Willy Brandt

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Willy Brandt (1980)
Willy Brandt's signature

Willy Brandt (born December 18, 1913 in Lübeck as Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm ; † October 8, 1992 in Unkel ) was the fourth Federal Chancellor of Germany from 1969 to 1974 as head of government of a social-liberal coalition of the SPD and FDP . Before that, he had held the office of Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor in the Kiesinger cabinet from 1966 to 1969 during the first grand coalition . From 1957 until his entry into the federal government he was Governing Mayor of Berlin .

From 1964 to 1987 Brandt was SPD party chairman and from 1976 to 1992 president of the Socialist International .

Under the motto change through rapprochement Brandt was as chancellor involved in the by the end of the 1960s Hallstein Doctrine aligned foreign policy of West Germany and led with his new Ostpolitik a turning point in the political and confrontational climate of the Cold War one. With the Eastern Treaties he began a course of relaxation and reconciliation with the Soviet Union , the GDR , Poland ( Warsaw kneeled ) and the other Eastern Bloc countries . For this policy Brandt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 .

Childhood and youth

Brandt's birthplace on Meierstrasse in Lübeck (2013)

family

Willy Brandt was born as Herbert Frahm on December 18, 1913 in the Lübeck suburb of St. Lorenz-Süd . Brandt's birth was illegitimate . His mother was Martha Frahm , born out of wedlock . Ewert (1894–1969), a saleswoman at the Lübeck consumer association . Brandt's father was the Hamburg teacher John Heinrich Möller (1887-1958), who taught temporarily at a secondary school in Lübeck in 1912 and 1913. Martha Frahm did not mention the name of the child's father when the birth of her son Herbert was registered with the registry office. On February 26, 1914 Martha Frahm had her son baptized in Pastorate II of the Evangelical Church of St. Lorenz in Lübeck; children born out of wedlock were not allowed to be baptized in the parish church.

Brandt never got to know his biological father personally, although he had known his identity since 1947. From childhood on, Brandt had a distant, hypothermic relationship with his mother, who is described as overwhelmed. In retrospect, he called her "the woman who was my mother".

Brandt initially grew up in his mother's household, who worked and had a neighbor look after him on weekdays. From 1919 Brandt's step-grandfather Ludwig Frahm (1875–1935) took care of the child. Frahm had married Martha Ewert's mother Wilhelmine in 1899 and after his return from the First World War quickly built up a close relationship of trust with the five-year-old Brandt. He took him into his household and kept him in his care during the 1920s, even after he had entered into a new marriage with Dorothea Stahlmann, “Aunt Dora”, who was little loved by Brandt, after Wilhelmine's death. Willy Brandt called his step-grandfather "Papa". Ludwig Frahm was named as his father in his Abitur certificate. In September 1927 Brandt's mother married the foreman Emil Kuhlmann, and in February 1928 Brandt's half-brother Günther Kuhlmann was born. Since then, Brandt saw his mother “only sporadically”. In retrospect, Brandt described his youth as "unhoused" and he described his family relationships as chaotic.

Brandt's illegitimate birth, which contemporaries often viewed as a flaw, was used by political opponents in the days of the Federal Republic to belittle him. He did not oppose it, but he confessed that "origins and defamation" had "planted a sting" in him. This fact was discussed in the 1965 Bundestag election campaign, in which Brandt ran for the SPD against the CDU candidate Ludwig Erhard .

School education

Brandt attended the St. Lorenz Boys' Middle School, from 1927 the v. Großheim'sche Realschule and moved to the Johanneum zu Lübeck in 1928 , where he passed his Abitur in 1932. In the application for admission to the Abitur, he named journalist as a career choice. The SPD initially offered Brandt a party scholarship for university studies. After he separated from his party in an argument, this possibility no longer existed. Instead, Brandt began a traineeship at the ship brokerage company, shipping company and forwarding company F. H. Bertling KG in Lübeck in May 1932.

Political activity in the Weimar Republic

Modeled on the study of the young Willy Brandt (then Herbert Frahm) in the Willy Brandt House in Lübeck

Brandt's interest in politics can be traced back to his step-grandfather Ludwig Frahm. Frahm belonged to the SPD, was at times a shop steward of his party in the Lübeck district of Holstentor-Süd and ran for citizenship on the SPD list in 1926 and 1929 . In 1925 Brandt became a member of Kinderfreunde , a children's group of the falcons , from April 1929 the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), in which he represented a radical course as a member of the Lübeck group Karl Marx with the support of Julius Lebers . In 1931 Brandt became district chairman of the SAJ for the Lübeck-Mecklenburg region.

In this environment, Brandt was regularly active as a journalist from 1927. In February 1927 , the Lübecker Volksbote , the local SPD newspaper edited by Julius Leber , printed an essay by Brandt with two drawings about a day's hike the student with friends to the source of the Trave . From 1928 Brandt published texts on political topics. Leber supported Brandt and at the same time promoted his political commitment. Brandt later stated that Leber had decisively influenced him during these years. School performance suffered from his journalistic activities. A teacher at his school advised his mother in 1930: “Keep your son out of politics. The boy has good dispositions. But politics will ruin him ”.

In 1930 Brandt joined the SPD . A year later, in October 1931, he broke with Leber and the SPD, and accused the party - disappointed of its policy of tolerating the measures of the conservative government of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning - "discouragement" with regard to social changes. Brandt then joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). This was formed from a left-wing socialist group that had split off from the SPD parliamentary group in the autumn of 1931, together with other organizations positioned between the SPD and KPD , such as the rest of the USPD around Theodor Liebknecht or Ledebour's Socialist Bund as a party of the united front , in order to oppose them since the beginning the global economic crisis strengthened - in the Harzburg Front allied around NSDAP and DNVP - to tackle anti-democratic rights. Brandt was a founding member and board member of the Lübeck local branch of the SAPD and subsequently took on numerous organizational tasks for the party as a whole.

Underground and exile during the Nazi dictatorship

Lübeck-Travemünde, Jahrmarktstraße 4: Information board commemorating Willy Brandt's escape to Denmark and his escape helper, the fisherman Paul Stooß

After Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor at the end of January 1933, and with it the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, the SAPD was banned. The party decided to continue working under conditions of illegality from the underground in the resistance against the rule of National Socialism . In March 1933, Willy Brandt was commissioned to organize the departure of SAPD management member Paul Frölich to Oslo . However, Frölich was arrested, so that Brandt took over his task of setting up a cell for the organization in Oslo. During this time he, who until then was still known by his maiden name Herbert Frahm, took on the " battle name " Willy Brandt, which he kept throughout his life. He emigrated to Norway via Denmark and began to study history in Oslo in 1934, which, however, due to his journalistic activities for Norwegian newspapers and his political commitment, he did not advance much and never completed it. In Oslo he also headed the headquarters of the SAPD youth association SJVD . He also represented the SJVD from 1934 to 1937 at the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations in the London office . For the writer Carl von Ossietzky , who was imprisoned by the National Socialists in the Esterwegen concentration camp until the summer of 1936 , he organized the ultimately successful international campaign for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, which Ossietzky was awarded in 1936 retrospectively for 1935. In 1936 Brandt was one of the founders of the Free German Youth in Paris-Plessis .

