UN General Assembly
1961

33. As for the question of the German people's right to self-determination, which some quarters like to raise in an apparent desire to reduce the whole problem to that issue, I can state without hesitation that we favour self-determination for all peoples, and consequently for the German people; but we would desire that those raising the question should also favour a consistent application of this principle on all continents. In the case of Germany, however, and if the problem at issue is primarily that of the country's reunification, certain facts cannot and must not be ignored. The fact of two German States stemmed from the Second World War, and this situation has been maintained as a result of a policy determined by the great Powers and by the state of their mutual relations. Moreover, the question of self-determination for the German people cannot be raised separately from that of European security. Germany has been the aggressor in two world wars..