Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference

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The Geneva Foreign Ministers' Conference was the second meeting of the Four Powers in 1959 in Geneva . The first meeting of foreign ministers, the Geneva Summit Conference , previously took place in Geneva in 1955. It was the last international conference that dealt with Germany . It was postponed without result because no agreement was reached on Berlin .

course

In 1959, the foreign ministers of the USA , the Soviet Union , Great Britain and France met to discuss the German problem intensively in Geneva . The US representative was Christian A. Herter , the Soviet Union Andrei A. Gromyko , Great Britain was represented by Selwyn Lloyd , France by Maurice Couve de Murville . The Federal Republic of Germany , represented by Heinrich von Brentano , Wilhelm Grewe , Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz , and the German Democratic Republic , represented by Lothar Bolz , attended the conference as observers.

In two rounds of meetings from May 11 to June 20 and July 13 to August 5, 1959, the Western Allies presented a peace plan named after the American Secretary of State, the Herter Plan . It was the last joint proposal by the Western Allies for the reunification of Germany .

meaning

A dialogue began with the Geneva Foreign Ministers' Conference in 1959, which was continued during the visit of Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev to the USA from September 15 to 28, 1959. An agreement was reached between Khrushchev and US President Eisenhower on the unlimited resumption of talks on the Berlin question . In addition, Eisenhower, trusting the eventual victory of goodwill, agreed to the so-called Paris Summit Conference in May 1960. However, this summit conference on May 16, 1960 in the Elysée Palace in Paris failed. In practice, the reunification problem had already been put on hold at the Geneva Foreign Ministers' Conference.

literature

  • Conferences and contracts. Contract Ploetz. Handbook of historically significant meetings and agreements. Part II. Volume 4 B: Most recent times 1959–1963. Edited by Helmuth KG Rönnefahrth and Heinrich Euler with the assistance of Johanna Schomerus. Würzburg: AG Ploetz Verlag, 1963, pp. 1-6.