On behalf of Jacob Walcher , who was the head of the SAPD foreign headquarters in Paris until 1940, Brandt traveled with Norwegian papers under the code name Gunnar Gaasland as a courier to Germany in September 1936, where he stayed until December of that year, in order to connect with SAPD comrades underground and to coordinate the local resistance with the activities of the SAPD abroad. Outwardly, he worked as a journalist in Berlin and spoke German with a Norwegian accent. The real Gunnar Gaasland was married from 1936 to Gertrud Meyer , Brandt's childhood friend from Lübeck, who had followed her long-term companion to Norway in July 1933. The marriage to Gaasland existed on paper and gave "Trudel", who lived with Brandt until 1939, Norwegian citizenship. Gaasland made his name available to Brandt and stayed in Norway.

Brandt was a reporter for several Norwegian newspapers in 1937 in the Spanish Civil War , in which he supported the fight of the left-wing socialist POUM against the threatened military dictatorship of the Falange under the coup General Franco . On June 16, when he returned to Oslo, he escaped a wave of arrests in Barcelona. The POUM was banned the same day. The Communist Party of Spain, influenced by Stalin , and the POUM were increasingly in military and political competition with one another in the fight against Franco.

After he had become stateless on September 5, 1938 as a result of expatriation by the Reich government , he applied for Norwegian citizenship. During the German occupation of Norway in World War II , he was temporarily taken prisoner in 1940. But since he was wearing a Norwegian uniform when he was captured and was not exposed, he was able to flee to Sweden after his early release . In Stockholm he founded a Swedish-Norwegian press agency together with two Swedish journalists , which supplied 70 daily newspapers in Sweden.

In August 1940 he was granted Norwegian citizenship by the embassy in Stockholm. He stayed in Stockholm until the end of the war, where he and August Enderle played a leading role in bringing the SAPD exiles closer to the SPD. Together with Martin Tranmæl , Torsten Nilsson , Henry Grünbaum , Fritz Bauer , Joachim Israel , Ernst Paul , Fritz Tarnow , Gunnar and Alva Myrdal , Stefan Szende and Bruno Kreisky he was involved in the formulation of the "Peace Goals of the Democratic Socialists" in March 1943, in which reflections on the European post-war order were published, which u. a. Demand the right of all nations to self-determination within the framework of an international legal order. He was on friendly terms with Bruno Kreisky, who later became Austrian Federal Chancellor , until his death, and in August 1990 he gave the funeral oration at Kreisky's funeral.

Return to Germany

Naturalization certificate dated July 1, 1948

After the end of the Second World War - a liberation for Brandt and other opponents, those persecuted and surviving victims of the Nazi dictatorship - he returned to Germany in 1945 as a correspondent for Scandinavian newspapers and reported on the war crimes trials in Nuremberg . After he had received the approval of the social democrats there on May 20, 1946 with a speech in Lübeck about Germany and the world , Brandt's return to Lübeck was up for discussion in the summer of 1946 after a conversation with Theodor Steltzer . As the successor to Otto Passarge, he was to become the mayor of his mother city, as he called Lübeck. After the Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange had suggested that he go to Berlin as a press attaché to the Norwegian Military Mission and report to the Norwegian government from the city about the beginning of the Cold War, he decided against his hometown, because “Lübeck seemed a little tight to me “, Based on his international experience since emigration. However, Brandt remained closely connected to his hometown. He concluded election campaigns through to local election campaigns with a rally in Lübeck on the day before the election.

On July 1, 1948, he received German citizenship again from the Schleswig-Holstein state government with effect from September 24, 1948 .

He used the code name Willy Brandt, which he acquired in 1934, permanently from 1947. In 1949 he had it recognized as the official name of the Berlin police headquarters . He himself spoke in 1961 of a common name that he had chosen, but there was a ship equipment company William Brandt Wwe in Lübeck when he was doing his traineeship there .

Political career in the Federal Republic

Berlin

President of Parliament and Governing Mayor

Brandt on March 16, 1949 in Berlin
US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (right) in conversation with SPD parliamentary group leader Fritz Erler (left) and Berlin's Governing Mayor Brandt in Arlington , Virginia, USA (1965)

Brandt began his political career in post-war Germany in 1949 as a Berlin member of the SPD in the first German Bundestag . Brandt was also a member of the second Bundestag from 1953 to 1957 and the fourth Bundestag , but only for a few weeks at the end of 1961. From the 1969 Bundestag election until his death in 1992, he entered the Bundestag via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia. On December 3, 1950 , he was also elected to the Berlin House of Representatives and was a member of it until the end of the 5th electoral term . In the election to the Berlin House of Representatives on March 14, 1971 , he no longer ran.

In 1955 Brandt was elected President of the House of Representatives and on October 3, 1957, as the successor to the late Otto Suhr, he was elected Governing Mayor of Berlin with 86 votes in favor and ten against, with 22 abstentions . The efforts of the chairman of the Berlin SPD, Franz Neumann , to find another candidate had failed. Neumann had justified his resistance with Brandt's name change and his alleged participation in the communist interbrigades in the Spanish Civil War.

The opposition between Brandt and Neumann was based on different political concepts. A group of remigrants around Brandt and Ernst Reuter tried, against the resistance of the group around Franz Neumann, to force the SPD to orientate itself towards the West. They were supported by a group of liberal American occupation officers around Shepard Stone . In his role as Governing Mayor, Brandt was the President of the Federal Council from November 1, 1957 to October 31, 1958 .

Brandt was re-elected in 1958 and 1963 and, despite absolute majorities, formed coalition governments for the SPD with the CDU ( Senate Brandt I , Senate Brandt II ) and the FDP ( Senate Brandt III ). He held the office until December 1966 when he entered the federal government and was then replaced as governing mayor by Heinrich Albertz .

After the violent suppression of the Hungarian uprising , there were several anti-Soviet demonstrations in Berlin in November 1956. At one of these demonstrations, Brandt, in contrast to other Berlin politicians, took a stand “with pithy words” so that he “won over the people”. As a result, he sat at the head of a march that had the Soviet embassy in the eastern sector of Berlin as its destination and threatened to get out of control. Brandt managed to divert the demonstration and relax the "highly explosive situation". According to the judgment of the Berlin press, Brandt had achieved the political breakthrough in Berlin and was considered the future “ruler”.

