Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany David F. Patton Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany David F. Patton To my pare...

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Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany David F. Patton

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany David F. Patton

To my parents

COLD WAR POLITICS IN POSTWAR GERMANY

Copyright © David F. Patton, 1999. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in hardcover in 1999 by St. Martin’s Press First PALGRAVETM edition: May 2001 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–312–21361–1 hardcover ISBN 0–312–23988–2 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Patton, David F., 1963Cold War politics in postwar Germany / David F. Patton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–23988–2 1. Germany—Foreign relations—1945– 2. World politics—1945I. Title. DD257.4.P32 1999 327.43’009’045—dc21 98–41912 CIP A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First paperback edition: May 2001 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1 Part I The Founding Era

Chapter 1: Cold War and Codetermination

15

Chapter 2: An Alliance for a New Westpolitik

35

Part II The Détente Era Chapter 3: Détente and Democracy

61

Chapter 4: An Alliance for a New Ostpolitik

79

Part III Unification Chapter 5: The Two Dimensions of Deutschlandpolitik

107

Chapter 6: An Alliance for a New Deutschlandpolitik

125

Conclusion

147

Notes Selected Bibliography Index

157 197 213

Acknowledgments

For their support on this project, I am indebted to many individuals and institutions. Foremost, I would like to thank my family and friends for their patience and encouragement. Peter Katzenstein, Jonas Pontusson, Martin Shefter, and Sydney Tarrow all made insightful comments during the early stages of this project at Cornell University. As a fellow at the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, I had the opportunity to witness Germany’s unification firsthand. I am indebted to the directors of the Berlin Program, Monika Medick-Krakau and Ingeborg Mehser, for their support during and after my fellowship there. As a Research Associate at the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, I researched and wrote the third case study. I would also like to thank Connecticut College for providing me with generous research support. While a fellow of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 1997, I developed a better understanding of politics in Germany since unification. I would like to thank Mary McKenzie, Michael Harvey, Greg Colman, my readers at St. Martin’s Press, and above all Robert Kahn, who carefully read and commented on the manuscript in its entirety. For his many hours of hard work at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, I would like to thank Jens Kreinath. Finally, I am indebted to Anita Allen for secretarial assistance.

Introduction

The Federal Republic of Germany has long been known for its consensus politics.1 Although political conflicts were of course always present in the Federal Republic, its major groups came to accept in the 1950s a social market economy that included a comprehensive welfare state, worker representation in company decision making, industry-wide collective bargaining, and an economic strategy of export-led growth. At times of economic crisis, the top associations of labor and business and the political parties consulted with one another to arrive at appropriate policy responses within firms and at the state and federal levels. Extensive consultations followed the downturn of the mid-1960s, the oil shocks of the 1970s, and the collapse of the eastern German economy after unification. Rather than using the political confrontation and social exclusion inherent in Thatcherist or Reaganist political strategies, the political parties and leading interest groups favored social partnership and, if necessary, outside mediation by the courts to settle their disputes. In this spirit, German trade unions, Social Democrats, church representatives, and even some Christian Democrats and industry leaders have proposed a broadly based “Partnership for Jobs” that addresses the problem of high unemployment. Scholars alternatively describe this consensual policy making as “liberal corporatism,” “democratic corporatism,” “Modell Deutschland,” and “coordination democracy.”2 They have attributed its origins to Germany’s late industrialization, to a reaction against the class warfare of the Weimar era, to the fat postwar years when the notion of winners and losers appeared anachronistic, and to political institutions in the Federal Republic. The Puzzle This much-vaunted consensual policy making was conspicuously absent when the Federal Republic formed its most important foreign policies.

2

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany

Each policy was extremely controversial. In the early 1950s, Chancellor Adenauer developed a Western policy—that is, a Westpolitik—that would bind the new state within Western European economic, political, and military institutions. In the early 1970s, Chancellor Brandt implemented a new Eastern policy—that is, an Ostpolitik—that would normalize the Federal Republic’s relations with the Communist states of Eastern Europe. In early 1990, Chancellor Kohl initiated a new unification policy—a Deutschlandpolitik—that would unify the two German states within nine months. All three were hotly contested policies within the Federal Republic. For passing moments, chancellor democracy triumphed over coordination democracy, and interest coalitions realigned. What accounts for the shifting political alignments and the strength of the chancellors during these three periods? These three periods were crucial in the history of the Federal Republic. In regard to rearmament and Ostpolitik, the historian Charles Maier concurs with Ernst Nolte that “these major reconsiderations of what the Bonn polity represented in terms of its domestic social forces and international role were the truly formative political foundations.”3 Unification in 1990 was another such moment of appraisal. While the Federal Republic developed many important foreign policies (toward the third world, the Middle East, and East Asia), Konrad Adenauer’s Westpolitik, Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, and Helmut Kohl’s Deutschlandpolitik were the foreign-policy cornerstones of the Federal Republic. Since the early 1960s, all major parties and interest groups backed the tenets of Adenauer’s Westpolitik; since the early 1980s, they favored normalizing relations with Eastern Europe and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Today, all but the far right and the far left are in basic agreement over Western integration, support for the fledgling democracies of East-Central Europe, and national unity. However, although Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik later became part of a far-reaching consensus, they were not formed by a foreign-policy consensus nor by corporatist policy making. Rather than broad agreements among the leading interest groups and political parties, fragile untested partnerships arose to support the new foreign policies. They contained odd bedfellows. In the early 1950s, prominent West German industrialists and trade union leaders backed, rather than scuttled or delayed, West German participation in the European Coal and Steel Community (Schuman Plan) and in a West European army. Their shared purpose seems surprising given their past and subsequent differences over economic policy. Equally surprising is that this alignment dissolved almost as quickly as it formed. In its wake, the trade unions suf-

Introduction

3

fered a major setback in industrial relations. Twenty years later, trade unions, urban professionals, church activists, and university students backed a new Ostpolitik orchestrated by an unprecedented alliance of Social Democrats (SPD) and Free Democrats (FDP) in Bonn. When this social coalition expired soon after forming, it hastened the demise of the Brandt government. In 1990, a new alignment of social groups backed Kohl’s unification. By the following year, two of its key members had defected, forcing the chancellor to make a sudden U-turn on his unification policy. Each of these periods was also characterized by chancellor ascendance. Whether in the early 1950s, the early 1970s, or the early 1990s, the federal chancellor stood at the center of the political system. Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl dominated policy making to a degree that was unusual in the Federal Republic. To secure domestic majorities for their controversial programs, they linked their foreign policies to domestic policies, set the terms of the political debate, and relied on kitchen cabinets. Chancellor dominance was exceptional in a state better known for its federalism, corporatism, and coordination democracy. Nonetheless, in the early 1950s and early 1970s, and in 1990, three chancellors with different personalities, ideologies and leadership styles towered over foreign policy–making. Curiously, Brandt was considered a “weak chancellor” when he fell from office in the mid-1970s; surprisingly, Helmut Kohl generally did not win acclaim as a policymaker prior to 1989 or after 1991.4 For brief periods, however, Brandt and Kohl, like Adenauer before them, presided over a chancellor democracy that was at odds with the established policy-making practices of the Federal Republic.

The Argument in Brief For four decades, Germany stood on the front line of the East-West confrontation. With its strategic location, its industry, and its military potential, it was considered contested terrain in the Cold War. The Federal Republic of Germany felt the pressures of the Cold War more directly than did other mid-level powers such as France and the United Kingdom. Each new phase in Cold War relations left the Federal Republic with little choice but to adjust its policies in accordance to the transformed international climate. Had it not done so, it would have jeopardized its own national security. After Soviet power had grown by the late 1940s, Bonn pursued a Western policy that bound the vulnerable Federal Republic closely to its Western

4


neighbors. Without such a reorientation, Bonn risked facing the Soviets alone. After Cold War tensions had eased in the late 1960s, the Federal Republic normalized its relations with the Communist states of Eastern Europe. If it maintained its intransigence toward the East, then the Federal Republic risked political isolation when the Western Allies embraced détente.As Communism collapsed in the late 1980s, Bonn unified the two German states. Had it not, it would have faced a future of instability on its eastern border and a continued influx of East German refugees. Germany was not the only Cold War battleground, nor was it the only frontline state forced to change its foreign policy to meet a new international environment. Nonetheless, shifts in the Cold War demanded foreign-policy adjustments that perplexed the West Germans more than they bothered the frontline democracies of Italy and Japan.5 This is because the Cold War had split Germany into two states, keeping it tied forever to the national question. Each Cold War stage required from Bonn a foreign-policy adjustment that was related to the division of Germany in one way or another. Would Bonn’s policy of Western integration in the early 1950s perpetuate or help overcome the division of Germany? Would its new Ostpolitik draw together the two German states or seal their separation? Would the incorporation of eastern Germany in 1990 create true national unity or just a unified state? In each case, Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik revealed the predicament of a divided nation on the front line. Each approach raised concerns among West Germans that Bonn would betray the German nation for the sake of its Western interests—or, vice versa, that Bonn would betray its Western interests for the sake of the German nation. They forced into the open disruptive national questions that upset politics as usual in the Federal Republic. A traditional division between a “high politics” of international diplomacy and a “low politics” of domestic coalition formation cannot explain German politics in the early 1950s, the early 1970s, and 1990, when diplomacy abroad and coalition-building at home were intricately interconnected. At these moments, Cold War changes pressed Bonn to develop a new Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik that would better reflect the new relations in Europe. Within the Federal Republic, heated foreign-policy debates followed, disturbing existing political partnerships and creating opportunities for chancellors to forge new majorities in support of controversial foreign policies. The unprecedented alignments and the chancellor resurgence were rooted in the Federal Republic’s condition as a divided nation on the front line of an evolving Cold War.

Introduction

5

This point has not been a part of the leading accounts of social coalition–formation in the Federal Republic.Yet without a consideration of the Federal Republic as a divided, frontline nation, both an international-statesystem approach and a political-leadership approach to domestic coalitions offer incomplete explanations of the new alignments and powerful chancellors of the early 1950s, the early 1970s, and 1990.

