Word: spitzbart
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...obstructionist tactics, which hampered Soviet attempts to capitalize on Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik in order to secure Russia's western flank. Wolfgang Leonhard, a visiting professor at Yale and former ranking East German ideologue, who knows both Ulbricht and Honecker, leans toward the theory that old "Spitzbart" (meaning pointed beard) was nudged. Leonhard, a former aide of Ulbricht's, notes that the Soviet press has recently slighted Ulbricht to an astonishing degree. An article on the 25th anniversary of the founding of the East German party in Kommunist, the leading Soviet ideological journal, totally ignored Ulbricht...
Security Gambit. As expected, Brandt said no to Ulbricht's demands, but he adroitly batted the ball back into the old Spitzbart's court. He refused to enter into talks on recognition on the grounds that while East Germany may be a separate state, it "can never be a foreign country for us." At the same time, Brandt offered to negotiate a renunciation-of-force treaty with East Germany, similar to one already being discussed by the Soviets and West Germans in Moscow. In Warsaw later this month, the Poles and West Germans will start talks...