Word: ostpolitiking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Behind the Warsaw gesture was Ostpolitik, the bold policy initiated by Brandt to seek reconciliation with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a stance that would be adopted by his successors in the Chancellor's office in Bonn. When Brandt became Chancellor in 1969, West Germany still refused to recognize the postwar boundaries in Eastern Europe or admit that Germany would remain divided for the foreseeable future. Brandt swiftly changed much of that, signing nonaggression pacts with the U.S.S.R. and Poland in 1970 and ^ renouncing claims to 40,000 sq. mi. of former German territory incorporated into Poland. He also...
...would do Kohl no harm to acknowledge a debt to a courageous and controversial predecessor. In 1969 Willy Brandt launched his Ostpolitik of reconciliation and rapprochement with the East. It was the first major sustained breakthrough of the cold war in Europe. Brandt went a long way toward allaying Soviet fears by signing a renunciation-of-force treaty with Moscow. He propitiated many of Germany's other former enemies by dropping to his knees in front of a memorial to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto. Most important, Brandt formally recognized the German Democratic Republic. He was criticized...
...officials used to grumble that Ostpolitik was a parochial policy that allowed the Soviets to cut separate deals with Bonn, drive a wedge into NATO and nudge the Federal Republic toward neutralism. When Brandt fell in 1974, more than one champagne bottle popped open in Washington...
Before the East German elections earlier this year, Brandt was a stump speaker and nostalgia figure at campaign rallies. His Social Democrats lost because the people of the G.D.R. have had their fill of anything that even sounds socialist. But they still owe much to the author of Ostpolitik. What Willy Brandt did two decades ago helped make it possible for them to elect a unity Chancellor this year...
...hall, where John F. Kennedy had proclaimed in 1963 that "Ich bin ein Berliner," West Berlin Mayor Walter Momper declared, "The Germans are the happiest people in the world today." Willy Brandt, who had been mayor when the Wall went up and later, as federal Chancellor, launched a Bonn Ostpolitik that focused on building contacts with the other Germany, proclaimed that "nothing will be the same again. The winds of change blowing through Europe have not avoided East Germany." Kohl, who drew some boos and whistles as well as cheers, repeated his offer to extend major financial and economic...