An International-State-System Perspective Scholars have begun to provide insights into how international military pressures influence domestic alignments. For instance, Peter Katzenstein has shown that the Nazi threat and the shock of world depression in the 1930s and 1940s shaped social coalitions within the small states of Western Europe. “In those two decades business and unions, as well as conservative and progressive political parties, became convinced that they should impose strict limits on domestic quarrels, which they viewed as a luxury in a hostile and dangerous world.”6 With its exposed international situation, the Federal Republic resembled the small states of Western Europe.7 This may explain why the internal politics of the Federal Republic were in many ways like those of the small states, with both tending toward democratic corporatism. To Wolfram Hanrieder, the Federal Republic was a penetrated system with its occupied status (from 1945 to 1955) and its exposed location on the front line of the Cold War. He writes that “international contingencies not only overshadowed domestic ones but in effect came to shape and determine them.”8 The Federal Republic’s external setting led its parties and interest groups to adopt foreign-policy positions consistent with the international system. Cold War realities “imposed from outside” a grand compromise between the West German left and right on Western integration and détente with Eastern Europe.9 In a highly penetrated mid-level power, long-term domestic opposition to international realities had little chance of success. The eventual internalization of international constraints produced in the Federal Republic a widespread agreement on foreign policy.10 Yet why was such a consensus so slow to form? This study contends that because the Cold War affected divided nations differently than unified ones the heightened external pressures of the late 1940s, 1960s, and 1980s did not lead to a closing of the ranks in the Federal Republic around a necessary foreign-policy adjustment. Rather than domestic unity, as was

6


seen in the small states of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, changing coalitions and bitter policy struggles characterized the biggest moments in West German foreign policy–making. Democratic corporatism was conspicuously absent after each shift in the Cold War. Only after the new foreign policies were in place did a broadly based consensus form behind them. If West Germany had been a unified country like Austria or Sweden, one would have perhaps seen corporatism in all spheres of political life during the Cold War. But Germany was not a unified country; it was divided. And that fact explains the lack of consensus after Cold War changes had introduced emotional national issues into the domestic debate.

A Political-Leadership Perspective As an alternative to considering international pressures, viewing the chancellor as a “coalition builder” has a long tradition in Germany. In the nineteenth century, chancellors were often at the center of politics and international affairs. While their stature was rooted in part in a domestic political culture that was subservient to the authority of the state (Obrigkeitsstaat), it also flowed from the towering example of Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, who skillfully used foreign policy to manipulate domestic politics within Germany. The rise of Bismarck began in the early 1860s in Prussia where the East Elbian estate owners (the Junkers), a group that had long controlled the Prussian government, civil service, and military, were facing an assertive middle class whose liberal representatives in parliament demanded constitutional limits on monarchical power.11 As constitutional gridlock developed, the Prussian king picked the diplomat Bismarck to serve as minister president. Bismarck, himself a Junker, preserved royal authority and military autonomy against the liberals. He did so not by attacking them directly, as some of his arch-conservative colleagues urged, but by seeming to give them what they wanted. By 1871, Bismarck had achieved one of the liberals’ main goals in forging a single Germany out of the many German states that had existed. He did so not because he was committed to national unity, but rather because he recognized that the international system in the 1860s allowed Prussia to unify Germany by “blood and iron,” that is, by military conquest, and thereby to protect the position of the traditional Prussian elites within the new German constitution. Informed by his earlier experiences and observations as a diplomat, Bismarck, the “white revolutionary,” led a foreign policy that struck at the heart of the existing Metternich system.12 To the horror of

Introduction

7

his fellow conservatives, Bismarck acted upon a “realist” conception of international relations that was based on a fine sense of power relations between states, rather than on shared values and principles. He met with the French leader Napoleon III, a man detested by the conservatives, and he provoked a “war of brothers” with the Austrian monarchy. By unifying the country through blood and iron, Bismarck absorbed the nationally minded German middle-class liberals into an illiberal political system. Bismarck became the chancellor of Germany; the Prussian king became the German emperor; and the army remained a state within the state. As chancellor, Bismarck in 1879 united heavy industrialists and the Junker agrarians behind a policy of high agricultural and industrial tariffs. To find a majority for this “Marriage of Iron and Rye,” Bismarck wove together tariffs, anti-socialist legislation, and the cessation of anti-Catholic persecution. Chancellors after Bismarck also used foreign policy to forge new bases of support for their conservative rule. This is a familiar pattern in pre-1945 Germany. At the turn of the century, Chancellor von Bülow and his minister of the navy, Admiral von Tirpitz, hoped to translate imperialism abroad into a stable social coalition at home. They embarked upon an ambitious world policy (Weltpolitik) of colonialism, naval expansion, and high tariffs that formed the basis of a deliberate gathering (Sammlung) of agrarian, industrial, and middle-class elements into a nationalist, anti-socialist formation.13 Drawing upon this historical precedence, some scholars have coined the term “chancellor democracy” to denote the role that the federal chancellor plays in the making of public policy in the Federal Republic. Although a chancellor democracy has its roots in Article 65 of the German Basic Law, which states that the chancellor “shall determine, and be responsible for, the general policy guidelines” of the government, it is realized through able personal leadership.14 “At the moment of his election the stallion is saddled and bridled, he [the chancellor] must only know how to ride. Yet this is an art all unto itself.”15 The chancellor’s “uniquely personal interpretation of the foreign-policy realities and requirements, his conception, as well as his ability to create for himself power and decision-making centers that facilitate the implementing of his foreign policy in accordance with the domestic power relations, are the starting point, as well as the crucial vantage point, for any understanding of the state.”16 Scholars have generally rated Konrad Adenauer (1949–1963) and Helmut Schmidt (1974–1982) as strong leaders, while assessing Willy Brandt (1969–1974) and Helmut Kohl (1982–1998) as somewhat weaker chancellors.17 In his writings on German foreign policy, the British historian

8


Timothy Garton Ash has praised Adenauer’s vision and Kohl’s foresight, but judged Willy Brandt and the Social Democrats less favorably.18 This study chronicles the three periods when Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, and Helmut Kohl skillfully enacted a new foreign policy. As early as 1923, Konrad Adenauer, then mayor of the western German city of Cologne, had argued that “a lasting peace between France and Germany can only be attained through the establishment of a community of economic interests between the two countries.”19 This conviction matched his later enthusiasm for German participation in a European Coal and Steel Community with France in the early 1950s. Likewise, Willy Brandt drew upon his mayoral experiences in a divided Berlin to envision how relaxed tensions between the East and West could benefit ordinary Germans. For his part, Helmut Kohl presented an early blueprint for German unification in 1989 after he had astutely recognized the chance for unity. Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl not only conceived of bold approaches, but they dominated the policy-making process, piecing together fragile majorities for a controversial foreign policy. However, like international pressures, the chancellors deserve only partial credit for the interest coalitions of the early 1950s, early 1970s, and early 1990s, which were also a consequence of an international opening. Chancellor Brandt’s sudden demise after his 1972 election victory does not indicate that he forgot the art of chancellor democracy, nor did Helmut Kohl’s policy-making troubles prior to 1989 and after 1991 mean that he learned and then unlearned political entrepreneurship.20

Theoretical Perspective Rather than accept a dichotomy between the international system and domestic politics, this study develops the links between the two levels. These links have been at the center of comparative politics theory in recent years. In particular, political economists have theorized about how international economic crises have shaped domestic political alignments. On a general level, this study does for the Cold War what other scholars have done for the international economic crisis by examining the relationship between international shocks and domestic alignments.21 National Profile Analysis In an important study, Peter Gourevitch considered why social coalitions for protectionist legislation formed only in certain countries after interna-

Introduction

9

tional economic downturns. To understand whether a social group favored free trade or protectionism, he proposed a “production profile analysis” that considered “the situation of the societal actors in the international economy, the actors’ policy preferences, their potential bases of alliance or conflict with other forces, and the coalitions that emerge.”22 In addition, he also recognized that the structure of interest groups affected their policy demands.23 He concluded that the social and organizational differences within countries influenced the way they responded to global economic crises. “Like test-tube solutions that respond differently to the same reagent, these societies reveal their characters in divergent responses to the same stimulus.”24 This book analyzes the national profiles of political parties and interest groups after three shifts in the Cold War. Chapter 1 considers domestic positions toward the Schuman Plan and rearmament; chapter 3 explores preferences toward a new Ostpolitik; and chapter 5 examines positions toward unification. International pressures recast foreign-policy preferences in each instance. As a national profile analysis shows, Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik cast asunder traditional policy alliances and created an opening to new interest coalitions. They divided parties and interest groups according to: (1) their view of Germany as a nation-state; (2) their institutional status after partition; and (3) their hopes and fears about how foreign alliances affect domestic politics. Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik raised painful questions of national identity in a divided Germany. Was the German nation an integral part of a Western European cultural tradition, or was it part of a distinct Central European tradition? Was there a West German nation, an East German nation, or just a German nation? Was the Federal Republic the sole legitimate representative of the German people, or were there two sovereign German states? Should Germany lay legal or moral claim to the former German lands east of the Oder-Neisse border? All these issues were at stake. While ideology, class, and age certainly influenced the way that these questions were answered, it was often direct personal experience that was decisive. And how these questions were answered shaped domestic views on German rearmament in the 1950s, rapprochement with the East in the 1970s, and national unity in 1990. Secondly, the institutional position of groups and parties within the divided Germany in part determined how strongly they would hold out for German unification. In the early 1950s, the Protestant Church of Germany (EKD), which had lost its traditional heartland to the German Democratic Republic, struggled to maintain its considerable all-German ties. The Catholic Church, in contrast, emerged relatively strong as a result of the

10


partition of Germany. Unlike the EKD, its foreign-policy preferences were shaped by its ties to Rome. Among the political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had lost its strongholds of Saxony, Thuringia, and East Berlin; the Communist Party (KPD) returned as a largely discredited proxy to Stalin and the East German government; the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as a new party with links to the old Catholic Center Party, was perhaps the least hard hit by the division. Similar considerations shaped foreign-policy preferences in the early 1970s and in 1990. The third factor was the perceived relationship between foreign and domestic policies. In the early 1950s, the SPD leader Kurt Schumacher recognized that the future Westpolitik would influence the struggle for farreaching domestic reforms within the Federal Republic. This led Schumacher to argue that a European Coal and Steel Community of primarily Catholic nations would make it harder for a socialist government to reform the German economy; pacifists in turn claimed that rearmament would “remilitarize” German society; Adenauer assured that Western integration would relax Allied controls in the Federal Republic. In the two succeeding crises, interest groups and political parties again were concerned about the domestic implications of a foreign policy. In 1969, Chancellor Brandt linked his government’s policy of détente with its promise of sweeping internal reforms: “we want to be a nation of good neighbors and will be at home and abroad.”25 His conservative opponents, however, darkly hinted that an accommodation with Communists abroad would strengthen Communism at home. During 1990, parties and interest groups again tied the national question to social policy. Chancellor Kohl promised that a rapid inclusion of East Germany into the Federal Republic would boost the German economy and cost little. In contrast, the Social Democratic Party warned that a hasty unification would increase social injustice in unified Germany. Chancellor Democracy The new coalitions and powerful chancellors of the early 1950s, early 1970s, and early 1990s each indicated the return of chancellor democracy to the Federal Republic. In recent years, scholars have argued that the decentralized structure of the German state and the de facto veto power of well-organized interests group have restricted the power of the chancellor over time.26 Some have concluded that chancellor democracy was unique to the Adenauer years, when the chancellor operated in an institutional landscape that had not yet hardened.

