Ostpolitik

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The Erfurt summit in 1970 was the first meeting between a German Chancellor ( Willy Brandt , left) and a chairman of the GDR Council of Ministers ( Willi Stoph ).

As Ostpolitik in the narrower sense is the set up under the East-West conflict, on balance with the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries targeting foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany , starting with the government Willy Brandt and Walter Scheel called, from 1969 to 1989.

The New Ostpolitik describes in particular a policy of understanding and the associated implementation of the political principle of "change through rapprochement" laid down by Egon Bahr , Federal Minister for Special Tasks under Brandt between 1972 and 1974 , for dealing with the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic and the Eastern European ones Neighbore states. It describes the gradual overcoming of the status quo of the politics of both German states through the Eastern Treaties until the beginning of the collapse of the GDR in 1989.

prehistory

National Socialism

Exhibition “Planning and Construction in the East” in 1941.

In National Socialist Germany , the term “East” had no generally valid formulation. Rather, the term was kept open “ for all sorts of associations and connotations and was always defined only in a concrete context ”. The term was mostly used to refer to all areas of the former tsarist empire (excluding Finland , which is referred to as "Nordic" ), and occasionally also to the Eastern European Slavic areas (excluding the Baltic and Caucasus ), whereby the terms " Russia " or "Greater Russia" are often synonymous with these Territories and peoples was used. Overall, there was a pluralism of conceptions in the National Socialist “Ostpolitik” . Andreas Zellhuber referred to a study carried out by Klaus Hildebrand, in which he described a total of four major foreign policy positions within the NSDAP : 1. The concept of a “great solution to the East” that was developed by the “ Wilhelmine imperialists ” around Franz von Epp , Hjalmar Schacht and Hermann Goering had been represented; 2. Another concept of the “ revolutionary socialists ” of the “left” wing of the party around Joseph Goebbels , Gregor Strasser and Otto Strasser (→  National Socialism ); 3. then the concept of " radical - agrarian Artamanen " to Heinrich Himmler and Walther Darré and 4. The program of Adolf Hitler . Hildebrand described the role of the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg in this context as Hitler's "idea generator". Rosenberg was one of the leading foreign policy theorists of the NSDAP from the start. His early writings, especially those about the alleged dovetailing of Judaism and Bolshevism , made him " very quickly one of, if not the Eastern expert of the 'movement' ". In the 1920s and 1930s, however, the differences in perception of the East had no political weight. The goal, which in connection with ideas of geometric “ infinity ” constituted a common “Ostpolitik”, was “ utopian - irrational ” until the outbreak of the Second World War .

In ideological terms, Ostpolitik in the Nazi era generally took place on the basis of ethnic , anti-Semitic , anti-Bolshevik and racist ways of thinking in Germany. During the Second World War, in the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), with the assistance of Konrad Meyer, worked out a first version of the General Plan East , in which the National Socialist ways of thinking were “made more precise in a concrete scenario ”. In the later versions of the first draft, a policy of the “ Germanization ” of East Central Europe and population shifts in West and South Europe was concretized. In the course of the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, in addition to a military administration, a "civil administration" was set up in the occupied eastern territories, which was under the patronage of Alfred Rosenberg and the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMfdbO), which he directed. The RSHA, the Reich Ministry of Justice , the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Office worked in close cooperation with the RMfdbO . In April 1942, the General Plan East, which had been worked out by the RSHA until then , was subjected to a critical analysis by employees of the RMfdbO, in particular by Erhard Wetzel , whereby the goal of the colonization of Eastern Central Europe was met with “ unconditional approval ” by Wetzel . On the basis of the racial doctrine, the General Plan East provided that the proportion of the urban population in the colonization areas should be reduced considerably. In contrast, agricultural settlement should have priority. After the war events around Stalingrad , Himmler's interest in a final version of the General Plan East in particular waned, but work on it was intensified. Parallel to the systematic extermination policy against Jewish people and especially the Slavic population in Europe, Germans were settled in some areas of Eastern Europe on an experimental basis as part of the general settlement plan; a project that failed due to the events of the war and resistance from the local population.

