brandt
of West Germany had launched with his Ostpolitik of
the early 1970s (see illustration 32.1)—had grown; the
end of the war permitted even better relations among
the United States, Western Europe, the USSR, and
China. Détente culminated in the Helsinki Accord of
1975, in which thirty-five nations guaranteed the fron-
tiers of 1945, renewed their support for the United Na-
tions and the peaceful resolution of crises, swore
respect for “the sovereign equality and individuality” of
all states, expanded economic cooperation, renounced
the threat or use of force, and pledged respect for hu-
man rights (see document 32.1). Like most idealistic
treaties—such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights
of 1946, the Geneva Conventions, the Kellogg-Briand
Pact of 1928, the League of Nations Charter of 1920,
and the Hague Treaties of 1899 and 1906—the
Helsinki Accord contained no mechanism to enforce its
principles during crises, yet still promoted hope. West-
erners acclaimed a treaty that obliged the USSR to
honor human rights; but Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
believed that the document still permitted actions such
as the invasion of Afghanistan.
By the late 1970s Western Europe had also devel-
oped a booming economy, which created a standard of
living comparable to that in the United States. Recov-
ery from the devastation of World War II had been
largely completed by the late 1950s, and thriving Euro-
pean economies began to catch up with the United
States during the 1960s. West Germany had become
the most prosperous country in Europe, with a GNP
larger than France or Britain. The economic miracle of
Ludwig Erhart and Konrad Adenauer created the fastest
growing economy in German history. The German
model of labor relations, in which labor, management,
the government, and public opinion shared a strong
consensus on supporting a welfare state and promising
job security in return for strike- and strife-free produc-
tion, resulted in a rapidly growing economy. German
unemployment fell so low that foreign guest workers
(Gastarbeiter) from Turkey and other Mediterranean
countries were needed to fill jobs. The German domes-
tic market absorbed most of this production during the
1960s, but Germany increased exports by 1,300 per-
cent during the 1970s. The other EEC states also began
exporting more goods. French agriculture prospered so
well that France became the world’s second largest food
exporter. By the end of the 1970s the European Union
had become a major economic competitor of the
United States. By 1990 GNP per capita in France
($16,000) and Germany ($18,500) neared that in
the United States ($19,800).
Widespread prosperity had two important conse-
quences in Western Europe: (1) it stimulated closer eco-
nomic unity, a trend that had been slowly progressing
for twenty-five years, and (2) it facilitated larger com-
mitments to the welfare state. For the first of these
trends, the mid-1970s were an important turning point.
The European Community (the EC—the association
that grew out of the EEC in 1967, tightening the link-
age of France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux
countries), was the highest degree of European eco-
nomic integration ever achieved. Negotiations to ex-Illustration 32.1
The Age of Détente.Willy Brandt,
the chancellor of West Germany, was
perhaps the most influential statesman
in launching the age of détente in the
early 1970s. Brandt repeatedly made
friendly overtures to the states of East-
ern Europe, especially to East Germany
and Poland—a policy known as Ostpoli-
tik.He not only negotiated treaties that
improved relations, but he also made a
series of symbolic gestures, as seen in
this photo, taken during a state visit
to Poland: Brandt is silently contemplat-
ing a monument to the victims of the
Warsaw ghetto, killed by Germans.