Introduction

11

This study refines the concept of chancellor democracy by showing that the rise of the Cold War, détente, and the fall of the Berlin Wall created infrequent opportunities for chancellor predominance. The international opening to a new Westpolitik in the early 1950s, a new Ostpolitik in the early 1970s, and unification “gave the chancellor at the time the chance to exploit the foreign policy resource to the full.”27 These foreignpolicy imperatives disrupted politics-as-usual in the divided Germany, and temporarily strengthened the chancellor as a coalition-builder and as a policymaker. Chancellor democracy must therefore be situated in its proper international context. Chapter 2 examines the chancellor democracy of the early Cold War, when Adenauer implemented a new Westpolitik; chapter 4 considers the chancellor democracy of the détente era, when Brandt passed his Ostpolitik; and chapter 6 looks at chancellor democracy at the end of the Cold War, when Kohl unified the two German states. In those instances, Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl found domestic support by linking foreign and domestic policies. At times they negotiated foreign treaties in ways that offered something additional for a domestic group necessary to the implementation of the foreign policy. At other times they connected two seemingly unconnected issues and pieced together unusual alliances on behalf of a hotly contested foreign policy. Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl centered the domestic debate around a foreign policy that would divide the opposition and create new majorities. Adenauer isolated the Social Democratic Party from the unions; Brandt used Ostpolitik to deprive the Christian Democrats of urban professional support; and Kohl knew that the issue of unification could cost the SPD support among East German workers. The chancellors determined the policy-making direction (Richtlinienkompetenz) and kept the political debate focused on foreign policy. In addition, all three chancellors excluded the opposition from foreign policy–making. In search of a fait accompli, they relied upon the federal chancellery; small, insulated executive committees; and kitchen cabinets of personal advisors, while excluding the opposition and the legislative branch from their top-level treaty negotiations with foreign powers. Despite their very different leadership styles, Brandt and Kohl, like Adenauer, took advantage of international openings to excel at chancellor democracy for a fleeting moment. Whenever the East-West relationship changed course, new interest coalitions and chancellor prominence arose in this divided nation on the front line of the Cold War. This book compares these moments.

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Part I

The Founding Era


Chapter One

Cold War and Codetermination

The contest over foreign policy is at the same time the contest over internal policy and the social content of the political order: Foreign policy sets the limits to the possibilities of our economic and social policy. —Kurt Schumacher1

With the rise of the Cold War, and the outbreak of the Korean War, the Western Allies offered the young Federal Republic membership in a European Coal and Steel Community and a Western defense alliance. In so doing, they sparked an intense foreign-policy debate in the Federal Republic that cut across the political fronts in the struggle over worker participation in company decision making (codetermination). As a national profile analysis shows, the Westpolitik debate jeopardized the social bases of the Adenauer government, while freeing the way for alternative political alliances. The Rise of the Cold War The United States and the Soviet Union remained suspicious of one another, even when allied against the Germans in World War II. Once the fascist threat was gone, their suspicion quickly turned to antagonism. As early as 1945, policymakers in Washington worried that the Soviet Union was stifling the free market and democratic development in Poland and the

16


Balkans. In 1946, they grew even more concerned when the Soviet Union sought to increase its influence in Iran and Turkey. The USSR was wary of the United States’ interest in Eastern Europe, of its secretive approach to the atomic bomb, and of its decision to curtail economic aid to the Soviets.2 The deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations was soon felt in occupied Germany, where the wartime Allies disregarded their earlier pledge to treat Germany as an economic whole. Instead, the Soviets and French pursued their own economic and political interests behind the “iron” and “silk” curtains that cordoned off their respective zones. The four powers could not agree about the future of German heavy industry, called the “Ruhr question” because much of it was, and is, located in the Ruhr region. Even after Germany’s defeat in 1945, this region, blessed with ample coal and iron ore reserves, had great industrial power. The French both feared and coveted this power. They feared a resurgence of the heavy industry that enabled Hitler to crush them in war, yet coveted Germany’s technical knowledge and its large reserves of iron ore and coal. They therefore supported the establishment of the International Authority of the Ruhr (IAR) to control German heavy industry. The Labour government in Britain offered a different answer to the problem of the Ruhr region. It favored the socialization of German heavy industry and backed German labor groups’ call for “codetermination,” or allowing workers a say in the management of companies. The Soviets, for their part, demanded increased shipments of western German industrial output into their zone. But the Americans showed little patience with French proposals to check the German recovery, British socialization plans, and Soviet calls for ever more reparations from the western zones. Instead, they were concerned that the German economy would not recover and would remain dependent on American economic aid. In late 1946, in an effort to strengthen the German economy, the Americans and British agreed to fuse their two zones into a jointly run “Bizonia.” By early 1947, the Cold War had begun in earnest. The United States and the Soviet Union moved to fortify their respective camps in Europe. In June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed massive financial assistance, known as the Marshall Plan, for the economic reconstruction of Europe. The Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was later established to coordinate the use of these funds among the participating states. While the three western zones of occupied Germany took part in Marshall Plan, the Soviet Union did not participate, nor did it allow Eastern Europe to receive American help. Instead, the USSR tightened its control of Eastern Europe. It presided over the Communist


17

takeover in Czechoslovakia, signed friendship treaties with the states of Eastern Europe, and stopped attending Allied four-power meetings in Berlin. When the three Western Allies introduced a new German currency (the DM) in western Germany, the Soviet Union sealed off the land routes to Berlin. For nearly a year, the Americans and British flew in supplies to the besieged city. In April 1949, a U.S.-led military alliance, later known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was signed by 12 Western states; in consequence, the Soviet Union formed its own military pact with the Communist states of Eastern Europe. The Cold War was now in full swing and the pace quickened toward a two-camp, or bipolar, division of Europe. As American and Soviet policies went in different directions, Western policies on Germany gradually converged. Viewing Germany as Europe’s “vital center,”3 the United States now encouraged its allies to help create viable economic and political structures in West Germany. This U.S. pressure, together with the Soviet military threat, led the French to soften their Germany policy. While the French still feared a resurgence of German power, they nonetheless agreed to the currency reform of 1948 that permitted an economic and industrial recovery in the western zones. They also approved of a separate West German state. A parliamentary council, under the chairmanship of the Christian Democrat Konrad Adenauer, convened on September 1, 1948, and began to draft the Federal Republic’s constitution, or Basic Law (Grundgesetz).4 In May 1949, the Basic Law was promulgated and the Federal Republic was declared.Yet this new state was far from sovereign. The Western Allies had issued an Occupation Statute that granted them legal jurisdiction over matters of foreign policy, foreign economic policy, decartelization, deconcentration, and the Ruhr region. Moreover, the International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR) and the Military Security Board (MSB), as instruments of Allied control, monitored industrial production in the Federal Republic. Comprised of three commissioners, the Allied High Commission (AHC) of the Western Allies oversaw the occupation from its headquarters atop the Petersberg near Bonn. In August 1949, the first federal elections took place. Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), received 31 percent of the vote; the Social Democratic Party (SPD) 29.2 percent; the Free Democratic Party (FDP) 11.9 percent; and the Communist Party (KPD) 5.7 percent. Chancellor Adenauer led a center-right coalition of the CDU/CSU; the FDP; and the small, regional German Party (DP).

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Within a few months, the Soviets founded the German Democratic Republic (GDR) within their own zone of occupation. The Socialist Unity Party (SED), a forced fusion of the East KPD and East SPD was the official ruling party. The ideological and territorial division of Germany now mirrored the division of Europe. On June 25, 1950, Communist North Korean troops stormed across the 38th parallel into South Korea. As the Cold War became a hot war in Asia, Western leaders and West Germans now asked whether East Germany, as a Soviet proxy, might not invade West Germany in the name of national liberation. They recognized the alarming military imbalance on the ground in Central Europe. In the summer of 1950, the occupying powers had about eight divisions in the Federal Republic that generally were poorly armed, inexperienced, and organized around the administrative requirements of the occupation. Altogether they had at their disposal between 12 and 14 NATO divisions in Western Europe. In contrast, they estimated Soviet troop strength at 22 well-trained, well-armed divisions in East Germany; 8 additional divisions in Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia; and 130 divisions in the USSR, of which about 40 were experienced and well armed.5 The events in Korea cast these numbers in a serious new light. Fears of a Soviet invasion spread throughout Western Europe in the summer of 1950.6

The Schuman Plan and the Pleven Plan The Western Allies hoped to increase the unity of the West by offering the Federal Republic membership within West European institutions. They encouraged the FRG to join the International Authority of the Ruhr, the international body that supervised industrial production and resource allocation in the Ruhr region. They also invited West Germany to become an associated member in the Council of Europe. While these two proposals aroused some controversy in the Federal Republic, they did not preoccupy the West Germans as the next two offers would. On May 9, 1950, Foreign Minister Robert Schuman of France proposed a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) to pool the coal and steel production of France, Germany, and other interested Western European countries. The ECSC was to have a supranational executive board that would regulate the modernization of industrial production, pricing, delivery, and export. Schuman stressed that the ECSC would make war between Germany and France “materially impossible” because


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its supervision of coal and steel production ruled out clandestine military buildups. The chief architect of the Schuman Plan, the Frenchman Jean Monnet, had been concerned about surplus steel production in Europe,7 as well as about the deleterious effects of tariffs, transportation barriers, quotas, and subsidies on market efficiency.8 He did not intend the Schuman Plan to be a successor to the international steel cartels of the 1920s. Instead, as became clear by the end of 1950, Monnet and the French government saw the Schuman Plan as a way to prevent cartels in the Ruhr.9 They objected to the German steel companies’ ownership of coal mines in the Ruhr region. Known as the Verbundwirtschaft, this vertical integration had long been a feature of German heavy industry. They also opposed the cartellistic German Coal Sales Agency (the Deutsche Kohle-Verein, or DKV) which allocated Ruhr coal. The French had proposed the Schuman Plan for reasons of political prestige as well. On the one hand, they hoped to assume the unchallenged leadership in the process of European integration. On the other hand, they wanted to make sure that they had an active say in any discussions regarding a future German rearmament. This discussion of rearmament came sooner rather than later. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the Americans began to consider in earnest West German rearmament, something that had been inconceivable just a few years earlier. Prior to the start of the North Atlantic Council meeting in New York in September 1950, the foreign ministers of the three occupying powers met in New York. Here, Secretary of State Dean Acheson disclosed American plans to rearm the West Germans as part of a collective defense effort.10 Offering its European allies a so-called single package, the United States agreed to reinforce its troops in Europe and to provide a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACeur) on the condition that the West Germans rearm within a NATO framework. Although the Western powers avoided a definite commitment, they issued a final communiqué that endorsed a West German military contribution.11 The French were unhappy about this American push to rearm the Germans within the Atlantic Alliance. They feared the formation of German military divisions so soon after Hitler. To buy time and to promote a more acceptable type of rearmament, they announced in October 1950 their own proposal for a European army. Known as the Pleven Plan, it envisioned the incorporation of West German battalions within an integrated European army that would answer to European civilian and military command structures.12

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By early December 1950, the Western Allies had reached an agreement amongst themselves on how to proceed toward German rearmament.13 According to the Spofford Compromise, the United States added troops to Europe, while the French cooperated on German rearmament.14 The Allies envisioned German regiments (containing 5,000 to 6,000 men) rather than divisions (12,000 to 15,000), limits on the share of West German troops, and restrictions on the heavy armaments that these troops bore. The Federal Republic would have neither a national army, nor a general staff, nor a defense ministry. The North Atlantic Council approved these recommendations, as well as the establishment of a SACeur. Truman chose General Eisenhower to fill this post in early 1951.15 In December 1950, the foreign ministers of the NATO countries met in Brussels and supported the recommendations of the North Atlantic Council. They called for parallel negotiations to be held. In Paris, interested Western European nations would negotiate a European solution, while at Petersberg, the Allied High Commission and German experts would discuss technical aspects associated with a rearmament.

