page_title: Willy Brandt
section_title: Foreign policy
hierarchical_section_title: Willy Brandt / Chancellor / Foreign policy
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Brandt gibt Abendessen für Pompidou auf Schloß Gymnich
context_page_description: Willy Brandt was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1964 to 1987 and served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1969 to 1974. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his efforts to strengthen cooperation in western Europe through the EEC and to achieve reconciliation between West Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe. He was the first Social Democrat chancellor since 1930.
  Fleeing to Norway and then Sweden during the Nazi regime and working as a left-wing journalist, he took the name Willy Brandt as a pseudonym to avoid detection by Nazi agents, and then formally adopted the name in 1948. Brandt was originally considered one of the leaders of the right wing of the SPD, and earned initial fame as Governing Mayor of West Berlin. He served as Foreign Minister and as Vice Chancellor in Kurt Georg Kiesinger's cabinet, and became chancellor in 1969. As chancellor, he maintained West Germany's close alignment with the United States and focused on strengthening European integration in western Europe, while launching the new policy of Ostpolitik aimed at improving relations with Eastern Europe.
context_section_description: As chancellor, Brandt developed his Neue Ostpolitik (New Eastern Policy) by stages. Brandt was active in creating a degree of rapprochement with East Germany, and also in improving relations with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern Bloc (communist) countries.
  Brandt introduced his Ostpolitik gradually starting in 1967 with the establishment of diplomatic relations with Romania and making a trade agreement with Czechoslovakia. In 1968 he restored diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia. However the August 1968, Kremlin-controlled invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact was a profound disappointment. Brandt condemned the invasion and put Ostpolitik on hold while he negotiated a coalition with the Free Democrats. In late 1969 he indicated his readiness to meet with East German leadership on the basis of equality, without preconditions. He also expressed an eagerness to meet with the USSR and Poland to resolve frontier questions that had remained unsettled since 1945. Brandt met with the East German premier Willi Stoph in 1970. Brandt made a six-point proposal that would involve two separate German states that respected each other's territorial integrity and settle disputes peacefully. They would cooperate as neighbors and the rights of the Four Powers in Berlin would be respected by both of them, and finally that the situation around Berlin would be improved. No agreements were reached at first but talks continued. In 1970 Brandt signed a treaty with the Soviet Union which normalised relations and recognized existing national boundaries. The treaty with Poland in December 1970 accepted the current boundaries, which had long been in dispute. The Berlin question was settled in 1971 to West Germany's satisfaction.  The crowning step came with the Basic Treaty with East Germany.  The status quo was legitimized, relations were formalized on the basis of equality, and both Germanies joined the United Nations in 1973.
  Time magazine in the U.S. named Brandt as its Man of the Year for 1970, stating, "Willy Brandt is in effect seeking to end World War II by bringing about a fresh relationship between East and West. He is trying to accept the real situation in Europe, which has lasted for 25 years, but he is also trying to bring about a new reality in his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc." President Richard Nixon also was pushing détente on behalf of the United States. The Nixon policies amounted to co-opting Brandt's Ostpolitik.
  In 1971, Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Brandt negotiated a peace treaty with Poland, and agreements on the boundaries between the two countries, signifying the official and long-delayed end of World War II. Brandt negotiated parallel treaties and agreements with Czechoslovakia.
  In West Germany, Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik was extremely controversial, dividing the populace into two camps. One camp embraced all of the conservative parties, and most notably those West German residents and their families who had been driven west ("die Heimatvertriebenen") by Stalinist ethnic cleansing from Historical Eastern Germany, especially the part that was given to Poland as a consequence of the end of the war; western Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland); and the rest of Eastern Europe, such as in Romania. These groups of displaced Germans and their descendants loudly voiced their opposition to Brandt's policy, calling it "illegal" and "high treason".
  A different camp supported and encouraged Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik as aiming at "Wandel durch Annäherung" ("change through rapprochement"), encouraging change through a policy of engagement with the (communist) Eastern Bloc, rather than trying to isolate those countries diplomatically and commercially. Brandt's supporters claim that the policy did help to break down the Eastern Bloc's "siege mentality", and also helped to increase its awareness of the contradictions in its brand of Socialism/Communism, which – together with other events – eventua
caption: Willy Brandt with French president Georges Pompidou in Cologne, 3 July 1972.
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