Birth defect theory

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The so-called birth defect theory is a doctrine of German foreign policy that emerged in the mid-1960s in the grand coalition under Kurt Georg Kiesinger . It turned against the Hallstein doctrine that had prevailed until then .

The Hallstein Doctrine had obliged the Federal Republic since 1955 to break off diplomatic relations with any country that entered into diplomatic relations with the German Democratic Republic . The aim was to isolate the GDR from foreign policy.

It quickly became apparent that such an approach was not sustainable in the long run. For this reason, the East German Foreign Office experts developed the birth defect theory, which conceded that the satellite states of the Soviet Union did not enter into relations with the GDR voluntarily, but under Soviet pressure. This theory differentiated between states that recognized the GDR between 1949 and 1955 and those that did so later. Only the second group had a choice between the two German areas and should therefore be treated according to the Hallstein Doctrine. Recognition of the GDR was practically imposed on the states of the Eastern Bloc to consolidate the political system of Eastern Europe after the Second World War ; this is to be seen as a kind of “birth defect” that has to be accepted.