Westpolitik Preferences in the Federal Republic The Cold War furthered pro-Western attitudes in West Germany. The Soviet Union’s heavy-handed policies in Eastern Europe and in East Germany all fanned West German anti-Communism. Its massed troops stirred fears of a Soviet invasion, particularly after the outbreak of the Korean War. In contrast to Soviet policies, key American policies, such as the Marshall Plan and Berlin airlift, appeared humane. Although the Americans were careful to neither fund nor openly favor any one political party in Germany, they nonetheless had helped create an economic and constitutional settlement between 1947 and 1949 that all but ruled out a pro-Soviet orientation on the part of the Federal Republic. Given the terrible economic hardship of the postwar years and the allure of Western aid, it is not surprising that all the major parties and interest groups in West Germany, with the lone exception of the Communist Party, welcomed the Marshall Plan. Considerations of national security, individual liberty, economic prosperity, and a restoration of German sovereignty all tilted elite and mass opinion toward a pro-Western policy. West German leaders had neither the means nor the will to implement an independent policy toward the East. Even earlier proponents of a German “bridge” or “broker” role between the East and the West, such as Jakob Kaiser, came to recognize


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this fact. The Cold War had made one thing quite clear: the Federal Republic must improve its relations to the West or face a dangerous isolation. Yet the terms of the Schuman Plan and the rearmament proposals sparked a heated debate in the Federal Republic. They raised concerns about another war on German soil, a more deeply divided Germany, a setback to democratic development, a restoration of capitalism, and a permanent loss of German sovereignty. An analysis of foreign-policy preferences shows that the Schuman Plan proposal and the rearmament initiatives divided political parties and interest groups in the Federal Republic along new lines and created an opening for new interest coalitions. Konrad Adenauer Chancellor Adenauer (CDU) enthusiastically welcomed both the Schuman Plan and the Allied call for German rearmament. In fact, he had earlier suggested a French-German economic union, and in two secret memos had encouraged the Western Allies to rearm the West Germans.16 As a Rhinelander and a practicing Catholic, Adenauer had long wanted a rapprochement between Germany and its Western neighbors. The 73year-old Adenauer had begun his political career as the lord mayor of the western city of Cologne in 1917. As the then-youngest mayor of a major German city, Adenauer remained mayor until he was deposed by the Nazis in 1933. He believed that shared customs and values bound the German west culturally and historically to France.17 He also believed that German participation in the Schuman Plan and in the defense of Europe would offer the Federal Republic a number of concrete gains. First, it would halt the westward march of the Soviet Union. Adenauer said, “the danger is great. Asia is on the Elbe. Only an economically and spiritually healthy West Europe, to which the part of Germany not occupied by Russia must be an essential component, can stop the further spiritual and military penetration of Asia.”18 He also believed that Western unity would keep the United States committed to the defense of Europe. If Western European countries bickered amongst themselves, as they had after World War I, then might not the United States again withdraw from the continent in disgust? Finally, he saw a clear link between the FRG’s participation in the Schuman Plan and a Western defense effort on one hand, and German political emancipation from the shackles of occupation and international ostracism on the other.19 In fact, Adenauer, the consummate pragmatist, was prepared to tolerate a short-term discrimination against German interests if he could advance his cherished goal of French-German union.

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To dispel claims that the Schuman Plan and rearmament would deepen the division of Germany, Adenauer argued for a “policy of strength” toward the Russians. “I was and am firmly convinced that only a firm, determined policy of union with the West will one day bring about unification in peace and freedom,” he said.20 “It is not a sensible policy for the Soviets to allow themselves to get involved for years in a hopeless arms race. They are the first who will understand the language of Western strength.”21 Konrad Adenauer could count upon his party for foreign-policy support.22 The fact that even earlier skeptics of a Western course, such as Jakob Kaiser, soon fell into line suggested the extent of his unchallenged position in the CDU. Adenauer enjoyed support for his rearmament agenda among the CDU’s party organization and within its parliamentary grouping.23 Only later in the rearmament debate did Christian Democrats in parliament openly challenge the chancellor’s foreign policy. Kurt Schumacher After the collapse of the Third Reich, Kurt Schumacher became the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He was physically handicapped, having lost an arm in World War I and a leg in a Nazi concentration camp. As an engaged opponent of Hitler and as a victim of Nazi terror, Schumacher, an impassioned public speaker, possessed enormous moral authority within the ranks of his party. He envisioned an energetic SPD that would lead the renewal of Germany. Although disappointed by his party’s second-place showing in the federal elections of 1949, he headed the opposition in the Bundestag, where he turned his attention to foreign-policy matters. A staunch anti-Communist, Schumacher rejected the USSR as being totalitarian, Russian nationalist, and imperialist. He considered a German foreign policy that swung between the East and West to be naive and dangerous. He also believed that national unification was essential for stability in Europe:“A nation this large without national unity and a mere object of the most diverse foreign influences will be a center of corruption and subversion. The unresolved problems and the resulting new concerns will be sources of eternal unrest, poisoning the international climate.”24 His “magnet theory” closely linked social justice within the Federal Republic to national unity.“If you’re for German unity, then make the German West a magnet, socially and with regard to the esteem of the working man.”25 Schumacher’s party had much to gain from the unifica-


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tion of Germany. As late as 1932, 60 percent of the electorate in the territory of the GDR had voted for parties on the left. This area was the historic heartland of German Social Democracy. Like Chancellor Adenauer, Schumacher did not doubt Germany shared a common cultural heritage with Western Europe. But whereas Adenauer emphasized shared Christian values, Schumacher underscored the legacy of democratic socialism and the ideals of the French Revolution.“The occident is not dead because socialism and democracy live.”26 “A new Germany will see as its supreme mission to be part of the United States of Europe.”27 But Schumacher adamantly opposed any discrimination, even temporary, against German national interests within European institutions. “Europe means equal rights,” he stated flatly.28 By late 1950, Schumacher had turned against the Schuman Plan. He had earlier cautioned that the integration of European heavy industry must not preempt the possibility of domestic reforms in Germany.29 To ensure that this did not happen, he wanted the Labour government in Great Britain to play a “special role” in the Schuman Plan to counterbalance the influence of France, Italy, and the Benelux states. Once the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries chose not to participate in the Schuman Plan, Schumacher lost interest, describing the six participating states as “conservative,” “clerical,” “capitalist,” and “cartellistic.”30 He had also grown suspicious of what he saw as French nationalism in the guise of European supranationalism. His suspicions would turn into a furious opposition by 1951. The SPD also opposed Adenauer’s defense policy. At the SPD base, a powerful pacifist sentiment existed that was hostile to “remilitarization” in any form. Largely apolitical, the pacifism of a “count me out” response (ohne mich) attracted many Social Democrats and trade unionists.31 At times, leading Social Democrats such as Professor Carlo Schmid appeared to court this sentiment. On October 24, 1950, Schmid told an enthusiastic audience,“We would prefer to see healthy people bolshevized in intact houses, than cripples in holes in the ground.”32 In fall 1950, opinion polls showed that more than twice as many Germans opposed participation in a European army as supported it.33 Kurt Schumacher, however, soon moved his party away from pacifism toward a conditional support of a German defense contribution. But the Western states, he insisted, must be prepared to fight the decisive battle east of the German borders of 1937. If they did so, they could save German lands from the destruction of war and also show their commitment to the

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principle of “equal risk, equal cost, and equal opportunity” in the defense of Europe.34 Schumacher warned that calls to protect France by fighting the Soviets on West German soil amounted to a “declaration of bankruptcy of the European idea.”35 He also said,“One cannot defend freedom if one arbitrarily classifies some soldiers as first-class and others as secondclass, and then assigns to the second-class soldiers the more dangerous tasks.”36 For this reason, he rejected the discriminatory Pleven Plan. The Small Bourgeois Parties In a coalition with the CDU/CSU, two smaller parties initially stood behind Adenauer. The German Party (DP) was a small conservative party from northern Germany that backed the chancellor’s course without reservation.37 The larger Free Democratic Party (FDP), which found support among the West German professional classes, also indicated its support of the chancellor’s rearmament efforts.38 However, the FDP espoused a more maximalist security conception than did Chancellor Adenauer. It favored setting the Allied targeted defense line as far east as possible to minimize the devastation of German soil.39 In this regard, the party’s position resembled that of the SPD. The Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) energetically opposed West German “remilitarization” on the grounds that it would imperil peace and German unity.40 In parliament, the KPD sought to block Adenauer’s rearmament plans but had little success given its small size and isolation. On the extra-parliamentary front, Communist activists sought to mobilize worker opposition to rearmament. For instance, the KPD bussed in protesting workers from the Ruhr region and Hamburg during the parliamentary debates on rearmament of early 1952.41 It urged a national plebiscite on rearmament and played upon the pacifism of the working class. In general, however, the party floundered on the overwhelming odds that it faced during the height of the Cold War. The KPD had to combat not only widespread anti-Communism and an aversion to its clientelistic relationship to the East German SED, but also a deliberate policy on behalf of the SPD and the trade unions to cut it off from the West German working class. As a result, the party steadily lost influence in the Federal Republic. In 1956, the federal constitutional court formally outlawed the KPD.