East West conflict

With the collapse of National Socialism in 1945 and radical global changes in international politics , the racial and colonial policy that had been pursued until then came to an end. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation by the Allies in 1945 , the Federal Republic of Germany was founded on May 23, 1949, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on October 7, 1949 . From this point on, Germany was divided into two parts (→  German division ). As a result, a historically momentous tension set in between the two states, which has since been described, analyzed and discussed under the term “East-West conflict”. Up until German reunification in 1990, both parties to the conflict accused each other of pursuing “false political ideologies”, although the severity of this dispute was considerably reduced until reunification. From the Western perspective, up until then, primarily the targeted struggle against communism and the associated ideal of a central administration economy had been waged. And from the east - especially based on Marxist theories - primarily an ideological struggle against capitalism was waged. Against the background of this development, Ostpolitik required a special diplomatic skill on the part of both conflicting parties in the direction of mutual rapprochement. With the help of a " back channel ", direct communication between the leadership of the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union was established at the end of the 1960s.

As one of the many points of conflict, for example, the West German claim to put in the following years, the Federal Government out Germany as a whole to represent alone. However, this claim was only met temporarily. The GDR as a second German state criticized in West Germany and controversial among the victorious powers , but still existing, was increasingly recognized diplomatically by neutral countries and by states of the Third World .

Adenauer government

Already under Konrad Adenauer's government , the tense signs of West German Ostpolitik changed towards a policy of understanding . In 1955 the Federal Republic of Germany first established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and in 1958 concluded an economic and repatriation agreement with it . The Hallstein Doctrine , announced in 1955, excluded diplomatic relations with all states that recognized the GDR.

Towards the end of the Adenauer era, the Chancellor attempted a first approach to a new Ostpolitik in March 1958: without paying any attention to the public, he sounded out to Ambassador Andrei Andreevich Smirnov whether the Soviet Union could grant the GDR the status of Austria, i.e. free self-determination at international level guaranteed neutrality . There was no question of the possibility of reunification, Adenauer emphasized that he was not viewing the matter from the standpoint of German nationalism . Obviously he was ready to put the reunification requirement of the Basic Law aside if only the living conditions of the GDR citizens could be improved. The attempt was unsuccessful. Shortly afterwards, however, new formative conflicts set in. These included above all the Berlin crisis since 1958, the building of the wall by the GDR in 1961 and the Cuba crisis of 1962. At the same time, the superpowers began to become more aware of the problem of nuclear policy and the nuclear stalemate that had already been achieved in those years a. Since 1962, this in turn led to a continuation of a cautious policy of establishing contact with the Eastern European countries of Romania , Bulgaria , Hungary and Poland , in particular through the establishment of German trade missions . These states were seen as suitable negotiating partners because they sought political independence from the Soviet Union. The company failed because the special problems associated with the GDR were completely excluded from this discourse, but also because the contacts, with regard to the Hallstein Doctrine and strong forces from the Adenauer cabinet, remained below the level of diplomatic relations. The result was a defensive reaction from the entire Eastern Bloc .

New Ostpolitik

Memorial plaque on the house at Pücklerstrasse 42, in Berlin-Dahlem

Favoring factors

While the policy of mutual understanding in the 1960s was largely characterized by a lack of mobility and willingness to communicate on the part of both the western and eastern blocs, at the end of this decade a number of international political developments favored the resumption of diplomatic talks. These favorable factors include, above all, the fact that the Soviet Union was able to stabilize its own bloc of states with the invasion of the ČSSR (“Prague Spring”) in 1968, the worsening of the Sino-Soviet conflict through the transfer of Soviet troops to the Chinese border, and Soviet needs of western technology and the import of appropriate technology to modernize one's own economy . Against this background, what is widely known as the “new Ostpolitik” emerged.

