BBC - History - Willy Brandt z Willy Brandt, May 1971 © Brandt was a German politician, and chancellor from 1969 to 1974. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1971. Willy Brandt was born Karl Herbert Frahm on 18 December 1913 in Lübeck, northern Germany. He became a socialist in the late 1920s. In 1933, he changed his name and fled to Norway to avoid arrest by the Nazis. After the German occupation of Norway in 1940, he escaped to Sweden where he lived until 1945. Brandt returned to Germany after World War Two. In 1948, he started his political career, holding various offices within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and becoming a member of the German parliament. Brandt first became well known outside Germany when he took the position of mayor of West Berlin, which he held from 1957 until 1966. This was a particularly tense time for the city with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

By the early 1960s, Brandt was the leading figure in the Social Democratic Party and its candidate for chancellor. He was unsuccessful in the 1961 and 1965 elections, but became vice chancellor and foreign minister in the coalition government of 1966. In 1969, Brandt was elected chancellor and retained the post in the general election of 1972. His main policy was that of 'Ostpolitik', as he tried to create closer ties between West and East Germany and improve relations with Poland and the Soviet Union. In Germany, Brandt's 'Ostpolitik' was controversial, but in 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work. In April 1974, one of Brandt's personal assistants was arrested for being an East German spy. Brandt took responsibility and resigned the following month. Brandt remained head of the SPD until 1987 and was honorary chairman until his death. He was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983.

In 1977, he was appointed chair of an international commission that produced the Brandt Report, calling for drastic changes in the international community's attitude to development in the Third World. In late 1989, Brandt was one of the first leaders on the left in German politics to publicly favour reunification of the two halves of Germany. Brandt died near Bonn on 8 October 1992. 1969-1974 - Willy Brandt Further Reading 1969-1974 - Willy Brandt In the West German Bundestag elections of September 1969, the CDU/CSU remained the largest political group, holding eighteen more seats than the SPD. With the help of the FDP, which had earlier supported the candidacy of the SPD minister of justice Gustav Heinemann for the federal presidency, Willy Brandt was able to form an SPD-FDP coalition government, with himself as federal chancellor. The SPD-FDP coalition lasted until late 1982 and was noted for its accomplishments in the area of foreign policy.

The formation of this new coalition forced the CDU/CSU into opposition for the first time in the history of West Germany. Willy Brandt became the first democratically elected Social Democrat to hold the chancellorship. Born in Lï¿½beck in 1913, Brandt first joined the SPD in 1930 and later joined a smaller leftist grouping, the Socialist Workers Party (Sozialistiche Arbeiterpartei--SAP). After Hitler came to power, Brandt emigrated to Norway, where he became a citizen and worked as a journalist. After Germany occupied Norway in 1940, he fled to Sweden. Brandt returned to Germany after the war as a news correspondent and later as a Norwegian diplomat in Berlin. After he had again assumed German citizenship, Brandt rejoined the SPD in 1947. He became mayor of Berlin in 1957 and was the SPD candidate for the chancellorship in 1961. In the late 1950s, Brandt was a principal architect of the SPD's rejection of its Marxist past and adoption of the Bad Godesburg Program, in which the party accepted the free-market principle.

The triumph of the CDU/CSU in the 1957 national elections and widespread and increasing prosperity made such a step necessary if the SPD were to win the electorate's favor. In 1964 Brandt became the chairman of the SPD. From 1966 to 1969, he served as minister for foreign affairs and vice chancellor in the Grand Coalition. When Brandt became chancellor in 1969, he proposed a new policy toward the communist states of Eastern Europe; this policy later became known as Ostpolitik (policy toward the East). In recognition of his efforts toward dï¿½tente in Europe, he received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1971. In the early 1970s, Brandt also engineered a package of treaties that normalized the FRG's relations with the Soviet Union and with Poland, the GDR, and other Soviet-bloc nations. He successfully withstood a vote of no-confidence in the Bundestag in April 1972 and won the Bundestag elections in November 1972 with an impressive relative majority of nearly 45 percent.