During Brandt's years in Berlin, there were two other international crises that affected Berlin: the Second Berlin Crisis in 1958 and the construction of the Wall in 1961, in which Brandt strongly advocated the interests of Berlin. His appearance in these tense situations helped to strengthen Brandt's reputation nationally and internationally.

Second Berlin crisis

Memorial plaque on the house, Krossener Strasse 22, in Berlin-Friedrichshain

Two weeks before the election to the House of Representatives on December 7, 1958 , when Brandt ran against the CDU candidate Franz Amrehn , Nikita Khrushchev triggered the Second Berlin Crisis with his announcement that the GDR would take control of the connecting routes between West Germany and West Germany. To transfer Berlin if an allied agreement on the status of Berlin as a Free City is not reached within six months (so-called first Khrushchev ultimatum). During this time Brandt campaigned “decisively” for the rights of West Berlin with the Western Allies and the federal government and formed the catchphrase “Berlin remains free”. He played a key role in developing the resistance of the Western Allies to Khrushchev's ultimatum. His steadfastness made him a nationally and internationally recognized personality.

His appearance, perceived by the West Berlin population as particularly responsible, paid off in the election on December 7, 1958: the SPD rose by 8.0 percentage points and achieved an absolute majority with 52.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, Brandt continued the coalition with the CDU. In 1963 the Berlin SPD achieved the second-best result in its history with 61.9% of the vote.

Construction of the wall

Kennedy and Brandt in Washington on March 13, 1961

The construction of the Berlin Wall fell in the final phase of the 1961 federal election campaign on August 13, 1961. While Adenauer initially continued the election campaign apparently unimpressed, which was felt as indifference and "irritated" many Berliners and even his own supporters, Brandt broke off his campaign tour. got in touch with the US President John F. Kennedy and publicly showed "a decisive attitude" that corresponded to the feelings of the Berlin population. With his behavior after the Wall was built, Brandt took on a national and non-partisan role in August 1961 and continued to gain "political stature". However, he achieved nothing in the matter. The American government rejected Brandt's suggestions and requests for assistance; Kennedy recommended Brandt to give up hope of reunification soon and to acknowledge the realities.

Brandt and Kennedy

Willy Brandt with John F. Kennedy and Konrad Adenauer on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin

In the late 1950s, Brandt was an admirer of John F. Kennedy , to whom he, in his own words, had a "feeling of affinity", and appreciated his dynamic, modern appearance. Brandt met Kennedy personally as the governing mayor on a visit to Washington in 1961.

During the general election campaign in 1961 , Brandt tried to set himself apart from the now 85-year-old Adenauer as a young, modern alternative. Critical observers were of the opinion that Brandt had "embarrassingly copied" Kennedy and tried to "rise to the German Kennedy". After Kennedy's cautious reaction to the construction of the Berlin Wall, Brandt initially distanced himself from the American President, who Brandt had described as a " bastard " in an internal conversation . During Kennedy's visit to West Berlin on June 26, 1963, he received "the greatest possible support and recognition".

Previously, differences between the Governing Mayor and the Chancellor about who would be the first to shake hands with Kennedy and who would be allowed to sit next to him on the city tour had made their mutual dislike clear. Brandt greeted his guest in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall with the words: “We not only greet the office, we also greet the man.” Then Kennedy gave his thoroughly prepared and enthusiastically acclaimed speech on the values ​​of the Western world with the double confession: “ Me I'm a Berliner ". Brandt's hope that Kennedy's speech would also send a signal for a policy of détente was not fulfilled.

In federal politics (1961–1969)

Richard Nixon's visit to Berlin (1969)

In the 1961 federal election , Brandt ran for the first time as his party's candidate for chancellor against Konrad Adenauer . Adenauer alluded to Brandt's years in exile on August 14, 1961, one day after the start of the construction of the Berlin Wall, at an election rally in Regensburg, when he spoke of his opponent as "Brandt alias Frahm", but the expression was also used as a reference to understood his illegitimate birth. On August 16, Adenauer repeated this formulation in Bonn. Franz Josef Strauss had already said in February 1961 in Vilshofen, alluding to Brandt's years of exile, which were repeatedly used as an opportunity for personal attacks and even accusations of treason to the fatherland: “One thing one can ask Mr. Brandt: What are you twelve years old? long done outside? We know what we've been doing inside. ”He was later defamed because of his past, while earlier National Socialists were forgiven for their past. The conservative press repeatedly picked up Brandt's past and interpreted it against him. In addition to the well-known accusations, he was instrumentalizing his private life in the public debate during the 1961 election campaign. In 1965 Brandt declared: "This election campaign left wounds."

In the election on September 17, 1961, the SPD achieved a 4.4 percentage point increase in votes. At the same time, the CDU lost a similarly high share of the vote and thus the absolute majority. In view of the developments in Berlin, there were considerations of forming an all-party government or at least a grand coalition in Bonn . In addition to Federal President Heinrich Lübke and Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier , Brandt was also one of the supporters of this idea. Some considerations went so far as to transfer the post of Foreign Minister to Brandt, which the Union had always held itself until then. Ultimately, however, Adenauer prevailed, who preferred the new edition of a bourgeois coalition with the FDP .

Willy Brandt with Federal President Lübke and Federal Chancellor Kiesinger on December 1, 1966

In 1962, on the initiative of Herbert Wehner , Brandt took over the deputy chairmanship of the party, and in 1964, as the successor to the late Erich Ollenhauer, the national chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he held until 1987. In the 1965 federal election he ran again as the SPD's top candidate and was defeated by Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard , whereupon he temporarily withdrew from federal politics and ruled out another candidate for chancellor. At the SPD party congress in June 1966 he was re-elected with 326 of 426 votes.

After Erhard's resignation on December 1, 1966, Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) was elected Chancellor, who formed a grand coalition with the SPD. Willy Brandt resigned from his Berlin office, took over the office of Foreign Minister and became Deputy Chancellor ( Kiesinger cabinet ). In the spring of 1967 he moved into a service villa on Bonn's Venusberg , in which he lived with his family for seven years.

Chancellor

Cabinet Brandt I (1969–1972)

Willy Brandt after his election as Federal Chancellor on October 21, 1969
Brandt with Willi Stoph in Erfurt (1970)
Bronze plaque on the Monument to the Kneeling on Willy-Brandt-Platz in Warsaw
Willy Brandt's certificate for the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize in the House of History in Bonn
1972 federal election campaign: SPD top candidate Willy Brandt

After the federal election in September 1969 , Willy Brandt formed a coalition with the FDP against the will of Herbert Wehner and Helmut Schmidt , who would have preferred to continue the grand coalition . The social-liberal coalition had a majority of only twelve seats. On October 21, 1969, the Bundestag elected Brandt the fourth Federal Chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic. Walter Scheel (FDP) became the Federal Chancellor's deputy and Foreign Minister .