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Trade Unions In 1949, 16 West German industrial unions combined to form the German Trade Union Federation (DGB). The federation was politically independent although most of its leaders were Social Democrats. The chairman was Hans Böckler, a 74-year-old SPD member whose leadership was unchallenged in the federation. On a number of occasions, he decided important policy matters without consulting his colleagues.42 Although Böckler and other DGB leaders were primarily interested in domestic policy, they greeted the announcement of the Schuman Plan with optimism, seeing a chance to improve living standards for miners and steel workers.43 They were ideologically predisposed to support supranational controls and a French-German reconciliation. In the words of Ludwig Rosenberg, a DGB foreign-policy expert, “the idea, known today as the Schuman Plan, is a part of that great conception which we have always pleaded for as a substantial guarantee of freedom and peace.”44 The unions took their place at the Schuman Plan negotiations in Paris. However, Allied plans to reorganize the Ruhr region subsequently dampened union enthusiasm for the Schuman Plan. In late 1950, August Schmidt, who headed the 450,000-member miners’ union, informed Adenauer that his union would withdraw its support for the Schuman Plan unless German interests regarding the German Coal Sales Agency (DKV) and the vertical integration of the coal and steel industries were met.45 Prior to 1950, the DGB had viewed a “remilitarization” of Germany in terms of its domestic political consequences. Keenly aware of past German militarism, the unions had rejected rearmament as a threat to the democratic order.46 They, like the SPD, demanded a “social, rather than a military build-up.”47 After North Korea invaded South Korea, however, the unions were no longer unified in their opposition to rearmament.48 In contrast to the union rank-and-file, Böckler was more open to a German defense contribution and even discussed the matter with Adenauer in a late August meeting.49 In November 1950, the executive committee of the DGB issued a carefully worded statement that declared that full employment, adequate care for needy groups, and “above all worker codetermination rights” represented “a better guarantee for peace and security than tank divisions.”50 While the DGB rejected the idea of an independent German army, it placed two necessary conditions for West German participation in a European army: real progress toward European integration and global collective security, and the establishment of democratic oversight of all military formations. Although the DGB leadership concluded that at that

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time neither demand had been met, it was careful not to rule out its future support if the terms were right. What these terms might be was revealed in the meeting in late August 1950 between Hans Böckler and Konrad Adenauer. Böckler and Adenauer, who had known each other since Adenauer’s days as the mayor of Cologne, had a personal relationship that has been described as “a strange sort of friendship.”51 In his meeting with the chancellor, Böckler indicated that he would expect parity codetermination if the unions backed rearmament. While the significance of their meeting is unclear, it does suggest Böckler’s pragmatism and Adenauer’s interest in trade union support for his foreign policy.52 In contrast to the DGB’s leadership, both minor union officials and the rank-and-file generally viewed rearmament with hostility and repulsion. Among the workers, a traditional anti-militarist ethos prevailed. The terrible loss of lives in the two world wars had strengthened their pacifism. Workers also feared that rearmament would bring additional economic hardship.53 Moreover, they tended to discount the likelihood of an imminent Soviet attack. Instead,“Communism [was] viewed not as a system intent on military conquest but as an alternative social system which feeds primarily on the failures and incapacities of the capitalist powers, and uses military force only coincidentally or as a last resort.”54 To meet the challenge of Communism, union members demanded domestic reforms rather than a military buildup. Industry Groups Three main industrial pressure groups arose in the early postwar years. The Diet of German Industry and Commerce (DIHT) was the umbrella organization of the local chambers of commerce. A second association, the Federation of German Employers’ Associations (BdA), primarily concerned itself with social and labor issues that arose during collective bargaining. The dominant business interest group was the Federation of German Industry (BDI).55 The BDI had a triple advantage over its rivals in great wealth, organizational coherence, and impressive connections. Its first president, Fritz Berg, was an outspoken supporter of close relations between the Federal Republic and its Western European neighbors. When Berg proclaimed in 1950 that “all of West German industry feels itself to be most tightly connected and committed to the West,”56 he captured a prevailing sentiment amongst business people. How could it be otherwise? Markets, Marshall Plan funds, and suppliers, as well as cultural


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and ideological factors, provided a powerful incentive for good relations with the West.57 But Berg not only supported a Western orientation, he strongly endorsed the Schuman Plan and proposals to rearm the West Germans. The German coal and steel industries initially welcomed Schuman’s announcement. They supported a lifting of European tariff barriers and saw in the Schuman Plan a chance to remove cumbersome Western Allied restrictions. Some believed that pooling would end Western deconcentration plans in Germany and allow instead for plant reconcentration in West Germany. Others hopefully anticipated a rebirth of the European cartels of the 1920s.58 Yet when it became clear that the Western Allies wanted a decartelized Ruhr region within the future common coal and steel community, industrialists began to see the Schuman Plan in a less favorable light. They lobbied Bonn to protect the Verbundwirtschaft and the contested coal sales agency.59 The German business community tended to view rearmament with skepticism and some apprehension. Many industrialists had bitterly resented the Allied denazification and deconcentration efforts. Furious about the way they had been treated after the war, they did not wish to expose themselves again to the charge of supporting German militarism.60 They also worried that a rearmament might cause inflation, hurt consumer industries, and siphon off much-needed investment.61 Nonetheless, they liked Chancellor Adenauer and feared the Soviet Union. The Churches Because the churches had offered some resistance to National Socialism, they enjoyed the favor of the Western Allies after 1945. Their influence grew further when West Germans returned to the churches in droves after National Socialism. In regard to foreign policy, the Catholic Church backed Adenauer and shared his anti-Communism and his goal of European integration.62 In 1950, the German Cardinal Frings encouraged German Catholics to support a rearmament by citing Pope Pius XII’s Christmas message of 1948. To Pius: “A nation, either threatened by an unjust attack or a victim of such an attack, may not maintain a passive indifference, if it wishes to act Christian. . . .”63 Adenauer also shaped foreign-policy preferences among Catholics since “to a majority of Catholic laymen and church officials, Konrad Adenauer seemed to provide the guarantee that the Federal Republic would become politically and ideologically ‘their state.’ This fixation on Adenauer was not easily separable

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from their endorsement of his rearmament policy. . . .”64 Although opposition to rearmament occasionally arose within the Church, especially before the Korean War, the unchallenged authority of the church hierarchy, coupled with its imposing mechanisms of control, assured discipline among lay organizations. In contrast, leading elements within the Protestant Church of Germany (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, EKD) actively challenged German rearmament. In a spectacular fashion, Gustav Heinemann (CDU), the minister of interior and a ranking official in the EKD, quit the federal cabinet in late summer 1950 over the issue of rearmament. To Heinemann, Adenauer had acted inappropriately when he secretly delivered to the Western Allies two memos in August 1950 that had called for a West German federal police force to counter East German police formations.65 Heinemann believed that a rearmament endangered the young German democracy, increased international tensions, and brought Germany new entanglements of unknown proportions.66 Most of all, he feared that a West German rearmament within a Western military alliance diminished the chance for German unity.“If I wish to travel to Dresden or Rostock or Berlin, then I do not climb in a train headed toward Paris or Rome. . . . Neither in Paris, nor in Rome, nor in Brussels will we meet people who will be concerned about taking us to Berlin!”67 Heinemann’s resignation as interior minister created a public stir, shattered the delicate religious balance within the cabinet, and led to an increased Protestant opposition to Adenauer. The rearmament debate deeply divided the Protestant Church of Germany. On the one side, a vocal grouping openly resisted rearmament. It included church leaders who had won recognition for their resistance in Nazi Germany and for their admission of church guilt after the war. Hessia’s church president, Martin Niemöller, who headed the church office for foreign-policy matters, opposed rearmament on both national and religious grounds. In early October 1950, he sent the chancellor a sensational letter that demanded an end to a secret rearmament and called for new elections or a national referendum on rearmament.68 In a much publicized event, he met with Kurt Schumacher, who was hoping for Protestant backing as a counterweight to the Catholic Church’s support of Adenauer and the CDU.69 In addition to Niemöller, a group of young ministers organized an aggressive campaign to prevent rearmament. They proposed neutrality, demanded more social justice in the Federal Republic, and evoked the principle of conscientious objection.70 At this time of controversy, Adenauer’s support of rearmament appeared to be costing his party support among Protestant voters. In the heavily


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Protestant region of Hesse, the CDU won a mere 19 percent of the vote in the state election of late 1950. Prominent Protestant conservatives sought to distance their church from the activities of Niemöller and his associates. Rather than directly attack his position on rearmament, they maintained that Niemöller, as a church functionary, had violated a basic tenet separating church affairs (Kingdom of Heaven) and political matters (Kingdom of Earth).71 They insisted that his statements represented a private opinion rather than an official church policy.72 In an attempt to preserve church unity, the EKD council practiced restraint in its pronouncements on rearmament. At its annual church assembly in August 1950, the EKD withheld its support of rearmament. In November, it reaffirmed the importance of church unity, acknowledged legitimate differences of opinions over rearmament, and advised church officials to show discretion in public.73 The EKD did not stray, however, from its commitment to German reunification as its primary foreign-policy goal. This was explained in part by the costs that the territorial division had inflicted on the EKD. Not only were four-fifths of the GDR citizens Protestant, but the separated eastern regions included the traditional Protestant heartland. As an organization, the EKD still represented German Protestants in East Germany. Profile Summary In 1950, there was no consensus or social partnership on Westpolitik. The debates over the Schuman Plan and rearmament cut across class, confessional, and ideological lines. These controversial issues, in particular the question of rearmament, threatened the unity of the EKD, the business community, the trade union movement, Social Democracy, and the governing coalition in Bonn. Powerful politicians and interest group leaders formulated, often on their own accord, policy positions without the consent of the rank and file. Hans Böckler welcomed a pragmatic foreign policy, despite the principled opposition to rearmament among the trade-union base; Fritz Berg (BDI) favored the Schuman Plan and rearmament, whereas much of industry remained guarded on both accounts; Konrad Adenauer secretly recommended a buildup of a West German security force to the Western Allies in his August memos, yet he had not secured the support of either his cabinet or the West German public; Kurt Schumacher urged an offensive military buildup, yet the SPD base leaned toward pacifism.

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Since these leaders had the power to speak and to act for their organizations, how they linked foreign policy and domestic policy was particularly important. It is significant that Schumacher placed domestic reform within the context of German foreign policy (the magnet theory), whereas Böckler placed the trade-union position on foreign policy within the context of domestic reform. In order to understand further how domestic and foreign policy preferences were related, we must examine the escalating controversy over codetermination.