Brandt resigned in May 1974, shocked by the discovery that one of his personal assistants, Gï¿½nter Guillaume, was a spy for the GDR. In domestic policy, Brandt and his FDP coalition partners initiated legal reforms, including the passage of more liberal laws regarding divorce and abortion, the latter reform generating intense public discussion. Education reforms calling for new types of schools and for overhauling administration of the universities were only partially carried out. Brandt and his coalition partners were more successful in realizing their foreign policy goals than in achieving their domestic aims. NEWSLETTER Willy Brandt - New World Encyclopedia Willy Brandt Next (Wilmot Proviso) Willy Brandt in 1973 Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (December 18, 1913 – October 8, 1992), was a German politician, chancellor of West Germany (1969–1974) and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) (1964–1987).

Because resistance from the opposition kept much of Brandt's domestic program from being implemented, his most important legacy is the Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany , Poland , and the Soviet Union . This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971. The citation stated that "the ideal of peace" had been a "guiding star" to the chancellor throughout his active political career." [1] Brandt was forced to resign as chancellor in 1974 after it became known that one of his closest aides had been working for the East German secret service (Stasi). This became one of the biggest political scandals in postwar West German history. In retirement, he chaired the Brandt Commission, an independent enquiry into how to reduce the North-South divide, conserve the environment and build a world "in which sharing, justice and peace" prevails.

The subsequent report, "North-South: A Program for Survival" published in 1980 anticipated many and materially contributed toward the goal enshrined in the United Nations ' Millennium Development Goals [2] Even though his period as chancellor ended in controversy, Brandt continued to use his intellect and his passion for peace and justice to promote debate about North-South equity, making a very valuable and enduring contribution to thinking about development, economics and third-world debt. His commission enabled several distinguished out-of-office politicians, such as Edward Heath , to contribute from their experience to some of the most important issues of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and how to ensure planetary survival. Contents 12 Credits Because he had escaped from Nazi Germany and had no association with the Third Reich, Brandt was well placed to lead Germany's reconstruction as a economic power with a largely pacifist ethos and a willingness to submerge its national identity into a European one. [3] German reunification in 1990 owed much to Brandt’s policy of rapprochement with the East.

Early life and World War II Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in Lübeck, Germany to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg by the name of John Möller, whom Brandt never met. He became an apprentice at the shipbroker and ship's agent F. H. Bertling. He joined the "Socialist Youth" in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1930. He left the SPD to join the more left wing Socialist Workers Party (SAPD), which was allied to the POUM in Spain and the ILP in Britain. In 1933, using his connections with the port and its ships from the time he had been apprentice, he left Germany for Norway on a ship to escape Nazi persecution. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Willy Brandt to avoid detection by Nazi agents. In 1934, he took part in the founding of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, and was elected to its secretariat.

Brandt visited Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland. In 1937, during the Civil War , he worked in Spain as a journalist. In 1938, the German government revoked his citizenship, so he applied for Norwegian citizenship. In 1940, he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, but he was not identified because he wore a Norwegian uniform. On his release, he escaped to neutral Sweden . In August 1940, he became a Norwegian citizen, receiving his passport from the Norwegian embassy in Stockholm, where he lived until the end of the war. Brandt returned to Sweden to lecture on December 1, 1940, at Bommersvik College about the problems experienced by the social democrats in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries at the start of World War II . Mayor of West Berlin, foreign minister of West Germany Brandt with President John F. Kennedy , March 1961 In late 1946, Brandt returned to Berlin, working for the Norwegian government. In 1948, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Berlin.

He became a German citizen again and formally adopted his pseudonym as his legal name. Outspoken against the Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and against Khrushchev's 1958 proposal that Berlin receive the status of a "free city," he was considered to belong to the right wing of his party, an assessment that would later change. Brandt was supported by the powerful publisher Axel Springer. From October 3, 1957 to 1966, he was mayor of West Berlin, a particularly stressful time for the city with the construction of the Berlin Wall . Brandt became chairman of the SPD in 1964, a post he retained until 1987. Brandt was the SPD candidate for chancellor in 1961, but lost to Konrad Adenauer 's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In 1965, he ran again, and lost to the popular Ludwig Erhard. But Erhard's government was short-lived, and, in 1966, a grand coalition between the SPD and CDU was formed; Brandt became foreign minister and vice chancellor.

