Chapter 11 examines the steps needed to rescue Brandt’s Ostpolitik from its near-demise at the hands of a polarized Bundestag. Following a rash of back-channel diplomacy with Egon Bahr at the center, France, Britain, the United States, and the USSR finally reached a Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin; it guaranteed access to the city but failed to clarify West Berlin’s relationship to the Federal Republic, leaving room for future disputes. Brandt’s surprise visit to Brezhnev in Crimea deepened the relationship between these two leaders, but created suspicion in the Western camp that did not ease even with Brandt’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize. Rainer Barzel, leader of the CDU/CSU, insisted that the Warsaw and Moscow treaties must be renegotiated; he maneuvered in the Bundestag to overthrow the Brandt government. Outside observers feared that the entire course of détente was in jeopardy. Barzel’s bid for power failed, but he continued to seek concessions from the Soviets; the GDR did briefly take a softer line. The treaties passed without CDU/CSU support, and Brandt went on to win a decisive victory in the 1972 elections, affirming public backing for Ostpolitik.

In Chapter 8, focus turns to the handiwork of Brandt’s Ostpolitik – the negotiation of the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties in 1970. Egon Bahr’s bargaining strategy in Moscow was hasty and dilettantish; he did not worry overly about the contents of the treaty with the USSR, since he saw the agreement as only one component of an interlocking series of treaties. When the substance of the “Bahr Paper” was leaked, his secretive approach and his failure to address the Berlin problem further polarized German politics. The CDU/CSU vehemently rejected Brandt’s policies and members of the coalition parties began to defect. The external resonance of German Ostpolitik was nonetheless enormous. Brandt’s meeting with Brezhnev in Moscow alerted the world to the ebbing of Soviet hostility, resulting in greater maneuvering room for Bonn. When the chancellor kneeled in Warsaw, it appeared to signal German acceptance of the moral weight of Nazi crimes. A closer view shows, however, that the Federal Republic was extremely hard-nosed toward Poland; it demanded emigration rights for ethnic Germans while refusing to offer restitution payments. Brandt’s Germany looked forward, not backward.

Chapter 7 depicts a severe cleft in German politics as the Grand Coalition headed toward Bundestag elections in September 1969. Chancellor Kiesinger tried to coax the USSR into softening its enmity toward West Germany, but his hard-line stances on Berlin and the NPT stalled progress. Egon Bahr, Willy Brandt’s controversial aide, urged the SPD to cast aside old ballast: Bonn should sign the NPT, stop isolating the GDR, and renounce territorial claims in Poland. Economy minister Karl Schiller, the SPD’s central figure in the 1969 campaign, insisted that the German mark should be revalued. Kiesinger’s CDU/CSU rejected all of these proposals, and the coalition cabinet proved incapable of decisive action for most of the year – causing economic havoc across Western Europe. The SPD–FDP coalition won the election only narrowly, but as Chancellor Willy Brandt acted decisively to revalue the mark and pledge German support for “deepening” and “widening” Europe at an EC summit in The Hague. On Ostpolitik, Brandt signed the NPT and authorized soundings with the USSR and Poland; but Bahr grew impatient and angled to open a back channel to the Kremlin.