The Codetermination Debate Codetermination was to play a critical role in the foreign policy–making of the early 1950s. This term refers to the right of workers to participate in decision making. It implies more than just the workers’ right to information. In the German case, the unions have demanded codetermination rights in economic, social, and personnel matters. They also have demanded to participate in decision making at all levels of the economy. This encompasses factory work councils, which oversee the day-to-day operation of an industrial plant; a labor director who attends to the social and personnel concerns of workers in large companies; the supervisory boards of firms that decide company strategies; and finally, the establishment of state and federal economic councils. Most controversial of all was the German unions’ demand for equal representation, or “parity,” within the supervisory boards of companies. The German unions have also insisted that trade-union officials might sit on the supervisory boards, even if they do not work in the factory. Industry has opposed parity codetermination and the presence of outside union representatives on company boards. To the present day, the West German unions have viewed codetermination as a necessary political check on the power of the industrialists. They have pointed to developments after World War I when conservative owners reversed earlier efforts to introduce far-reaching economic reforms in Germany. At its founding congress in Munich in 1949, the DGB proclaimed that “the experiences of the years 1918–1921 have taught us that the formal political democracy is not sufficient to bring about a genuine democratic social order. The democratization of political life must therefore be supplemented by the democratization of the economy.”74 German trade unions supported their case for “economic democracy” in the form of codetermination by arguing that reactionary industrialists turned to the Nazi party in the early 1930s. They argued


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that without party codetermination, the workers cannot check the irresponsible behavior of powerful industrialists. As one of the four occupying powers after World War II, Great Britain occupied the industrial Ruhr region of Germany. Its plans to restructure German heavy industry within its zone of occupation provided an opportunity to introduce worker codetermination. The British Steel Controller W. Harris-Burland agreed to implement parity codetermination as part of Britain’s deconcentration efforts, and in 1947, introduced parity codetermination in 24 reorganized steel and iron companies in the Ruhr region. According to the new model, the company supervisory boards were filled with five worker representatives (the unions appointed three members, the factory councils nominated two); five company representatives (the corporation placed three; management one, the public one); and an “eleventh man,” to be named by the steel trustee. In addition, the parity model created the position of a labor director within the company’s managing board; nominated by the employees, the labor director would oversee personnel matters.75 This arrangement provided the most worker codetermination within the three western zones of occupation. In the American zone, in contrast, General Lucius Clay had suspended state laws granting extensive codetermination to work councils.76 When the Federal Republic formed in 1949, Allied laws were to be replaced by properly legislated West German laws that had passed through the Bundestag. The DGB demanded that parliament secure and extend parity codetermination, as practiced in the Ruhr region, throughout the entire economy. This was the DGB’s number-one goal. In his New Year’s address in 1950, Hans Böckler was optimistic:“the German working class anticipates in 1950 the realization of a new, just and social order and the anchoring of the right of codetermination in all phases and all levels of the economy.”77 In its efforts to extend codetermination, the trade union federation could count on the Social Democrats, who also viewed parity codetermination as a necessary check on unbridled capitalism. Kurt Schumacher even incorporated the codetermination demand within his magnet theory on unification. On September 21, 1949, he told the assembled Bundestag: “I believe that if we want to make a contribution to German unity, then we should above all opt for the social worth and the codetermination of the working masses.”78 As the Bundestag began to consider codetermination in the summer of 1950, the SPD submitted a bill that had been drafted with the DGB. It called for far-reaching worker codetermination rights in social, personnel, and economic matters at all levels of economic decision making.

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The DGB also found support for its codetermination demands among left-wing Catholics. It was not by chance that Hans Böckler located parity codetermination within the intellectual tradition of the Catholic social teachings.79 He strove for an inter-confessional, inter-class alliance. This seemed within reach. At the church congress in Bochum in 1949, Catholic church leaders had spoken out strongly for extensive codetermination rights:80 The Catholic workers and employers are in agreement that the right of codetermination of all workers in social, personnel, and economic questions is a natural right in the divinely willed order; the co-responsibility of each is in accordance with this right. We demand its legal regulation. Following the example of progressive firms, the right of codetermination must now be realized.

Likewise, left-wing Christian Democrats, often with close connections to the Catholic working class, favored parity codetermination. While they did not command a majority in the CDU/CSU, they nonetheless helped submit a CDU/CSU parliamentary bill in 1950 that went far beyond the demands of the opponents of codetermination. These opponents held sway in the German Party (DP), in the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and on the right wing of the CDU/CSU. Together, they pushed the Adenauer government (CDU/CSU-FDP-DP) toward a hard-line stance in late 1950. The federal cabinet supported a proposal in late October that would grant workers only one third of the seats on the supervisory board, bar outside union representation from these boards, and diminish the powers of the work councils.81 The movement against codetermination had diverse roots in German society. An influential group of economists, schooled in the neo-liberal economic thought of the Freiburg school, praised owner initiative as crucial for a healthy economy, and warned against codetermination as a threat to entrepreneurship. The neo-liberal critics of codetermination had an ally in Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard (CDU) and were influential within the FDP. Conservative Catholics, although opposed to market liberalism, also rejected parity codetermination. They cited the teaching of Pope Pius XII, who in 1950 had spoken out against parity codetermination as unnatural both to the labor contract and to private enterprise.82 Not surprisingly, the strongest opposition came from West German industry. The DIHT, the BdA, and the powerful BDI all rejected parity codetermination and the presence of outside union representatives within


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company supervisory boards. They demanded that the Bundestag roll back the Allied law in the Ruhr region by passing an industrywide works constitution act that would not include parity codetermination. They believed that parity codetermination undermined the basic prerogatives of business ownership, and represented socialism through the backdoor. As Cold War tensions peaked, industry leaders did not shy away from pointing to developments in Eastern Europe in an effort to discredit the unions. The head of the BdA warned that the selection of supervisory board members by the trade unions would lead to a dangerous drift toward “Eastern” methods,83 while BDI vice president Otto Vogel declared that the unions “are striving for a total power, which would oppress the entire nation—worker and employer alike.”84 To Fritz Berg (BDI), it simply made no sense “to make the firm a ship steered by two captains.”85 By late 1950, the conflict over codetermination had come to a head. Efforts to reach a settlement outside of the parliament had failed miserably. The conflict threatened the Adenauer government. If it tilted toward business, then it provoked the DGB, which, with its five million members, could cripple the fragile German economy, and mobilize worker opposition to the Schuman Plan and rearmament. If the government shifted toward labor, then it might split the CDU or its own governing coalition. Particularly worrisome was the fact that the FDP had threatened to leave the coalition if parity codetermination was granted.86 Frustrated by the deadlocked negotiations and a mainly hostile government, the DGB in the fall of 1950 worried about a rollback of codetermination rights. This scenario led the DGB to call for a strike in the steel and coal industries in support of parity codetermination. The resulting crisis, chronicled in the next chapter, shook the foundations of the young Federal Republic.

Summary The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 intensified the West German Westpolitik debate. By late October, Adenauer was struggling. The Schuman Plan negotiations stalled on the issue of cartels when West German industry and labor resisted the planned decartelization of the Ruhr; the simmering struggle over codetermination threatened to explode into a crippling strike; German rearmament, which was immensely unpopular throughout the country, triggered religious, pacifist, and working-class enmity. Deprived of domestic and foreign-policy success, Adenauer faced a

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tense situation. The societal pillars of his government wavered: turmoil in the Protestant camp, growing resentment in heavy industry, active opposition among the unions. The political framework also appeared rickety; the vexing, unresolved matter of codetermination threatened to either split the CDU or shatter the fragile governing coalition. In this environment of uncertainty, rumors spread of an imminent SPD-Protestant bloc, a grand coalition of SPD and CDU headed by Berlin’s Mayor Ernst Reuter (SPD), or new elections to decide the rearmament question. Certain among the uncertainty was that the complex tangle of domestic and foreign-policy problems had jeopardized the implementation of Adenauer’s foreign policy. Whether Adenauer could muster sufficient support to negotiate and ratify the Schuman Plan and rearmament seemed doubtful. The rise of the Cold War had introduced a destabilizing foreign-policy debate. The question remained: which national alignment would sustain a new Westpolitik in the difficult year to come?

Chapter Two

An Alliance for a New Westpolitik

Rising Cold War tensions yielded broad support within the Federal Republic for a new Westpolitik without creating a consensus on the terms of the new policy. In fact, the proposals for a European Coal and Steel Community (in the Schuman Plan) and a West German defense contribution aroused bitter opposition. Many West German voters, workers, business people, and churchgoers viewed them with suspicion and fear: suspicion of French intentions; and fear of more bloodshed, less democracy, and a deeper national division. As a product of the Cold War, the rearmament and Schuman Plan proposals disturbed the social and political bases of Adenauer’s center-right government. However, they also gave the chancellor the chance to build new interest coalitions in support of his Westpolitik.To do so, he took full advantage of the foreign policy–making resources at his disposal. This is seen most clearly during the struggle over the Petersberg Protocol in fall 1949, the making of the Codetermination Law of 1951, and the signing of the European Defense Community treaty in spring 1952. They each reveal the intertwining of foreign policy–making and domestic coalition formation at times of international pressure. The Petersberg Protocol of Fall 1949 Just two months in office, Chancellor Adenauer first ventured into the realm of foreign policy when he negotiated the “Petersberg Protocol” with the Western Allies.This episode is instructive. Even though the chancellor of this semi-sovereign West German state had little foreign-policy

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influence abroad, he dominated West German foreign policy–making at home. He would use this power to recast domestic alignments in the FRG. The making of the Petersberg Protocol offers a glimpse at what would follow during the foreign policy–making of 1951–1952. In 1949, the Western Allies were dismantling West German industry in accordance with their earlier agreements. To the average West German, this was incomprehensible: with one hand, the Western powers were pouring into West Germany millions of dollars in Marshall Plan aid for economic reconstruction; with the other, they were destroying thousands of jobs at a time of high unemployment. West German unions, Ruhr industrialists, and Chancellor Adenauer all condemned the dismantling.1 At a conference in Paris on November 9–10, the three Western Allies agreed to defer the dismantling of nonmilitary installations (several steelworks), ease shipbuilding restrictions, and permit West German diplomatic relations with a few selected nations. In return, they expected the Germans to participate in the International Authority of the Ruhr (IAR), cooperate with the remaining dismantling and decartelization, and join the Council of Europe as an associate member. The High Commissioners and Chancellor Adenauer then met to negotiate the final terms of the so-called Petersberg Protocol. At these meetings, the new chancellor was able to rescue additional industrial sites from the Allied wrecking ball. On November 24, during a Bundestag debate on the Petersberg Protocol, Kurt Schumacher angrily accused Adenauer of engaging in secretive, undemocratic diplomacy at the cost of the German nation. He pointed to the discriminatory IAR, a foreign-controlled agency which was to continue to export German coal, even though coal shortages were crippling the West German economy.2 Adenauer responded that the reductions in dismantling had spared thousands of jobs. As tensions rose late in the evening, Adenauer received a dramatic press release from the trade union headquarters in Düsseldorf, which he then read aloud: “even though the German-Allied agreement is not satisfactory in all its parts, in the opinion of the unions, the cooperation of the federal government with the International Authority of the Ruhr (IAR) is correct.”3 Tensions escalated further, reaching a breaking point at 3:00 AM when Schumacher denounced Adenauer as “the chancellor of the Allies” for his role in the Petersberg Protocol. For the outburst, the Bundestag barred Schumacher from 20 sessions. The importance of the Petersberg Protocol lies in the patterns of interaction that emerged. Adenauer wove seemingly irreconcilable external (Allied High Commission) and internal (SPD) pressures into a