Chancellor of West Germany After the elections of 1969, again with Brandt as lead candidate, the SPD became stronger and after three weeks of negotiation formed a coalition government with the small liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP). Brandt was elected chancellor. Foreign policy As chancellor, Brandt gained more scope to develop his Ostpolitik. He was active in creating a degree of rapprochement with East Germany and in improving relations with the Soviet Union , Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries. A seminal moment came in December 1970 with the famous Warschauer Kniefall in which Brandt, apparently spontaneously, knelt down at the monument to victims of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising . The uprising occurred during the military occupation of Poland and the monument is to those killed by German troops who suppressed the uprising and deported remaining ghetto residents to concentration camps. Brandt was named TIME magazine's “Man of the Year” for 1970. In 1971 Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving relations with East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union.

In his Nobel Lecture, Brandt referred to the current conflict between India and Pakistan suggesting that what he had been able to achieve was "little enough" in the face if this new war. He continued: War must not be a means to achieve political ends. Wars must be eliminated, not merely limited. No national interest can today be isolated from collective responsibility for peace. This fact must be recognized in all foreign relations. As a means of achieving European and worldwide security, therefore, foreign policy must aim to reduce tensions and promote communication beyond frontiers. [4] Willy Brandt and Richard Nixon , December 29, 1971 In West Germany, Brandt's Ostpolitik was extremely controversial, dividing the populace into two camps: one side, most notably the victims of Stalinist ethnic cleansing from historical Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe, loudly voiced their opposition, calling the policy "illegal" and "high treason," while others applauded Brandt's move as aiming at "Wandel durch Annäherung" ("change through rapprochement," i.e., encouraging change through a policy of engagement rather than isolation).

Supporters of Brandt claim his Ostpolitik did help to break down the Eastern Bloc's siege mentality and increase the awareness of the contradictions in their brand of socialism , which—together with other events—eventually led to its downfall. Ostpolitik was strongly opposed by the conservative parties and many social democrats as well. Domestic policies Political and social changes of the 1960s West Germany in the late 1960s was shaken by student disturbances and a general 'change of the times' that not all Germans were willing to accept or approve. What had seemed a stable, peaceful nation, happy with its outcome of the "Wirtschaftswunder" ("economic miracle") turned out to be a deeply conservative, bourgeois, and insecure people with a lot of citizens unable to face their Nazi past. The younger generation, mostly students, took a very progressive stance toward Germany’s future and were a powerful voice against a way of life that they considered outdated and old-fashioned. Brandt wins over the students Brandt's predecessor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a member of the Nazi party. Brandt had been a victim of Nazi terror; no wider a gap could have existed between the two chancellors.

Unlike Brandt, Kiesinger was unable to understand the students' political demands. For him, they were nothing but "a shameful crowd of long-haired drop-outs who needed a bath and someone to discipline them." The students (with a sizeable number of intellectuals backing them up) turned their parents' values and virtues upside down and questioned the West German society in general, seeking social, legal and political reforms. On the domestic field, Brandt pursued exactly this—a course of social, legal and political reforms. In his first parliament speech after his election, Brandt signaled that he had comprehended what made the students go out and demonstrate against authority. In the speech he claimed his political course of reforms ending it with the famous summarizing words "Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen" ("Let's dare more democracy"). This made him—and the SPD, too—extremely popular among most students and other young West Germans who dreamed of a country quite different from the one their parents had built after the war. However, many of Brandt's reforms met the resistance of state governments (dominated by CDU/CSU). The spirit of reformist optimism was cut short by the 1973 Oil Crisis.

