under proportional representation has its critics,
but that a change of government was made possi-
ble had strengthened parliamentary government in
the Federal Republic.
The Federal Republic now had its Kennedy in
the charismatic Willy Brandt, a youthful 55-year-
old. He had played no part in Nazi Germany,
emigrating in 1933 when only nineteen years old.
He had lived in Norway and eventually fled to
Sweden. In 1947 he resumed his German citizen-
ship and ten years later became a courageous mayor
of Berlin, championing the rights of the Berliners.
His anti-totalitarian and anti-communist creden-
tials were impeccable. A long period of office
appeared to stretch before him especially after the
electoral victory in 1972, which for the first time
made the SPD the leading party. But his trust in a
refugee, Günter Guillaume, originally from East
Germany, who served on his staff and was privy to
state secrets, proved to be misplaced. Guillaume
turned out to be a spy and Brandt, accepting
responsibility, resigned in 1974. But it had been
a remarkable five years, not least for the new
direction he had given to the Federal Republic’s
relations with the Soviet Union and its Eastern
neighbours, a policy known as Ostpolitik.
Brandt contributed to the climate of detente
between East and West; he was not simply react-
ing to it. A quarter of a century after the end of
the war, he believed the time had come to nor-
malise relations in central Europe. The Federal
Republic’s refusal to recognise the ‘other’ German
state, the German Democratic Republic had pre-
vented all negotiations with the DDR which
might ease the hardships inflicted on families by
the division of Germany. In 1954 Adenauer had
solemnly pledged that the Federal Republic would
alter no frontiers by force of arms, but that pledge
had been given only to the Western allies. The
Federal Republic’s claim to speak for all Germans,
its refusal to recognise annexations by Poland east
of the Oder–Neisse (Silesia), the talk about ulti-
mate reunification and its strident hostility to
communism, all made it appear that the Federal
Republic was a threat to the security of the
German Democratic Republic and Poland if given
half a chance. Such views of an aggressive West
German state did not reflect reality either.
Periods of detente in East–West relations have
succeeded particular crises. The Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968 was followed by a decade
of diminishing tension and bridge-building.
Brandt’s policy of accepting the existing frontiers
of the Federal Republic and recognising the
German Democratic Republic required West
Germans to overcome a deep psychological
barrier and to sever certain links with the past.
But, eventually, the eastern territories were juridi-
cally abandoned and the legitimacy of the
German Democratic Republic accepted.
The foundation of the Ostpolitikrested on five
treaties. In August 1970, Brandt travelled to
Moscow, as he said, ‘to turn over a new page of
history’, and he called for an end to enmity and for
a partnership between the peoples of Eastern and
Western Europe. After signing the Soviet–German
treaty, he visited Warsaw in December 1970 to
conclude a Polish–German treaty. Television cam-
eras recorded for all the world to see Brandt’s act
of repentance, when as the federal chancellor he
spontaneously sank to his knees before the mem-
orial to the half million Jewish victims of the
Warsaw Ghetto. The gesture graphically symbol-
ised the new Germany and its acceptance of
responsibility for the Nazi past. A four-power
agreement over Berlin (September 1971), a treaty
1
THE GERMAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC 833
Bundestag elections, 1969 and 1972 (votes in millions)
CDU/CSU SPD FDP Extreme right wing
Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats Votes % Seats
1969 15.2 46.1 242 14.0 42.7 224 1.9 5.8 30 1.4 4.3 0
1972 16.8 44.8 225 17.2 45.9 230 3.1 8.4 41 0.2 0.6 0
1976 18.4 48.6 244 16.1 42.6 213 3.0 7.9 39 0.3 0.7 0
