Chapter 7 - Brandt's Ostpolitik and the Soviet response: 1969–1970

Summary

In my opinion, Germany will not rise again and will not be able to maintain herself if she fails to find an adjustment with the East as well as the West, regardless of an East or West orientation.

Willy Brandt, 1949

The Soviet–West German Renunciation of Force Treaty of August 1970 symbolized the waning of the cold war, the settlement of the unfinished postwar agenda, the inauguration of the detente era, and the achievement of a modus vivendi on the German question. Twenty-five years after the German surrender in the Second World War, the USSR and the FRG had accepted the reality of the European boundaries. However, whereas Moscow wanted a ratification of the status quo in order to make it more permanent, Bonn agreed to accept the status quo in order ultimately to change it. Previous German Ostpolitiks were pursued within the framework of Germany's looking to the United States to define its policy. Under Chancellor Willy Brandt, however, Ostpolitik became more autonomous. After 1969 the United States ceased to determine the parameters of the German–Soviet relationship, and this altered the Kremlin's perceptions of the Federal Republic and the environment in which linkage could be used. The Soviet–West German rapprochement was possible because both sides modified their previous policies, although undoubtedly Bonn reoriented its policy more than did Moscow. Brandt's Ostpolitik represented a German acceptance of Soviet proposals. Moscow appreciated that because Bonn had redirected its Ostpolitik, it would be possible to permit some rapprochement between Eastern Europe and West Germany while maintaining Soviet control and minimizing societal instability that might result from an easing of tensions in Eastern Europe.