The term "New Ostpolitik " became internationally known, which was intended to soften the Cold War under the slogan " Change through rapprochement " or "Policy of small steps" and to make the Berlin Wall and the border with the GDR more permeable. Brandt's State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery, Egon Bahr , became the decisive architect of the agreements to be negotiated. Despite some initial skepticism from foreign politicians such as Nixon , Kissinger and Pompidou , the Western powers supported this policy.

On March 19, 1970, Willy Brandt, the first Federal Chancellor, began an official conversation with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the GDR, Willi Stoph, with a politician from the GDR , which until then had not been recognized by the Federal Republic as an independent state with equal rights. This meeting took place in Erfurt , as East Berlin was not accepted by the West German side as part and as the capital of the GDR. In front of the Erfurter Hof where Brandt lived, loud “Willy, Willy” shouts came from a large crowd, which were clearly related to Brandt and irritated the GDR rulers. On May 21, 1970, Stoph made a return visit to Kassel .

On August 12, 1970, in Moscow, Willy Brandt signed the Moscow Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union , in which both sides recognized the inviolability of Germany's post-war borders, as the first significant document of détente policy .

Equally important was the signing of the Warsaw Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People's Republic of Poland on December 7, 1970, with which the Oder-Neisse border was officially recognized as the border between the two countries. Brandt's symbolic kneeling in Warsaw at the memorial of the ghetto uprising of 1943 attracted great attention worldwide.

On December 17, 1971, State Secretaries Bahr and Kohl signed the transit agreement, which regulated the use of access routes to and from West Berlin; the agreement entered into force on June 3, 1972. It was continued through negotiations on a basic treaty with the GDR, which for the first time put the relationship between the two German states on a contractual basis and was signed on December 21, 1972. This contract was bitterly wrestled with the opposition. The main point of contention was the extent to which the GDR's demand for recognition under international law could be met. An agreement with Czechoslovakia followed .

Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his Ostpolitik . In his lecture at the University of Oslo on December 11, 1971, Brandt declared that it was a matter of "abolishing wars, not just limiting them, [...] because unrest has become another word for extreme irrationality. War is no longer the ultima ratio , but the ultima irratio. ”With this“ New Ostpolitik ”, which Willy Brandt implemented together with Walter Scheel against the decided resistance of the majority of the CDU / CSU opposition, he endeavored to“ relax in Europe".

Some historians and political scientists see it as a preparation for the collapse of the communist governments in Eastern Europe and German reunification , which Brandt did not intend with his Ostpolitik. At the time, he was accused by the conservative side of unnecessarily recognizing the GDR. They did not see the policy of détente as a way to collapse the states of the Eastern bloc, but instead only stated that the governments were upgraded and stabilized.

At the same time, he was concerned with domestic political reforms in social, educational and legal policy. In his government declaration of October 28, 1969, Brandt put the future government work under the motto : “ We want to dare more democracy . “, Which was soon seen as a catchphrase for a social awakening hoped for by many, with which the domestic political stagnation of the post-war period was to be overcome. The motto was first used in 1961 in the explanation of the Tübingen Memorandum , a memorandum by Protestant intellectuals around Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker against nuclear armament and for the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border .

The catalog of internal reforms presented in 1969 began with education and went through housing and urban development to transport. More equal opportunities in education should be achieved through the Federal Training Assistance Act (Bafög), which for the first time stipulated a legal right to financial assistance for students from low-income families. The Works Constitution Act was adapted to contemporary requirements with a comprehensive amendment.

Improvements in health, accident and, above all, pension insurance as well as increased spending on education put a heavy burden on the federal budget , which is why Finance Minister Alex Möller submitted his resignation in 1971. His successor, Minister of Economics and Finance, Karl Schiller , left the government the following year for the same reason . Both felt insufficiently supported by Brandt.

The “ radical decree ” of 1972 against the employment of members of extremist parties and groups in the public service was sharply criticized by critics on the left, and Brandt himself later described it as a serious mistake.

Vote of no confidence and vote of confidence (1972)

From the Brandt government's inauguration until 1972, so many members of the SPD and FDP had switched to the Union parliamentary group , including the former Federal Minister Erich Mende (FDP), that the CDU / CSU parliamentary group had a slim absolute majority. The CDU / CSU parliamentary group leader Rainer Barzel therefore believed in April 1972 that he could replace Willy Brandt with a constructive vote of no confidence . But for his election as Chancellor he was missing two votes. At least two members of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, namely Julius Steiner (CDU) and Leo Wagner (CSU), were bribed with DM 50,000 each by the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR .

However, since the SPD / FDP coalition no longer had a viable majority in the Bundestag, Brandt asked the vote of confidence in September 1972 , in which the federal ministers abstained as agreed, so that the question of confidence was not answered positively and Federal President Gustav Heinemann in the spirit of Brandt's intentions could dissolve the Bundestag.

Brandt II cabinet (1972–1974)

The social-liberal Brandt II cabinet as a guest of Federal President Gustav Heinemann when he took office , outside staircase of Villa Hammerschmidt , December 15, 1972

A long, intensive and highly mobilizing election campaign led to the early parliamentary election in 1972, with 91%, the highest turnout of all parliamentary elections. Both parties in the Brandt government won and the SPD became the strongest parliamentary group for the first time with 45.8% of the votes, a result that was also understood abroad as a referendum on the Eastern Treaties , for whose parliamentary ratification the way was now free. The 1972 federal election that he won represented Brandt's greatest political success, but contemporary observers such as Egon Bahr agree that this “high point was clearly also the apex - from then on things went downhill”. Brandt's political fatigue was paired with high expectations of his second reign.

From June 7th to 11th, 1973 Willy Brandt was the first German Chancellor to visit Israel after diplomatic relations had been established in 1965. In 1970, Abba Eban , an Israeli foreign minister, visited the Federal Republic for the first time; Foreign Minister Walter Scheel's return visit was made in the same year.

In 2013, documents were published showing that Willy Brandt was asked by Prime Minister Golda Meir to mediate with Egypt while he was in Israel . Brandt was supposed to make it clear to the Egyptian President that Israel wanted peace and not “all of Sinai or half of Sinai or most of Sinai”. Instead, Brandt reported to the USA, France and the Soviet Union about his "positive impressions" regarding the Israeli will for peace and left it to the Federal Foreign Office to put forward Meir's wish for direct peace negotiations in Cairo, which was ignored.