The new policy concept

As early as July 1963, Egon Bahr and Willy Brandt pleaded for change through rapprochement at lectures at the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing . The new relaxation concept emerged in the cabinet of Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt . What was special about this political concept was that a specific consensus was not only taken into account in the short or medium term, but a long-term rapprochement, if not a convergence of the social systems of East and West, was sought. The political instrument of this policy was the concentration on common interests , which is why in particular global peacekeeping (nuclear risk reduction), general humanitarian relief and the possibility of mutual acceptance of the territorial and power-political status quo with regard to the results of the Yalta conference as a - more or less legitimate - Fact came into the focus of both conflict parties.

Specification of the concept

Numerous measures were planned on the basis of the new, common political concept, above all the continuation of talks (political, economic and social), the overcoming of the division of Germany and the development of a pan-European peace order . Towards the end of 1969 these ideas became concrete by adding

The negotiated fundamental political decisions were accordingly recorded towards the end of 1970 in the Moscow Treaty and the Warsaw Treaty . At first, the New Ostpolitik was viewed with skepticism, especially by the CDU / CSU , which saw in politics a contrast to the Western connection and integration promoted by Adenauer. The opposition at the time then fought the contract policy of the government coalition consisting of the SPD and FDP on the grounds that performance and consideration were not balanced. Later, all parties represented in the German Bundestag viewed the concluded treaties as the basis of their German and Ostpolitik.

Bilateral phase 1971–1973

Further bilateral concretizations of the new Ostpolitik became apparent in the years 1971 to 1973 after the symbolic, but still unsuccessful, Erfurt and Kassel summits in 1970, initially with regard to intra-German relations. After the political overthrow of Walter Ulbricht, the Chairman of the State Council of the GDR , the Four Power Agreement on Berlin was concluded on September 3, 1971 . Thus, for the first time since 1945, the GDR and the Soviet Union guaranteed unhindered transit traffic for German citizens by road, rail and water to Berlin, as well as the existing connections between the Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin. A number of other Eastern treaties followed , such as B. At the end of 1972 the Basic Treaty , in which the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR was redefined, and at the end of 1973 the German-Czechoslovakian Treaty (Prague Treaty), with which the contracting parties void the outdated Munich Agreement of 1938 agreed the assignment of the Sudetenland .

Signing of the Helsinki Final Act with Helmut Schmidt , Erich Honecker , Gerald Ford and Bruno Kreisky , August 1975.

The negotiations in the course of the Four Power Agreement had encouraged the Germans in East and West to relax relations between the two parts of Germany. On the basis of these generally positive experiences, the policy of détente could be continued as planned. However, this did not change the fact that the inner-German border , especially the Berlin Wall , was further expanded and perfected. The GDR shooting order remained in place, and the Stasi continued to cover up deaths from the wall in order to avoid a political escalation.

The bilateral phase was followed by a multilateral phase, which found expression in the MBFR negotiations (1973–1989) and the CSCE conferences (1973–1990). At the same time, with the change of the social-liberal coalition of Willy Brandt and Walter Scheel to the new cabinet with Helmut Schmidt and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the political euphoria associated with the bilateral phase of Ostpolitik came to an end.

Eastern treaties: an overview

Eastern treaties 1963–1973

The principles laid down in the Eastern Treaties are based on international law . Due to the agreements on mutual renunciation of force contained in these contracts, they are sometimes also referred to as contracts of renunciation of force .

The Federal Constitutional Court rejected as inadmissible complaints alleging a violation of Basic Law Articles 6 , 14 and 16 by the consent laws to the Eastern Treaties ( BVerfGE , NJW 1975, 2287).

The Federal Republic of Germany, like the German Democratic Republic, joined the United Nations (UN) as the 133rd and 134th member state on September 18, 1973 . With its dissolution due to accession to the Federal Republic , the GDR's UN membership ended on October 3, 1990.