Brandt's domestic policy has been criticized of having caused many of West Germany's economic problems. Crisis in 1972 Because of these controversies, several members of his coalition switched sides. In May 1972, the opposition CDU believed it had the majority in the Bundestag (German parliament) and demanded a vote on a motion of no confidence (Misstrauensvotum). Had this motion passed, Rainer Barzel would have replaced Brandt as chancellor. To everyone's surprise, the motion failed. The margin was extremely narrow (two votes) and much later it was revealed that one or perhaps two members of the CDU had been paid off by the Stasi of East Germany to vote for Brandt. Though Brandt remained chancellor, he had lost his majority. Subsequent initiatives in the Bundestag, most notably on the budget, failed. Because of this stalemate, the Bundestag was dissolved and new elections were called. Brandt's Ostpolitik, as well as his reformist domestic policies, were popular with parts of the young generation and led his SPD party to its best-ever federal election result in late 1972.

During the 1972 campaign, many popular West German artists, intellectuals, writers, actors and professors supported Brandt and the SPD. Among them were Günter Grass , Walter Jens, and even the football (soccer) player Paul Breitner. Public endorsements of the SPD via advertisements —and, more recently, internet pages—have become a widespread phenomenon since then. To counter any notions about being sympathetic to communism or soft on left-wing extremists, Brandt implemented tough legislation that barred "radicals" from public service ("Radikalenerlass"). The Guillaume affair and Brandt's resignation Around 1973, West German security organizations received information that one of Brandt's personal assistants, Günter Guillaume, was a spy for East Germany. Brandt was asked to continue work as usual, and he agreed, even taking a private vacation with Guillaume. Guillaume was arrested on April 24, 1974, and the West German government blamed Brandt for having a spy in his party. At the same time, some revelations about Brandt's private life (he had had some short-lived affairs with prostitutes) appeared in newspapers. Brandt contemplated suicide and even drafted a suicide note.

He chose instead to accept responsibility for Guillaume, and resigned on May 7, 1974. Guillaume had been a spy for East Germany , supervised by Markus Wolf, head of the Main Intelligence Administration of the East German Ministry for State Security. Wolf stated after the reunification that the resignation of Brandt had never been intended, and that the affair had been one of the biggest mistakes of the East German secret service. This was led 1957-1989 by Erich Mielke, an old follower of Stalin and Beria. Brandt was succeeded as chancellor by the Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt , who, unlike Brandt, belonged to the right wing of his party. For the rest of his life, Brandt remained suspicious that his fellow social democrat and longtime rival Herbert Wehner had been scheming for his downfall, but evidence for this seems scant. The story of Brandt and Guillaume is told in the play Democracy by Michael Frayn. The play follows Brandt's career from his election as the first left-of-center chancellor in West Germany in 40 years to his downfall at the hands of his trusted assistant Guillaume.

The play examines Guillaume's dual identity as trusted personal assistant to the West German chancellor and Stasi spy, and Guillaume's conflict as his duty to Brandt's enemies clashes with his genuine love and admiration for the chancellor. Later life Willy Brandt speaking in Dortmund, 1987 After his term as chancellor, Brandt remained head of his party, the SPD, until 1987 and retained his seat in the Bundestag. Brandt was head of the Socialist International from 1976 to 1992, which he called a world party of peace, working to enlarge that organization beyond the borders of Europe. In 1977, he was appointed chair of the Independent Commission for International Developmental Issues, which produced a report, in 1980, calling for drastic changes in the world's attitude to development in the Third World. This became known as the Brandt Report. His continued interest in development issues are indicated by the title of his 1986 book, which links arms with hunger while the Centre for Global Negotiations has developed from his work, which is dedicated to promoting a global Marshall Plan type initiative.

The Centre also has links with the Network of Spiritual Progressives, a project of the Tikkun community. Tikkun is the Hebrew phrase for "repairing," as in tikkun olam (to repair the world). [5] In 1975, it was widely feared that Portugal would fall to communism; Brandt supported the Democratic Socialist Party of Mário Soares that won a major victory, thus keeping Portugal capitalist. He also supported Felipe González's newly legal socialist party in Spain after Franco 's death. In late 1989, Brandt became one of the first leftist leaders in West Germany to publicly favor reunification over some sort of two-state federation. His public statement "Now grows together what belongs together" was quoted frequently. One of Brandt's last public appearances was flying to Baghdad , to free some Western hostages held by Saddam Hussein , after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. He died of colon cancer at his home in Unkel, a town on the Rhine, and was given the first German state funeral since 1929. He was buried at the cemetery at Zehlendorf in Berlin .