As a result of the Israeli-Arab Yom Kippur War in 1973, the so-called oil crisis occurred ; The federal government then decided for the first time for the entire Federal Republic of driving bans for motor vehicles on four Sundays. This brought the German energy supply's dependency on imports into general awareness. Technical measures to reduce fuel consumption subsequently became important sales arguments for motor vehicles. Furthermore, economic growth slowed and the unemployment rate rose. This and the high collective bargaining agreements enforced by the ÖTV under Heinz Kluncker after a hard strike in the public service were seen as the real cause of Brandt's withdrawal, as the financial scope for possible reforms was considerably reduced.

Brandt is one of the Federal Republic's environmental pioneers. In the 1961 general election campaign, he advocated a “ blue sky over the Ruhr area ”. In 1973, under his chancellorship, a federal environmental authority was created for the first time.

A few days before the end of the Brandt government, on April 26, 1974, the Bundestag passed a law reforming Section 218 of the Criminal Code (Germany) with a narrow coalition majority , which made abortion exempt from punishment. This long and very emotionally debated new regulation was later declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court .

Disagreements in the SPD leadership became clear when the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and party vice-president Herbert Wehner attacked Willy Brandt during a visit to Moscow with the words: "The Chancellor likes to take a bath - so in a bubble bath"

Resignation as a result of the Guillaume affair

Brandt with Günter Guillaume (right), the Chancellor's personal advisor, before Guillaume's espionage activities for the GDR were discovered

During a regular meeting of the SPD and top union officials from May 4th to 5th at the Kurt Schumacher Academy (at that time Haus Münstereifel ) in Bad Münstereifel , Brandt announced his decision to resign as Chancellor to the top SPD politicians present there on May 5, 1974. He had the head of the Chancellery Horst Grabert deliver a letter to this effect to the Federal President Gustav Heinemann , who was in Hamburg . The occasion was the unmasking of the GDR spy Günter Guillaume , who had been one of Brandt's closest employees as a party affairs officer. With his resignation, Brandt assumed responsibility for negligence within the federal government. Guillaume had remained in close proximity to the Chancellor, although he had been suspected of espionage for more than a year. Brandt had underestimated the explosiveness of the matter, believing that Guillaume's mere GDR origins were the reason for the suspicion of espionage .

Brandt later stated that Herbert Wehner was complicit in his resignation, as this had not prevented him from doing so. Despite Wehner's assertions to the contrary, it is generally assumed that it was less the affair itself than Wehner's assessment that Brandt, who was in poor health and suffering from depression , could not be sustained, which was the decisive factor in his resignation. The claim that Brandt suffered from depression was part of the intrigues within the party, which were mainly pursued by Wehner and Schmidt. According to von Brandt's chief planning officer, Albrecht Müller , there were no reasons for this claim. Brandt found himself exposed to defamation campaigns by political opponents, which Wehner believes he would hardly have withstood in the upcoming election campaign. Brandt was said to have had numerous affairs with women and alcohol problems. In addition, there were fears among others, BKA President Horst Herold and Constitutional Protection President Günther Nollau , that the German head of government could be blackmailed by these affairs.

After resigning as Chancellor

Willy Brandt in his last speech as SPD party chairman at the extraordinary party congress on June 14, 1987 in Bonn

Brandt's successor as Federal Chancellor was Finance Minister Schmidt. He claims to have been surprised by the nomination and to have assumed the office primarily out of a sense of duty. Willy Brandt himself remained chairman of Schmidt and the SPD throughout his term in office until 1987. At the end of his own chancellorship , Schmidt described it as a mistake not to have assumed the chairmanship of the party in addition to the chancellorship. He saw this as one of the causes of his own failure.

On March 23, 1987, Brandt resigned from the party leadership of the SPD after harsh internal party criticism was expressed about his nomination by Margarita Mathiopoulos as a candidate for the new office of party spokeswoman. At the extraordinary party congress on June 14, 1987, he was elected honorary chairman for life; Hans-Jochen Vogel was elected as his successor as party chairman .

Brandt was still a member of the Bundestag and, after the Bundestag election in 1983, opened the Bundestag for the first time as senior president , although he was only the second oldest member of the Bundestag. Egon Franke , as the actual age president, had renounced this dignity and allowed Brandt to go first at the opening. After the federal elections in 1987 and 1990 , Brandt opened the respective Bundestag as the actual age president.

From 1976 to September 17, 1992 Willy Brandt was President of the Socialist International . From July 17, 1979 to March 1, 1983 he was a member of the European Parliament .

In April 1977 World Bank President Robert McNamara Brandt proposed the chairmanship of the “Independent Commission for International Development Issues” ( North-South Commission ). After nearly three years of deliberation, on February 12, 1980, in New York , the Commission presented its North-South Report , commonly known as the "Brandt Report".

On July 7, 1979, Brandt and the Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky met in Vienna with Yasser Arafat , the head of the Palestinian PLO , for an exchange of views. On October 15, 1984, Brandt met with President Fidel Castro in Cuba . In the same year Brandt also met Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev . On September 19, 1985, he met in East Berlin for talks with the GDR State Council Chairman Erich Honecker .

At the peace demonstration in Bonn on October 22, 1983 , Brandt criticized NATO's double decision : "In Germany we don't need more means for mass destruction, we need less."

Willy Brandt at an election rally in Gera (1990)

On November 9, 1990, Brandt returned to Germany with 175 hostages, whose release he had obtained from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein .

In the 1980s, Brandt, like Egon Bahr and other leading representatives of the SPD, declared the idea of ​​a possible new state unit in Germany to be absurd and dangerous on several occasions. In the autumn of 1988 he repeated twice his much-cited warning about the "hope of reunification" as the "life lie of the second German republic". The day after the fall of the Berlin Wall he traveled to Berlin and said in an interview: “Now we are in a situation where what belongs together grows together again.” After reunification, Brandt was one of the staunch supporters of a government move from Bonn to Berlin . On June 20, 1991, the Bundestag decided - at the request of Willy Brandt, among others - to move in part ( capital city resolution ).

On January 20, 1989, on the occasion of Willy Brandt's 75th birthday , Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker invited numerous friends, comrades and politicians to a birthday party in the Villa Hammerschmidt . On February 1, 1992, Brandt received the Dolf Sternberger Prize in Heidelberg . Brandt made his last big public appearance at the beginning of April 1992 with a speech at the SPD final rally in Lübeck on the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein . On May 9, 1992, Brandt gave the last interview to Ulrich Rosenbaum, editor of Bild .

Private life and end of life

Rut Brandt (1970)
Brigitte Seebacher at the Frankfurt Book Fair presenting her Brandt biography (2004)

Brandt was married to Carlota Thorkildsen (1904–1980) from 1941 to 1948 and had their daughter Ninja Frahm (* 1940). After the divorce, he married the widowed Rut Bergaust, née Hansen (1920–2006) , in 1948 . This relationship resulted in three sons: the historian Peter (* 1948), the writer Lars (* 1951) and the actor Matthias Brandt (* 1961). After 32 years of marriage, Rut and Willy Brandt divorced in 1980. The last time they saw each other was on the day of their divorce (December 16).