German reunification

After the collapse and dissolution of the GDR and the end of the Cold War , work began on a concept for rebuilding the East . Since then, this political project has been linked to the goal of achieving self-sustaining economic growth in the new federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany in order to reduce transfer dependency and reduce high unemployment. It should be considered completed when living conditions in East Germany have risen to the level in the West. With it, the results of the German division should be overcome and the consequences of German unity should be absorbed. However, in the discourse associated with these political developments, the term “Ostpolitik” was hardly used in the following years, since the political achievements refer to the entire federal territory. Unofficial official designations, such as the term “ Aufbau-Ost-Minister ”, are still used today.

Impact history

National

In the course of the New Ostpolitik, which began symbolically with the Erfurt summit in 1970, the Hallstein Doctrine , which had previously applied to foreign policy , was abandoned. The Federal Republic remains identical to the German Reich under international law and is therefore not a legal successor ; likewise the view of federal German state organs (including the Federal Constitutional Court ) that only through the Federal Republic of the constitutional continuity will be maintained or continued. The GDR is now recognized under constitutional law, but from the perspective of the Federal Republic of Germany it will still remain a part of (all) Germany and is therefore not a separate new German state under international law .

International

The term Ostpolitik found its way into numerous other languages as a German loan word . In South Korea, President Roh Tae-woo used the German term Nordpolitik to describe his new policy towards North Korea.

See also

literature

The German Imperium

National Socialism

  • Klaus Hildebrand : German Foreign Policy 1933–1945. Calculus or dogma? Stuttgart [u. a.] 1971. (3rd, revised edition, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58698-5 .)
  • Andreas Hillgruber : The "Final Solution" and the German Eastern Empire as the core of the racial ideological program of National Socialism . In: VfZ 20 (1972) (PDF; 5.6 MB), pp. 133–153.
  • Wolfgang Michalka : The National Socialist foreign policy under the sign of a "conceptional pluralism" . Questions and research tasks. In: Manfred Funke (ed.): Hitler, Germany and the Powers . Materials on the foreign policy of the Third Reich. Kronberg / Ts. 1978, ISBN 3-7610-7213-9 , pp. 46-62.
  • Rolf-Dieter Müller : Hitler's Eastern War and German Settlement Policy . The cooperation between the armed forces, business and SS. Frankfurt / M. 1991, ISBN 3-596-10573-0 .
  • Hans-Erich Volkmann : The image of Russia in the Third Reich . Cologne / Weimar / Vienna / Böhlau 1994. (2nd edition 1994, ISBN 3-412-15793-7 .)

Federal Republic of Germany

  • Jürgen Bellers : German Ostpolitik 1970–1990 . Discussion papers from the subject of political science at the University of GH Siegen. Univ. Siegen 2003. DNB
  • Carol Fink, Bernd Schaefer: Ostpolitik, 1969–1974, European and Global Responses , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [u. a.] 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-89970-3 .
  • Andreas Grau: Against the current: The reaction of the CDU / CSU opposition to the East and Germany policy of the social-liberal coalition 1969–1973 . Droste 2005, ISBN 978-3-7700-1897-0 .
  • Gyuzel Muratova: “Why did we shoot each other?” Studies on the image of Russia in German prose literature from Stalingrad to the FRG's new Ostpolitik (1943–1975). Diss. Univ. Duisburg-Essen, 2005. DNB
  • Karsten Rudolph : Economic Diplomacy in the Cold War. The Ostpolitik of West German large-scale industry 1945–1991. Frankfurt am Main / New York 2004, ISBN 3-593-37494-3 .
  • Wolfgang Schmidt: The roots of relaxation. The conceptual origin of Willy Brandt's East and Germany policy in the 1950s . In: VfZ 51 (2003) (PDF; 6 MB), pp. 521–563.
  • Christine Simon: Erhard Eppler's Germany and Ostpolitik . Diss., Bonn 2004. Available online: Electronic resource DNB
  • Katarzyna Stoklosa: Poland and the German Ostpolitik 1945-1990 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-30000-8 .