Brandt was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983, and Honorary Chairman of the SPD from 1987 until his death in 1992. When the SPD moved its headquarters from Bonn back to Berlin in the mid-1990s, the new headquarters was named the "Willy Brandt Haus." Family From 1941 until 1948 Brandt was married to Anna Carlotta Thorkildsen (daughter of a Norwegian father and a German-American mother). They had a daughter, Nina (1940). After Brandt and Thorkildsen divorced in 1946, he married Norwegian Rut Hansen in 1948. Hansen and Brandt had three sons: Peter (1948), Lars (1951) and Matthias (1961). Today, Peter is a historian, Lars is a painter and Matthias is an actor. After 32 years of marriage, Brandt divorced Rut in 1980. On December 9, 1983, Brandt married Brigitte Seebacher (b. 1946).

Rut Brandt died in Berlin on July 28, 2006. Matthias as Günter Guillaume In 2003, Matthias Brandt took the part of Guillaume in the film Im Schatten der Macht (“In the Shadow of Power”) by German filmmaker Oliver Storz. The film deals with the Guillaume affair and Brandt's resignation. Matthias Brandt caused a minor controversy in Germany when it was publicized that he would take the part of the man who betrayed his father and made him resign in 1974. Earlier that year—when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation to Norway together—it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife “were typing mysterious things on type writers the whole night through.” Lars writing about his father In early 2006, Lars Brandt published a biography about his father called "Andenken" ("Remembrance"). The book has been the subject of some controversy. Some see it as a loving memory of a father-son-relationship. Others label the biography a ruthless statement of a son who still thinks he had never had a father who really loved him.

Notes ↑ What is the Global Marshall Plan? The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Retrieved June 16, 2007. References Works in English (selected) Brandt, Willy. People and Politics: The Years 1960-1975. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978. ISBN 978-0316106405 Brandt, Willy. In Exile; Essays, Reflections and Letters, 1933-1947. Philadelphia, P.A.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. ISBN 978-0812276428 Brandt, Willy. A Peace Policy for Europe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. ISBN 978-0030730405 Brandt, Willy. Arms and Hunger. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. ISBN 978-0394554464 Biographies Brandt, Lars. Andenken. München: C.

Hanser, 2006. ISBN 3446207104 (in German) Binder, David. The Other German: Willy Brandt's Life & Times. Washington: New Republic Book Co, 1975. ISBN 9780915220090 Merseburger, Peter. Willy Brandt. Stuttgart: Dt. Verl.-Anst., 2002. ISBN 978-3421053282 (in German) Marshall, Barbara. Willy Brandt: A Political Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0312164386 di Meola, Nestore. "Willy Brandt". Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro): Rubbettino, 1998. ISBN 978-8872847121 Prittie, Terence. Willy Brandt: Portrait of a Statesman. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.

ISBN 978-0805235616 Viola, Tom. Willy Brandt. World Leaders Past & Present. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. ISBN 978-0877545125 External links Ostpolitik: How East Germany Tried to Undermine Willy Brandt - SPIEGEL ONLINE Ostpolitik: How East Germany Tried to Undermine Willy Brandt Ostpolitik How East Germany Tried to Undermine Willy Brandt Newly analyzed documents suggest that the East German security service, the Stasi, sought to obstruct former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy toward Eastern Europe, or Ostpolitik. Until now the story went that East German spies wanted to help Brandt. Now it seems they feared him -- but were overruled by Moscow. DPA Willy Brandt in 1961, as mayor of West Berlin, inspecting a sector boundary some time before the East Germans began work on the Berlin Wall. Brandt would become a controversial chancellor of West Germany.