In April 1979 Willy Brandt moved to Unkel with his then partner, the historian and publicist Brigitte Seebacher (* 1946) . At first the couple lived in an apartment; At the end of 1989 the company moved into its own new building near the Rhine. Brandt and Seebacher married on December 9, 1983, and the marriage lasted until his death. At her husband's request, she wrote a biography about him; some historians accused her of having misinterpreted or falsified Brandt and appropriated it for her own purposes.

Willy Brandt has been linked repeatedly to extramarital affairs since the 1970s. In 2013, Der Spiegel began its cover story about Brandt with the thesis that the first Federal Chancellor appointed by the SPD was “brought down by a list of women's names”. Brandt himself had already confirmed in the 1970s that he had had "a" long-term extramarital relationship during his chancellorship.

Willy Brandt's grave of honor at the Zehlendorf forest cemetery

On November 15, 1978, Brandt suffered a heart attack , so that he could no longer perform his political duties for half a year. On October 4, 1991, Brandt discovered a tumor in the intestine, which was removed on October 10, 1991. On May 10, 1992, he was again admitted to the Cologne University Hospital and operated on again on May 22, 1992. The operation was stopped after ten minutes, however, because disseminated metastasis had become apparent . On May 30, 1992 Brandt left the clinic and went with his wife to his house in Unkel , which he did not leave until his death.

An unfortunate incident occurred on September 20, 1992: When Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to visit Brandt unannounced and answered the house intercom with "Gorbachev", Brandt's wife thought it was a bad joke and refused entry to the visitor. She didn't think Gorbachev was actually at the door. Brandt's health deteriorated noticeably from August 1992. He finally died on October 8, 1992 at 4:35 p.m.

On October 17, 1992, the Bundestag commemorated him in a state act . The honorary grave of Willy Brandt is located on Berlin's Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf in the Div. VII-W-551/552 next to the grave of honor of Ernst Reuter , predecessor Brandt as Governing Mayor of Berlin in the years 1948 to 1953. Brandt's second wife Ruth is also on buried in the forest cemetery.

Honorable memory

Willy Brandt monument Amigo de Portugal in Porto
Postage stamp of the German Federal Post Office (1993)

After his death, Willy Brandt was honored many times, streets and squares are named after him, including Willy-Brandt-Straße in Berlin, where the Federal Chancellery is located, Willy-Brandt-Straße in Hamburg and Willy-Brandt-Allee in his hometown Lübeck and on the Bonn Museum Mile as part of the B 9 between Bundeskanzlerplatz and Heussallee. In Erfurt the station forecourt was renamed Willy-Brandt-Platz, as the first German-German summit meeting with Willi Stoph took place there. In Kassel , the place where the return visit was made, the forecourt of the Wilhelmshöhe train station now bears the name of Brandts.

In 1992, the city of Frankfurt am Main rededicated Theaterplatz in Willy-Brandt-Platz. The headquarters of the European Central Bank were located there until their move in 2014. In Halle (Saale), the then Phillipp-Müller-Strasse was renamed Willy-Brandt-Strasse in 2012. In Augsburg there is a central location in the old town and in Lünen there is a Willy-Brandt-Platz in front of the town hall, which he inaugurated at the time. In Freiburg , a main street in the Rieselfeld district is called Willy-Brandt-Allee .

On May 20, 2009, the neon sign "Willy Brandt ans Fenster" was inaugurated on the roof of the former Erfurt Hof Hotel in Erfurt in memory of the first German-German summit in 1970. The memorial was created by David Mannstein and quotes the call of thousands of Erfurt residents who wanted to see the then Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany . On November 9th, 2009 the Willy-Brandt-Monument was unveiled at Willy-Brandt-Platz in Nuremberg , which the artist Josef Tabachnyk had created.

Willy Brandt monuments outside Germany are located in Porto ( Portugal ) on Avenida do Marechal Gomes da Costa and in Lille ( France ) on Gare de Flandres at the corner of Avenue Willy Brandt . A Willy-Brandt-Platz with a memorial was created in Warsaw to commemorate the kneeling in front of the ghetto memorial.

The Willy-Brandt-Haus is the federal headquarters of the SPD in Berlin-Kreuzberg , which was inaugurated in 1996. In the atrium of the house there is a larger than life bronze Willy Brandt monument by the painter and sculptor Rainer Fetting .

In his honorable memory, the Federal Republic of Germany established the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation based in Berlin. This is one of five federal politician memorial foundations. On December 18, 2007, on the occasion of Willy Brandt's 94th birthday, the foundation opened a branch in the Königstrasse in Lübeck's old town, the Willy Brandt House in Lübeck . Another foundation under Norwegian law is the Norwegian-German Willy-Brandt Foundation , based in Oslo and Berlin.

The Willy Brandt School of Public Policy is a public research and training institution of the University of Erfurt ; Since 2002, it has offered the first German course to acquire a Master of Public Policy.

The ENA year 2007–2009 named itself “Willy Brandt”. The École nationale d'administration is the French elite university that trains the future high officials of the French civil service.

In 1993 and 2013, the Deutsche Bundespost and Deutsche Post AG issued special postage stamps each with a portrait of Brandt. His likeness adorned part of the 2 DM coins.

Willy Brandt was an honorary citizen of several German cities (Lübeck, Berlin).

One of the first new Intercity Express trains ( ICE 4 ) was named after Willy Brandt in October 2017 .

Following the decision of the supervisory board of the responsible airport company on December 11, 2009, the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport will be given the nickname Willy Brandt .

Willy Brandt forums and exhibitions

Willy Brandt Forum Schwerin

The Willy-Brandt-Forum Schwerin was established in 2001. On October 21, 2005, 35 founding members formed the registered association Willy-Brandt-Forum e. V. The association is a forum that offers events on socio-political, social and cultural topics in particular. It is committed to open dialogue. Since then, the Willy Brandt Forum has organized around 40 different events. In autumn 2005 a six-member advisory board was appointed, which is responsible for the content of the forum.

Willy Brandt Forum Unkel

In Brandt's last place of residence, Unkel, there is a permanent exhibition on his political work, which was set up by the local Willy Brandt Forum . In 2011 a contemporary history museum of the same name was set up, which shows, among other things, Brandt's original private study and a portrait of the former chancellor. It was created by Georg Meistermann for the Chancellor Gallery founded by Helmut Schmidt in 1974.

Forum Willy Brandt Berlin

The Forum Willy Brandt Berlin offers changing exhibitions as well as a program of historical and political education with smaller events. The forum was housed in the Schöneberg Town Hall from 1996 to 2010 and in the Elisabeth Selbert House (Unter den Linden 62–68) from 2010 to 2019. It is currently located at Behrenstrasse 15 until the new Elisabeth Selbert House will be completed.