37

mosaic of foreign and domestic political success. What arose were two interrelated models; each reflected the tight mesh between domestic and foreign policy. A first pattern revealed a new foreign-policy approach. The Western Allies had lessened their external control, in this case dismantling, in return for German participation in European institutions (the International Authority of the Ruhr.) This very trade-off (West German integration for West German sovereignty) would form the crux of Adenauer’s future foreign policy. The Petersberg Protocol also recast government-opposition relations. To speak of a “system of 1949” no doubt exaggerates, but one finds certain features that were to characterize West Germany’s domestic environment for some time. Adenauer and Schumacher now clashed openly over foreign policy in an intense personal rivalry. For Adenauer, the ferocity of Schumacher’s attacks on his person and on his foreign policy was useful in unifying the many diverse elements of his governing coalition against the SPD. Moreover, in light of Schumacher’s caustic, nationalistic rhetoric, Adenauer could present his government to the Western Allies as the very voice of reason and moderation. The Petersberg Protocol also strained the DGB-SPD relationship. As Adenauer showed, foreign policy might disrupt the otherwise close partnership between the unions and the Social Democratic Party. Whereas Hans Böckler had decided on his own to back the chancellor,4 Schumacher had stuck to his foreign-policy principles. He insisted that binding commitments between Germany and her Western neighbors, if discriminatory, would make reunification and economic reform less likely.5 Seemingly preoccupied with a long-term foreign-policy objective, he appeared to neglect the more immediate issue of jobs. As a result, Böckler, a member of the SPD since 1894, caught Schumacher off guard when he endorsed the Petersberg Protocol. “To the dismay of Schumacher, the DGB for the first time acted in political competition to the party. One thing was now clear: Schumacher was not the worker movement, and the SPD did not in any way hold the leadership in its hands.”6 Chancellor Adenauer had shown how he intended to conduct foreign policy. He had excluded the opposition from the negotiations, while taking advantage of his special access to the Allied High Commission; in so doing, he provoked the opposition and polarized the discussion of foreign policy. This was a new development. Prior to the Petersberg Protocol, economic issues and church-state questions had most divided the Social Democrats from the Christian Democrats. Adenauer now established the link

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between West German participation in international organizations and concrete domestic concessions, namely the cutbacks in dismantling. These would allow him to win over domestic interest groups.

Toward the Codetermination Law of 1951 Adenauer’s early foreign-policy success was short-lived. Within a year, the chancellor was struggling to find support for the Schuman Plan and rearmament. The winter of 1950–51 was a particularly difficult one for the chancellor. High Commissioner John McCloy of the United States and his associates were meeting regularly with the West German government, unions, and industry in an effort to resolve the issue of cartels in the Ruhr. McCloy finally informed Adenauer on March 2, 1951, that the Western Allies would be carrying out their decartelization plans despite West German objections.7 Adenauer had little choice but to accept Allied terms. The settlement created 24 new steel companies, led to the abolition of the cartelistic coal-sales agency (DKV), and weakened the Verbundwirschaft— the largest steel companies could own coal mines producing less than three-quarters of their coal need. This meant that 16.5 percent of West German coking coal was controlled by the German steel firms, rather than 33 percent as before the war.8 To be included within the Schuman Plan treaty, these terms aroused much protest in the Ruhr region. In early 1950, Adenauer also faced setbacks in the rearmament debate. In their talks with the High Commission, the West Germans had demanded but not yet received a promise the German troops would receive the same treatment as other troops. Symbolically, Theodor Blank, who headed the West German delegation, was directed to the servant’s entrance of the Petersberg Hotel at the start of the talks. Instead, he made a point of turning around and entering through the front door to demonstrate that the Federal Republic expected equal rights and equal treatment.9 But the Western Allies were not willing to commit themselves to equal treatment until the Germans first agreed to rearm. However the Germans would not rearm until the Western powers agreed on the principle of equality. As a result, the Petersberg talks failed to report much progress. Parallel talks in Paris on a European army also began badly after the French refused to recognize the principle of equal treatment for German soldiers.10 In 1950–51, Adenauer’s Christian Democrats were losing state election after state election. Rearmament figured prominently in the election campaigns. In Hesse, the CDU received only 18.8 percent of the vote; in Würt-


39

temburg-Baden, it fell to 26 percent of the vote. The Bavarian CSU, in a bitter struggle with the Bavaria Party (BP), also suffered a spectacular defeat when its share of the vote dropped from 52.3 percent to 27.4 percent. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the Christian Democratic Union fell from 49 percent to 39 percent; in Lower Saxony, a CDU/DP list was the main loser with 23.8 percent; while the political party that represented German refugees from Eastern Europe (BHE) and a neo-Nazi group (SRP) claimed some success. In Bremen, the CDU received a paltry 9.1 percent and finished fourth, just ahead of the neo-Nazi SRP. In the northern state of SchleswigHolstein, the CDU came in third behind the SPD and the BHE.11 These results indicated public opposition to rearmament and encouraged Schumacher to escalate his verbal attacks on the Adenauer government.12 The escalating conflict over codetermination was perhaps the most serious threat of all to the Adenauer government. In the late fall of 1950, the unions announced strike votes in the coal, iron, and steel industries and threatened to stop supporting the government’s opposition to Allied decartelization plans. On November 29 and 30, 1950, the steel workers voted overwhelmingly to empower their leadership to strike for parity codetermination. They were soon joined by the coal miners.13 The trade unions picked February 1, 1951, as the day to commence their strikes. If the coal miners and the steelworkers were to strike for parity codetermination, as they intended to do, they would disrupt the West German economy at a difficult moment, aggravating the country’s already high unemployment and worsening its ongoing energy crisis. In addition, a prolonged battle in the Ruhr would likely divide Adenauer’s government, pitting the left wing of the CDU against the FDP, the DP, and the conservative wing of the CDU. The unions could also imperil Adenauer’s foreign policy, either by not backing the government on its efforts to stop decartelization, or, and more seriously, by joining the Social Democrats in open opposition to the Schuman Plan and rearmament. Chairman Böckler made no secret of the link between codetermination and rearmament. In a meeting with Undersecretary Davis of Britain on January 16, 1951, in the midst of the codetermination crisis, Böckler indicated that the unions were “principally opposed to a re-militarization” but “as long as certain conditions are met, then the unions [would] not assume a hostile posture.” He included the granting of parity codetermination among those conditions that must be satisfied.14 Adenauer confronted trouble on many fronts, whether the pending strikes, decartelization, little progress toward rearmament, or lost state

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elections. With his foreign policy in danger, Adenauer now went far to obtain business and union backing. Codetermination was the key. As the February 1 strike deadline neared, Adenauer ignored the demands of those hard-line industrialists who rejected the DGB’s “illegal” attempt to “blackmail” parliament with a “political strike.” Intransigent owners distributed anonymous posters that compared the metal workers’ vote with elections in Nazi Germany and in the GDR, advised a state of emergency, and even sought to convince Cardinal Frings to discourage Catholic workers from striking.15 Yet Adenauer paid the extremists little mind and instead intervened directly to bring the crisis to an end. In a private meeting with Hans Böckler on January 11, Adenauer agreed to convene negotiations between the unions and industry.16 He insisted, however, that only Ruhr representatives participate in the negotiations. This brought together a small number of spokespersons from industry and the unions, who, despite their divergent class interests, faced the same external pressures (decartelization and the Schuman Plan) that affected the region. This arrangement excluded, as much as was possible, the political parties and the business associations (BDI and BdA). Adenauer feared that these external forces, unrestrained by common regional interests, would disrupt the delicate proceedings.17 Consistent with his effort to depoliticize the talks, the chancellor hoped to participate only indirectly in the proceedings. As an “honest broker” to the negotiations, he tried to create the impression of consensus among the “social partners” in the Ruhr and shield himself from charges of favoritism.18 Despite the carefully laid groundwork, the industrialists and tradeunion representatives could not agree amongst themselves. They quarreled over the rights of the labor director within the firm and over the question of which side would place the tie-breaking “eleventh member” of the 11person company supervisory boards. Neither side budged. The unions prepared for a strike, while 70 steel industrialists rejected parity codetermination in a telegram to Adenauer.19 At this crucial juncture,Adenauer involved himself directly. On January 23, he negotiated with each side separately. On January 25, the two parties, under considerable pressure from Adenauer, reached an accord. Despite a slight advantage awarded to business, the settlement, which was drafted as a bill and submitted to the cabinet and parliament, would anchor parity codetermination in the coalmining and steel industries. On January 29, the unions withdrew their strike threat, thereby marking a preliminary end to the crisis. The agreement of January 25 was heralded as a great union victory. The DGB spoke of “one of the greatest successes in trade union history.”20


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Nowhere else in the world did workers enjoy such an extensive say in the management of heavy industry. This settlement went far to improve the relations between Adenauer and the trade unions. After January 25, the DGB leadership regarded the chancellor as a credible advocate of union interests. Not only had Adenauer followed his words with deeds, but he had also provided an ideological underpinning for his engagement on the behalf of labor. On several occasion during the crisis, he evoked the spirit of the once-powerful Catholic left wing in the CDU.21 The parliamentary review of the January 25 settlement put the newly formed partnership between Adenauer and the unions to the test. The central forum of conflict shifted away from elite talks to cabinet meetings, committee proceedings, and parliamentary debates. Although settings and agendas had changed, the struggle over codetermination in the Ruhr region raged unabated, demanding once more the personal intervention of the chancellor. A loose coalition of disgruntled CDU, FDP, and DP representatives challenged the government bill. Although motives varied, two central convictions united these politicians. They rejected the bill’s origins and its terms. Among the political parties, the FDP most adamantly opposed the new settlement.22 Within the CDU, deputies lamented that parliament had become a rubber stamp for a back-room deal.23 The industrialist and CDU deputy, Günther Henle, urged that the government compensate Ruhr industrialists by advancing the German position in the ongoing decartelization struggle more vigorously.24 An odd alignment countered the conservative assault on the January 25 accord. The DGB, the SPD, and parts of the CDU all endorsed the resolution. In the weeks to come, the two sides hotly debated the bill.The FDP threatened to quit the government, but after much bluster, it bowed to Adenauer and forwarded the codetermination proposal on to the parliament. It was, however, a tactical retreat; Franz Blücher, the vice chancellor and FDP chairman, still rejected the bill and demanded that deputies in the Bundestag have a “free hand” during the parliamentary proceedings.25 In a special Bundestag committee, the CDU and FDP deputies modified the election procedures for the “eleventh member” proposed to reduce tradeunion influence within the supervisory boards. On March 15, a joint labor and economics committee accepted these restrictive measures.26 A conservative grouping of CDU, FDP, and DP deputies appeared poised to pass a bill that was at odds with the terms and spirit of the January 25 accord. The DGB leadership considered its possible responses. Rather than resume strike plans, union leaders announced their intent to participate in