Feedback The Cold War had ended, the Berlin Wall had come down and German reunification was imminent when Markus Wolf , the former head of the Stasi and East Germany's spy chief, wrote a letter to former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. In the letter, Wolf told Brandt that he regretted "that the intelligence service of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was under my command, contributed to the extremely negative political events that led to your resignation in 1974." Brandt resigned from office after it was discovered that his aide, Günter Guillaume, was an East German spy. "Well, that doesn't help much now," the former chancellor, mellowed by age, is said to have remarked after reading Wolf's apology. Wolf's letter was another sleight-of-hand gesture in an obscure game that has puzzled historians for years. What role did intelligence services play during the era of Brandt's Ostpolitik? Support from East Berlin, or Moscow ? Ostpolitik was Brandt's particular form of détente, or de-escalation of Cold War tension.

As West Germany's new chancellor in 1969 -- a Social Democrat riding a generational mood of change -- he advocated dialogue with the Soviet bloc. His so-called "opening to the East" would ease two decades of intensifying rhetoric between Moscow and Washington. Fear of nuclear war was so keen in those days that the controversial stance earned Brandt a Nobel Peace Prize in 1971. There was, of course, a lot going on behind the scenes. Some West German politicians contacted representatives of the GDR, who worked for the Stasi, or even Soviet officials who worked for the Russian intelligence service, the KGB. East German intelligence had hundreds of spies in West Germany. Wolf's experts even bugged the house of Brandt's closest advisor, Egon Bahr. But what did the intelligence services do with this information? Only good things, if one is to believe Wolf's assertions up to his death in 2006. "My agency was responsible for the preparations for the policy of détente," he boasted. Wolf, whose espionage division was part of the Stasi, the domestic East German secret police, later became chief of the whole agency.

He was a native of the western state of Swabia, son of a Jewish communist father who moved to Moscow after the Nazis took power. He maintained that his spies provided East Berlin with evidence that the charismatic Brandt's intentions were serious. The Russian Détente Now Siegfried Suckut, an expert on the GDR, has analyzed previously unnoticed Stasi documents. They were written in 1969 and 1970, before meetings between the senior Stasi officials working for Minister of State Security Erich Mielke and their KGB counterparts. The meetings were sometimes held in Berlin, sometimes in Moscow. But the distribution of roles was always the same -- and it contradicts Wolf's version. According to these documents the East Germans used their propaganda skills to undermine Brandt. Dozens of pages contain accusations that Brandt wanted to "restore the power of the capitalist monopoly in the GDR," and that he sought to achieve a "political and ideological softening and degradation of the socialist nations." East German Socialists apparently feared that Brandt's policies would appeal to their Soviet comrades.

They repeatedly warned them "never to underestimate the growing dangers of social democracy and revisionism!" Even in 1970, while Bonn and Moscow negotiated a treaty to renounce the use of force in settling disputes, the Stasi was up in arms, according to the documents. The East Germans argued that the social-liberal government of West Germany was trying to "drive a wedge between the USSR and the GDR." The KGB, on the other hand, promoted détente. Yuri Andropov, the organizations's coolly calculating chairman, hoped to enlist Bonn's help in modernizing the backward Soviet Union. Andropov -- who would later become a champion of President Mikhail Gorbachev -- sent the first signal to Brandt that Moscow wanted to talk. Andropov proposed secret meetings between then-President Leonid Brezhnev and the German chancellor, which were arranged by a KGB official and Bahr, Brandt's advisor. This discreet exchange of views facilitated the ensuing talks. Ostpolitik as a Threat to East Germany What is so astonishing about the rediscovered documents is how self-confident the Stasi was in its criticism of the more powerful Soviets.

Notes Mielke used for a meeting with Andropov in the summer of 1970 included openly skeptical questions, like: "Is Brandt's demagoguery of peace and détente being correctly assessed in the USSR?" When supporters of Ostpolitik, like then-SPIEGEL publisher Rudolf Augstein and author Günter Grass, spoke at a symposium with Soviet representatives, the Stasi wrote caustically that it would be "interesting to discover the reasoning and objectives behind discussions with such softening specialists." The documents also refute the theory that GDR spies, according to the propaganda machine of the East German Communist Party, the SED, consistently operated as "scouts of peace." After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wolf even claimed that he and his staff had manipulated information from the West to prevent it from being used by East German hardliners in the SED. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, the documents indicate that the Stasi used its intelligence to paint a negative picture of Ostpolitik for the KGB.