Willy Brandt House Lübeck

The Willy-Brandt-Haus Lübeck was opened in 2007 and is located at Königsstrasse 21. The extracurricular learning location in Willy Brandt's birthplace has a permanent exhibition on his life and work and offers events and a comprehensive educational program.

Awards

Films (selection)

  • The long Willy Brandt night. Documentary series, Germany, 270 min., Moderation: Jörg Schönenborn , production: WDR , first broadcast: December 18, 2013 on WDR, synopsis from ARD , online video from ARD, available without time limit.
  • Our story - Willy Brandt. Documentary, Germany, 2013, 43:30 min., Script and director: Maik Gizinski, production: NDR , series: Our story - What moved the north , first broadcast: December 16, 2013 on NDR television , synopsis by ARD .
  • Willy Brandt - memories of a political life. Documentary with game scenes, Germany, 2013, 84:42 min., Script and director: André Schäfer, production: Florianfilm, WDR , rbb , first broadcast: March 17, 2013 on Das Erste , film page of Das Erste.
  • Willy Brandt - The Berlin Years. Documentary, Germany, 2011, 43:14 min., Script and director: Thomas Zimolong, production: rbb , series: Berliner Legenden , first broadcast: October 25, 2011 on rbb television , synopsis by ARD .
  • The Chancellor's Kneeling - The Two Lives of Willy Brandt. (Alternative title: Psychogram of a Chancellor - The Two Lives of Willy Brandt or Psychogram of a Chancellor - Willy Brandt. ) Documentary with scenic documentation, Germany, 2010, 89:26 min., Written and directed: Sebastian Dehnhardt , Manfred Oldenburg , production: Broadview TV, MDR , arte , first broadcast: December 1, 2010 on arte, table of contents from ARD , film data from broadview.
  • Willy Brandt at the window! Documentary, Germany, 2010, 43:30 min., Script and direction: Rainer Erices and Jan Schönfelder, production: MDR, series: MDR Zeitreise , first broadcast: March 23, 2010 on MDR television, synopsis by MDR.
  • In the shadow of power . Feature film in 2 parts, Germany, 2003, 180 min., Script and director: Oliver Storz , production: arte , MDR, NDR , first broadcasts: October 29th and 30th, 2003 in Das Erste . About Brandt's last days as Chancellor, u. a. with Michael Mendl as Brandt, Jürgen Hentsch as Herbert Wehner, Dieter Pfaff as Genscher, Matthias Brandt as Günter Guillaume , Ulrich Mühe as Günter Gaus .
  • A few days in the life of Willy Brandt. Documentary, Germany, 1968, 44:30 min., Script and director: Matthias Walden , production: Sender Freies Berlin , series: Some days in the life of ... , first broadcast: May 22, 1968 on SFB, synopsis by ARD .

Artistic reception

Works

Monographs

Collected speeches, letters and smaller papers

literature

Web links

Commons : Willy Brandt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Willy Brandt  - Quotes

