WILLY BRANDT’S "OSTPOLITIK’’ IN THE CONTEXT OF ECONOMIC COOPERATION BETWEEN THE FRG AND THE USSR IN 1963-1973
The article demonstrated that the formally similar positions of the Christian Democrat Gerhard Schroeder and the social democrat Willy Brandt on eastern policy issues proved, under closer scrutiny, to be quite different. Therefore it was no coincidence that Brandt and his press secretary Egon Bahr referred to it as the “new eastern policy” (neue Ostpolitik): it determined the new format for the dialog with the countries of the so-called eastern block led by the Soviet Union. The difference in Schroeder’s and Brandt’s positions was becoming more and more evident beginning from the end of 1969, when Brandt who already held the position of the Federal Chancellor dramatically accelerated the efforts towards its implementation. A conclusion is drawn that it was because of the constructive positions of Willy Brandt and Leonid Brezhnev that during the relatively short period - from 1970 to 1973 - a number of “eastern treaties’’ (Ostverträge) had been signed, or the agreements on renunciation of violence (Gewaltverzichtsverträge). The Brandt - Brezhnev close dialog factor was a prologue to deescalation in international relations. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 was the logical continuation of this policy.