Word: brandts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...nearly two decades, the jutting jaw and ruggedly handsome features of Willy Brandt symbolized West Germany's rebirth from the ashes of the Third Reich. As the embattled mayor of West Berlin from 1957 to 1966. Brandt helped guide his divided city safely past a series of crises provoked by the Communist East. Later, as Chancellor of West Germany, he boldly initiated Ostpolitik, which eased tensions with the East and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Most memorable for Europeans was his 1970 pilgrimage to the Warsaw ghetto memorial, where he dropped to his knees in a dramatic expression...
...past five years, while Brandt's reputation abroad remained untarnished, the radiance of his image has dimmed in West Germany. It faded even further last week with the announcement that Brandt, 65, and his Norwegian-born second wife, Rut, 58, were "taking legal steps to dissolve their marriage by mutual consent." Straitlaced Germans were saddened by the breakup of Brandt's 30-year marriage, but not terribly surprised. Rut had stood at her husband's side through a host of personal and political crises, including several of his transient flings with other women. In an interview last...
...divorce was the latest in a series of misfortunes that have bedeviled Brandt since 1974, when a close personal aide, Günter Guillaume, was arrested as a Communist spy. Not only had Guillaume passed on NATO secrets to East Germany, but he had also sabotaged Brandt personally by collecting evidence of indiscretions in the Chancellor's private life. Brandt was forced to resign. Guillaume was later sentenced to 13 years in prison for espionage...
...hard drinker who often suffered bouts of melancholy, Brandt grew increasingly depressed. He kept the title of chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but the popularity of his successor, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, further eroded Brandt's power within his own party. Still, he remained active as SPD chairman and president of the Socialist International until he suffered a heart attack...
Rumors of marital troubles surfaced when Brandt went to a private clinic in the south of France, while his wife stayed behind in Bonn. Accompanying Brandt was Seebacher, an ardent SPD activist who had written speeches for him and acted as his appointments secretary until his illness. At the French clinic where Brandt was recuperating, she helped him to stop smoking and to limit his drinking to one glass of wine a day. When Brandt reappeared in West Germany two weeks ago, looking more fit and cheerful, he told friends he intended to marry Seebacher. Said he: "I am determined...