Stasi officials cited several internal remarks made by the chancellor or his cabinet ministers to prove that they were trying to "roll up the GDR from behind" (Brandt) or force it "into a corner" (then Foreign Minister Walter Scheel). Questions About the Documents The documents, however, are analyses and speaking notes, not the minutes of meetings. If minutes were kept of the meetings, they were presumably destroyed. For this reason, it cannot be ruled out that Stasi employees wrote the documents only to cover their backs, in the intrigue-filled world of the intelligence services, so that no one could accuse them of lacking sufficient ideological toughness. The real talks with KGB leaders, in other words, could have taken a different course. According to the documents, at any rate, the KGB laid down the law at the end of 1970. By that time, Scheel and his Soviet counterpart, Andrei Gromyko, had signed the so-called Treaty of Moscow. West Germany concluded a similar agreement with Poland a few months later.

Andropov made it clear to the Stasi that it should "evaluate this in a positive way." Mielke then informed senior Stasi officers that West Germany's treaties with the East, which the Stasi had sharply criticized until recently, were in fact an "expression of the growing strength of the socialist countries." A 'Grotesque Situation' In this respect, it is not surprising that the Stasi bribed at least one member of the West German parliament, the Bundestag, a year later to ensure that a vote of no confidence against Brandt, supported by the conservative Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, would fail. (It did.) Based on the new documents, expert Suckut suspects that the East Germans were following orders from the KGB, because the East Germans' aversion to Brandt was "too great." According to a credible witness, the KGB generals responsible for East Germany had $1 million dollars in bribe money at their disposal. Suckut also cites a comment made by SED leader Erich Honecker a few days after the failed no-confidence vote.

The party leader found it a "grotesque situation" that the East Germans, of all people, "had to appear as the strongest backers in stabilizing the Brandt administration." Not surprisingly, Honecker was not saddened by Brandt's resignation after Guillaume was exposed. Only Wolf, as he claimed, was sorry to see Brandt step down from the chancellorship. Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan Article... Brandt - definition of Brandt by The Free Dictionary Brandt - definition of Brandt by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . Brandt (brănt, bränt), Willy Originally Karl Herbert Frahm (främ) 1913-1992. German political leader. He served as chancellor of West Germany (1969-1974) and won the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reduce tension between the East and the West. Brandt (brænt) n 1. (Biography) Bill, full name William Brandt. 1905–83, British photographer.

His photographic books include The English at Home (1936) and Perspectives of Nudes (1961) 2. (Biography) Georg (ˈɡeɪɔːɡ). 1694–1768, Swedish chemist, who isolated cobalt (1742) and exposed fraudulent alchemists 3. (Biography) Willy (ˈvɪli). 1913–92, German statesman; socialist chancellor of West Germany (1969–74); chairman of the Social Democratic party (1964–87). His policy of détente and reconciliation with E Europe brought him international acclaim. Nobel peace prize 1971 Brandt Willy, 1913–92, chancellor of West Germany 1969–74: Nobel peace prize 1971. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1. Brandt - German statesman who as chancellor of West Germany worked to reduce tensions with eastern Europe (1913-1992) Want to thank TFD for its existence?

Tell a friend about us , add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content . Link to this page: Willy Brandt References in classic literature ? Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt, and had a very peasant trip, indeed. View in context The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the time of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van Brandt. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a woman could desire; he was devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful affection for her father as the man to whom he owed his life. Van Brandt to say whether he really believed that he would be consulting his own happiness in marrying her on these terms. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation. Van Brandt waited, delicately and considerately, until the first violence of the girl's grief had worn itself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to console her. Van Brandt (even if I had heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind.

Question: Who was West German Chancellor from 1969 to 1974? Willy Brandt.
Answer: Willy Brandt