Web links

Commons : Ostpolitik  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herder Lexicon Politics . With around 2000 keywords and over 140 graphics and tables, special edition for the State Center for Civic Education North Rhine-Westphalia, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1993, p. 157.
  2. ↑ a b Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a disaster ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Vögel, Munich 2006, p. 2 (note 3), ISBN 3-89650-213-1 .
  3. ↑ a b Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ...". The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Munich 2006, p. 48.
  4. ↑ a b Wolfgang Michalka: National Socialist foreign policy under the sign of a "conception-pluralism" . In: Manfred Funke (ed.): Hitler, Germany and the Powers . Pp. 46-62.
  5. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ...". The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Munich 2006, p. 62.
  6. ↑ Hans-Adolf Jacobson: War in Weltanschauung and Practice . In: Karl-Dietrich Bracher u. a .: National Socialist dictatorship 1933–1945. Bonn 1986, pp. 427-439; Hermann Graml: The National Socialist War . In: Norbert Frei u. a .: The National Socialist War. Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 11-31; Jörg Stange: On the legitimation of violence within the National Socialist ideology . Frankfurt am Main 1987.
  7. ↑ Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is driving a catastrophe ...". The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Munich 2006, p. 52.
  8. ↑ a b Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . Saur, Munich 1994, pp. V f., ISBN 3-598-23224-1 .
  9. ↑ Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . Saur, Munich 1994, p. VI f.
  10. ↑ Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . Saur, Munich 1994, p. IX.
  11. ↑ Czeslaw Madajczyk (Ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan . Saur, Munich 1994, p. XI.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Wichard Woyke : Concise dictionary of international politics . License issue for the Federal Agency for Civic Education . 5th, updated and revised. Ed., Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-8252-0702-1 .
  13. ^ Henning Koehler: Adenauer. A political biography. Propylaen, Berlin 1994, pp. 251-264, citations on pp. 991-995.
  14. ^ Friedrich Ebert Foundation
  15. ↑ From 28 to 30 November 1967 lingered Egon Franke , Leo Bauer and Fried Wesemann to secret talks with politicians of the Italian Communist Party in Rome, including Enrico Berlinguer and the head of the Central Committee Section for International Policy, Carlo Galluzzi , yielding himself In the preparation of the new Ostpolitik, he hoped to improve contacts with the SED rulers. Cf. Nikolaus Dörr: The Red Danger: Italian Eurocommunism as a Security Policy Challenge for the USA and West Germany 1969-1979 (Zeithistorische Studien, 58). Böhlau, Cologne 2017, p. 207; and Stefanie Waske: More liaison than control: The control of the BND by parliament. 2009, p. 149; Uwe Ritzer and Willi Winkler: hunters, gatherers, bird lovers - a look into the shadowy realm of the infamous BND boss Reinhard Gehlen , Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 2, 2017.
  16. ^ Declaration by the German Federal Government of October 28, 1969.
  17. ↑ Dieter Bingen , Eastern contracts , in: Werner Weidenfeld , Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.), Handbook of German Unity 1949–1989–1999 , updated new edition, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1999, ISBN 3-593-36240-6 , pp. 596-606 ( limited preview ).
  18. ↑ Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic on Transport Issues of May 26, 1972 ( Memento of the original of February 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ddr-geschichte.de
  19. ^ Bernhard Neugebauer: The United Nations and the two German states - (A "true story" and memory) , Association for International Politics and International Law. V. Berlin (VIP) . Dr. Bernhard Neugebauer is a retired ambassador. D. and was in the diplomatic service in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the GDR from 1953 to 1990 and deputy to the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1978 to 1990.
  20. ↑ Review