Word: bonne
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...accomplished without ceremony because the two governments refused to meet each other to open it. Bridge or no bridge, the truth is that the two Germanys seem to be drawing farther apart. For the first time since 1962, the Berlin Wall remained closed for Christmas this year: Bonn and Pankow could not agree on terms to renew their informal "humanitarian" pact to allow West Berliners to visit relatives living in the Communist sector of the city...
Impossible Price. One basic reason for the widened gap is the fact that East German Party Boss Walter Ulbricht has imposed an impossible price for any further dealings with Bonn. Whereas he was willing to negotiate before on an informal basis, Ulbricht now refuses to talk unless the West Germans decide to give official recognition to his regime-and, in the process, accept the principle that Germany must remain divided. There is another reason for the freeze: Pankow wants absolutely nothing to do with Herbert Wehner, Bonn's new Minister of All-German Affairs...
...complaints from the other side, Wehner believes he can make progress toward bringing the two Germanys closer together. He plans to offer easy credit to encourage "inner-German trade," hopes eventually to set up a formal economic federation. To soothe Eastern feelings a bit, he has already ended Bonn's long insistence on referring to Ulbricht's realm only as "Soviet-occupied Germany"; the new official euphemism, calculated to be less offensive, is simply "the other Germany...
Wehner has also scrapped one of the primary articles of faith of all previous Bonn governments: that West Germany will never, under any circumstances, recognize the Pankow Communists. He would be happy to establish relations with East Germany, Wehner allowed last week, under one condition: that "the present regime" hold "free and secret elections" to prove that it represents the 17 million people it rules. Communist states being what they are, that day is anything but imminent...
...undergoing a profound change. It was a reflection of the new mood sweeping Western Europe. Wearied by burdensome defense spending and convinced that the Soviet threat had all but vanished, the Continent's statesmen were seeking ways to eradicate the last lingering memories of the cold war. In Bonn last week, Europe's venerable integrationist, Jean Monnet, proposed that the Common Market set up joint institutions with the Soviet bloc. At last week's Western European Union meeting, Britain's former Defense Minister Duncan Sandys called for sharp reductions in the West's military strength...