Biographies

Institutions

Movie and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack : Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 27.
  2. ↑ John Möller from Hamburg
  3. ↑ a b c Willy Brandt: Memories. Ullstein paperback edition, List, 2013, p. 85 ff.
  4. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , pp. 18, 20 f.
  5. ↑ Martin Wein: Willy Brandt - Becoming a statesman. Development of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2003.
  6. ↑ Peter Merseburger : Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and realist. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 16.
  7. ^ Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , pp. 25, 33 f.
  8. ^ Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 33.
  9. ^ Willy Brandt: The Nobel Prize Campaign for Carl von Ossietzky: with the letters to Konrad Reisner and Hilde Walter. (= Oldenburger Universitätsreden Nr. 20 ), Library and Information System of the University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg 1988, ISBN 3-8142-1020-4 , online .
  10. ^ Peter Gingold : Paris - Boulevard St. Martin No. 11, p. 47
  11. ↑ Mark Zuehlke: The Gallant Cause. Canadians in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. J. Wiley & Sons, Mississauga 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-83926-3 , p. 155.
  12. ↑ Helga Grebing , Gregor Schöllgen , Heinrich August Winkler (eds.): Willy Brandt. Berlin edition. Volume 2: Two Fatherlands. Dietz-Verlag, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-8012-0302-6 , p. 88 ff.
  13. ^ Ernst Paul : The "Small International" in Stockholm . Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1961.
  14. ↑ Klaus Misgeld: The "International group of democratic socialists" in Stockholm 1942-1945. In: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Historica Upsaliensis 79, Uppsala, 1976, p. 62 ff.
  15. ^ Willy Brandt: Memories , expanded Ullstein paperback edition 1992, p. 148.
  16. ↑ Martin Wein: Willy Brandt - becoming a statesman , p. 86.
  17. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Contemporary history - Willy Brandt becomes Berlin's head of government . In: Die Welt , October 7, 2007.
  18. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 147 f.
  19. ↑ a b Wilfried Rott : The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 130 f.
  20. ^ Scott Krause : Bringing Cold War Democracy to West Berlin. A Shared German-American Project, 1940-1972 . Routledge, New York 2018, ISBN 978-1-138-29985-6 , Scott Krause: Neue Westpolitik: The Clandestine Campaign to Westernize the SPD in Cold War Berlin, 1948–1958 . In: Central European History 48 issue 1, March 2015, pp. 79-99, doi: 10.1017 / S0008938915000047 ; Scott H. Krause: Outpost of Freedom: A German-American Network's Campaign to bring Cold War Democracy to West Berlin, 1933-72 , Chapel Hill 2015, online, PDF
  21. ↑ Wilfried Rott: The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 134 f.
  22. ↑ a b c Wilfried Rott: The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , pp. 136-138.
  23. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 152.
  24. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history. 5th edition. Volume II, CH Beck, Munich 2002, p. 201.
  25. ^ Hans-Peter Schwarz: Adenauer. The statesman: 1952–1967. Volume 2, p. 664.
  26. ↑ a b Wilfried Rott : The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 161.
  27. ^ A b Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history. 5th edition. Volume II, CH Beck, Munich 2002, p. 206.
  28. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 164 ff.
  29. ↑ Willy Brandt: Encounters and Insights 1976.
  30. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 157 f.
  31. ↑ Wilfried Rott: The island. A history of West Berlin 1948–1990 , CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 167.
  32. ↑ Wilfried Rott: The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 218.
  33. ^ Hans-Joachim Noack: Willy Brandt. One life, one century . Rowohlt Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-645-3 , p. 172 f.
  34. ↑ Wilfried Rott: The island. A History of West Berlin 1948–1990. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59133-4 , p. 221.
  35. ↑ See the study by Daniela Münkel : "Alias ​​Frahm". The defamation campaigns against Willy Brandt in the right-wing press. In: Claus-Dieter Krohn (Ed.): Between the chairs? Remigrants and remigration in the German media public in the post-war period . Christians-Verlag, Hamburg 2002, pp. 397-418.
  36. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and realist. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 410.
  37. ^ Daniela Münkel : "Alias ​​Frahm". The defamation campaigns against Willy Brandt in the right-wing press. In: Klaus-Dieter Krohn, Axel Schildt (Ed.): Between the chairs? Remigrants and remigration in the German media public in the post-war period. Hamburg 2002, pp. 397-419. This: between defamation and veneration. Willy Brandt's image in the German public (until 1974). In: Carsten Tessmer (ed.): The Willy Brandt picture in Germany and Poland (series of publications by the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation, issue 6). Berlin 2000, pp. 23-40.
  38. ↑ Friedrich Koch : Sexual Denunciation. Sexuality in the political debate. 2nd, expanded edition. Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-434-46229-5 , p. 144 ff.
  39. ↑ Peter Merseburger: Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and realist. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 429.
  40. ↑ Egon Bahr , “You have to tell”: Memories of Willy Brandt . Berlin 2013, p. 51.
  41. ↑ LeMo: Chronicle of the year 1969
  42. ↑ Total opposition will fail. Spiegel talk with Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1969, pp. 29–34 ( online - October 27, 1969 , title topic: “Bonn's new gentlemen”).
  43. ^ Willy Brandt - Nobel Lecture December 11, 1971 . In: nobelprize.org .
  44. ^ Government declaration of October 28, 1969 (PDF)
  45. ↑ Richard von Weizsäcker : "Four Times - Memories" . Siedler-Verlag Berlin 1997, chapter "Transition to the policy of détente; Neighbor Poland; Ostdenkschrift of the Evangelical Church, page 197, ISBN 3-442-75558-1
  46. ↑ Andreas Grau: In search of the missing votes 1972. On the aftermath of the failed vote of no confidence in Barzel / Brandt. Historical-Political Messages, Archive for Christian-Democratic Politics, Böhlau Verlag Cologne, No. 16, December 30th. 2009, p. 15 ff., Kas.de (PDF; 108 kB; 17 p.)
  47. ^ BStU : The German Bundestag 1949 to 1989 in the files of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR. Report to the German Bundestag in accordance with Section 37 (3) of the Stasi Records Act . Berlin 2013, p. 265 ff., Bundestag.de ( memento of November 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 12.8 MB; 397 p.).
  48. ↑ Status: 2018
  49. ↑ Hagai Tsoref and Michael Wolffsohn : How Willy Brandt gambled away the peace card . In: Welt am Sonntag , June 9, 2013.
  50. ↑ "What the government lacks is a head" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1973 ( online - title topic: "Quarrel with Brandt. Lone Fighter Wehner").
  51. ↑ spiegel.de August 1, 2007: "Brandt must go"
  52. ^ Entry on Willy Brandt in the European Parliament 's database of representatives
  53. ↑ Der Spiegel 48/1985: From the boiler
  54. ^ Christian Siepmann: 25 years of protests against retrofitting . In: one day , October 22, 2008.
  55. ^ Foundation German Historical Museum, Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany: Just seen on LeMO: Year Chronicle 1990. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 .
  56. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west. Volume 2: German history from the “Third Reich” to reunification. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46002-X , p. 471.
  57. ↑ Gunter Hofmann / Die Zeit 9/1990: The unity that divides
  58. ^ Neal Graham: An advertisement in the GA led Brandt to Unkel . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn , March 21, 2016.
  59. ^ Ulrich Meyenborg : The Lübeck SPD from 1968 to 2003 . Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2005, p. 83.
  60. ↑ Personal details: Carlota Thorkildsen (1904-1980). In: Willy Brandt biography. Retrieved December 9, 2019 .
  61. ↑ Marriage to Carlota Thorkildsen . In: willy-brandt-biografie.de ; accessed on January 9, 2018.
  62. ↑ Christiane Grefe : Brandt daughter Ninja Frahm: "I never felt abandoned by my father." In: Die Zeit . 2013 ( zeit.de ).
  63. ↑ Brandt Journey: Into the Past . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1967 ( online ).
  64. ↑ Torsten Körner: The Willy Brandt Family Chapter Standing at graves
  65. ^ Neal Graham: An advertisement in the GA led Brandt to Unkel . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn , March 21, 2016.
  66. ↑ Peter Merseburger : Willy Brandt, 1913-1992. Visionary and realist. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-423-34097-5 , p. 19 f., Speaks of "many women affairs".
  67. ↑ Jan Fleischhauer : Chancellor of Hearts . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 2013, p. 72 ff . ( online ).
  68. ^ Noack: Willy Brandt.
  69. ^ Gunter Hofmann : Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt: History of a difficult friendship, CH Beck, 2012, p. 156 books.google.de
  70. ↑ Einhart Lorenz: Willy Brandt: Deutscher - Europeaner - Weltbürger , Kohlhammer Verlag, 2012, p. 226 books.google.de
  71. ↑ New biography for the 100th birthday: Willy Brandt - Schweiger und Menschenfänger , rp-online.de, October 18, 2013
  72. ↑ a b Willy Brandt: His last summer , vorwaerts.de, October 8, 2012
  73. ↑ Willy Brandt 1973–1992 google.de , Berliner Morgenpost , December 15, 2013
  74. ↑ jol / AFP : Elite University ENA. Willy Brandt beats Zinedine Zidane . In: SpOn , May 4, 2007.
  75. ↑ The ICE 4 names have been determined. The jury selected the top 25 names for the upcoming train baptisms. ( Memento from October 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: DB Inside Bahn , October 27, 2017.
  76. ^ Willy Brandt Forum Schwerin . In: Facebook ; see. The Willy Brandt House Schwerin. ( Memento of July 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: Willy Brandt Forum Schwerin , 2006.
  77. ^ Unkel Community Foundation - Willy Brandt Forum .
  78. ↑ Portrait gallery . In: Willy-Brandt-Forum Unkel am Rhein , accessed on January 9, 2018.
  79. ↑ a b List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  80. ^ Dolf Sternberger Prize : Speeches when the prize was presented to Willy Brandt in 1992 by Joachim Fest and Willy Brandt. In: Dolf Sternberger Society e. V. , accessed on January 9, 2018.
  81. ↑ Volker Ullrich : The true patriot. In: Die Zeit , December 13, 2007, about Brandt's book Criminals and other Germans .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 24, 2005 .
personal data
SURNAME Brandt, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frahm, Herbert Ernst Karl (maiden name); Gaasland, Gunnar (alias); Franke, Felix (alias)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdA, MdB, 1969–1974 Federal Chancellor of the FRG, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1992
Place of death Uncle