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newly formed, government-sponsored economic committees.27 This indicated that the union leaders now, unlike in late 1950, responded to a conservative assault on codetermination by strengthening rather than cutting ties to the government. They had become more trustful. To Adenauer, a reduction of DGB influence within the firm not only encouraged unpredictable work council elements, but risked the creation of a more radical DGB.28 Determined to avoid a break with the unions at a time when his foreign policy was so vulnerable, he lobbied on behalf of the January settlement. By early April, he had succeeded in uniting the CDU deputies behind a version close to the original January agreement. The third and final reading of the government bill took place in the parliament on April 10. At the last minute, the CDU and SPD quarreled over the election procedures for the eleventh member of the supervisory board. Adenauer summoned CDU and SPD leaders in the Bundestag and worked out a compromise. A temporary grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats passed the bill into law. The FDP,29 the DP, and the Bavaria Party all opposed it; the Communists abstained. Nine days after the Bundestag vote, the Bundesrat ratified what would become the Codetermination (Montanmitbestimmung) Law of May 21, 1951. With the enactment of this piece of special legislation, the first legislative battle over codetermination had ended. Hans Böckler had prevailed. Soon thereafter he died of a heart attack and the DGB lost an unusual leader.30 “To this day he remains the only West German politician to whom the great Machiavellian Adenauer has had to submit.”31 His vision had been realized. Had not codetermination provided the impulse for a reform coalition of Social Democrats, left Christian Democrats, and progressive industrialists? His threat to strike and his promise to cooperate on foreign policy had carried the day. The unions celebrated the law as the start of a new era in industrial relations. They were confident that parity codetermination could be extended to other sectors, beginning with the railroad and chemical industries.32 In June 1951, Christian Fette, the newly appointed DGB chairman, indicated that “under the leadership of our friend Böckler, a good stretch of the road has been covered”; in a pledge to the deceased, Fette promised to follow the “proven course.”33 Yet Adenauer had benefited as well. His intervention on behalf of the trade unions prevented a crippling strike and secured a foreign-policy ally at a significant moment. Adenauer had considered union cooperation to be vital for the success of the Schuman Plan and important for rearmament. Not only did he need backing for the pooling project, but he also


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depended on trade union support regarding decartelization. Prior to January 25, neither was assured. Adenauer therefore risked the wrath of industry and his government in order to avoid a break with the unions at this juncture. The deal of January 25, 1951, would strengthen his hand in the upcoming struggles over the Schuman Plan and rearmament. But Adenauer also needed industry. Representatives of the Ruhr coolly received the Schuman Plan treaty as it was drafted in March in compliance with the American-imposed decartelization settlement. On April 5, they met with Karl Arnold, the minister president of North-Rhine Westphalia, to voice their unease over the dissolution of the coal sales agency, what they perceived as a discrimination of German interests, and the excessive planning of the ECSC’s High Authority.34 In order to compensate heavy industry and the conservative coalition partners, both stung by the codetermination and decartelization settlements, Adenauer again made use of his foreign policy–making prerogatives, in particular his access to the Allied High Commission. He prevailed upon the French for written support in abolishing the International Authority of the Ruhr (IAR) and lifting production limits for the steel industry. This muted the SPD’s criticism and allayed the fears of industry and labor. In place of Allied controls over the Ruhr, the Schuman Plan’s High Authority would oversee production.35 A major success for Adenauer, the demise of the IAR gave business and labor alike a powerful reason to back the Schuman Plan treaty. Adenauer also lobbied for a return of confiscated shares to the original owners of the now-deconcentrated steel concerns. On April 5, he met with the High Commissioners to discuss this issue. On May 24, the High Commissioners wrote Adenauer that in light of their earlier meeting with him, they had indeed decided to give the stocks of the deconcentrated companies back to the old owners.36 The industrialists could take solace in the legal repossession of their firms. Both the DGB and the SPD fought the Allied decision on the grounds that it hindered the chance for a nationalization of Ruhr industry. On July 2, the DGB sent Adenauer a letter of protest.37 On July 5, the SPD introduced a bill that proposed trustee control of the shares until the Bundestag had itself settled the ownership question. In September, the DGB appealed directly to the Allied High Commission to reverse its May 24 decision. These objections were dismissed by the Allied High Commission as being unfounded.38 Adenauer further assisted Ruhr industry by sponsoring an industrial self-help program that transferred capital into the Ruhr industries. Born of

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close cooperation between the government and the leading industrial peak associations, the resulting legislation, the Investment Assistance Act of 1952 (Investitionshilfegesetz) rewarded Ruhr industry for its toleration of the recent codetermination and decartelization settlements.39 By spring 1951, Adenauer had secured both trade union and industrial support for the Schuman Plan. He had provided important concessions to all parties involved: parity codetermination legislation for the unions; and the end of the IAR, a return of company shares, and the Investment Assistance Act for heavy industry. In order to deliver these final two concessions, he had made full use of his close relations with the Allied High Commission. As in the Petersberg Protocol, he had translated concrete domestic concessions into support for Western integration. In regard to codetermination, the chancellor defended his approach as follows:“I am of the opinion that codetermination for coal and iron was politically clever because we separated the DGB from the SPD. The DGB would never have been able to be won over to the Schuman Plan, were it to have been defeated in the matter of codetermination.”40 If the 5-million-member trade union federation had joined Kurt Schumacher’s campaign against the Schuman Plan, then the Schuman Plan would have lacked legitimacy in the Ruhr region. Heavy industry, as seen, also had its misgivings. Adenauer’s policy making in early 1951 was exemplary coalition building. Yet the chancellor had not constructed his alliance out of thin air. He worked within a specific policy-making environment that had given him certain opportunities to pursue certain strategies. As the Petersberg Protocol had shown, the trade unions and the SPD might be divided over foreign policy if the terms were right. Two features of policy making in the early Federal Republic had permitted Adenauer to make the terms right. First, he took advantage of the highly personalized interest-group representation of the time. Rather than deal with rigidly programmatic interest groups, he was able to bargain with powerful, yet pragmatic, individuals. He excluded the hard-line BDI and the political parties from the codetermination talks in January. And when Adenauer did deal with the BDI on foreign policy, he dealt directly with Fritz Berg. Similarly, Adenauer negotiated personally with Hans Böckler, a man he had known and respected for many decades. Like Berg, Böckler possessed the authority to make important trade union decisions on his own accord. These leaders let the chancellor bypass his opponents within industry and the union rank and file. Clientelistic relations between Adenauer and the interest groups were an integral part of the chancellor democracy of the early 1950s.


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Second, the chancellor enjoyed great prerogatives in the making of domestic policy. As the codetermination crisis of 1950–51 showed, the chancellor democracy of the early 1950s was not restricted to the realm of constructing foreign policy. Adenauer had the authority to negotiate a deal and then shepherd it through a hostile parliament. With such powers the chancellor was not always dependent on the Allied High Commission or on foreign negotiators for the concessions that he offered to domestic interests in exchange for their support. This was characteristic of the early Federal Republic before the institutions and norms of policy making had limited chancellor leadership in most areas other than foreign policy. The foreign-policy alliance of 1951 made itself felt in a number of ways. First, West German industry now stood firmly behind the Schuman Plan.41 At a gathering of industrialists in Munich in March 1951, Fritz Berg, president of the BDI, lauded the Schuman Plan treaty as a decisive first step on the way to European integration. He urged ratification. Whereas in April 1951 leading iron and steel representatives had demanded treaty revisions, by the close of the ratification debates in late 1951 significant business resistance had dissipated.42 Adenauer’s engagement on behalf of investment and private ownership in the Ruhr had helped overcome this opposition. The trade unions also showed a new-found confidence in the chancellor. In April 1951, they met with government and business leaders to discuss bottlenecks in industrial production. Representatives of the government and industry surprised the unions by supporting a Seven Point Plan that incorporated union demands. The Adenauer government also invited the unions to take part in advisory economic committees (“investment,” “export,” and “wages and prices”) that were based on equal union and business participation. These committees were, however, ineffective.43 While the more radical union leaders would question the wisdom of continued participation in these largely irrelevant committees, Christian Fette, Böckler’s successor as DGB chief, regarded constructive engagement as a way to extend parity codetermination throughout the economy.44 He favored cooperation on foreign policy as well. Prior to the ceremonial signing of the Schuman Plan, the DGB had not yet officially endorsed the project. With the drafting of the European Coal and Steel Community treaty in the spring of 1951, pressure mounted on the unions to end their noncommittal approach. On May 7, the trade union leaders assembled to formulate the official DGB response to the ECSC. For more than 12 hours, opponents and supporters debated the treaty.45 In its defense, Hans vom Hoff, a participant in the Paris talks, un-

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derscored the positive union role in the negotiation process. He also outlined the expected benefits of the plan—a higher standard of living, equal treatment of German interests, and a positive settlement in the matter of factory ownership. The final resolution in May showed basic union support for the ECSC Treaty. After citing conditions for union backing, the resolution concluded that “the German Trade Union Federation has affirmed the idea of the Schuman Plan and has participated in its development. It will further pursue prior to treaty ratification a satisfactory ruling on the above-mentioned issues, in order to create for Germany the conditions for an increase in production and a higher standard of living.” The following month, the DGB chairman, Christian Fette, acknowledged his own support of the Schuman Plan treaty. He believed it misguided to let the “first possibility” of Western integration pass by.46 Fette, vom Hoff, and others had backed the Schuman Plan as part of their cooperation with the government, which, they hoped, would offer dividends in the area of codetermination. In effect, they had picked Adenauer over Schumacher. Kurt Schumacher had pleaded with the unions not to support the Schuman plan. In an impassioned speech on May 24, 1951, he warned the assembled union leaders of the dire consequences of working-class division: “Do not allow yourselves to be forced into the roll of a ‘third party’ since if the right has political success and if Social Democracy is weakened, then I see a very gloomy future for the trade unions on all accounts.”47 But without official union backing, he had to fight a lonely battle against the Schuman Plan, which he continued to view as camouflaged French imperialism.“After 1918, since France has needed coke and German coal for its Lorrainian ore, there has never been a different French policy toward Germany.”48 To block French ambitions, Schumacher saw it necessary to support the cartelistic German Coal Sales Agency and vertical integration within heavy industry (Verbundwirtschaft). An astute observer commented, “The confusion of terms, spirits and fronts was complete after the German left in its criticism of the ‘capitalist’ and ‘cartelist’ Schuman Plan adopted the same objections that the capitalist, cartel supporters within heavy industry had put forward.”49 Schumacher also rejected the treaty on the grounds that it narrowed future economic policy options, deepened the division of Germany, and bound the Federal Republic to the conservative Catholic countries of Western Europe. He also placed the plan within the context of the ongoing rearmament debate: “if one loses footing on the Schuman Plan, then no longer does one have solid footing to combat the Pleven Plan.”50 These words would prove prophetic.


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Yet Schumacher lacked the allies to block the Schuman Plan. Although the FDP complained in April 1951 that Adenauer had signed the treaty without formal cabinet consent, by July the party stood firmly behind the treaty.51 On January 11, 1952, the vote on the Schuman Plan was held. Adenauer scored an impressive victory as only Social Democrats, Communists, and far-right deputies voted against ratification. On February 1, the Bundesrat voted for the treaty, thereby closing the parliamentary phase of the struggle. Allied concessions followed. The ratification of the Schuman Plan brought the abolition of the International Authority of the Ruhr and an end to many economic controls; the “Small Revision” of the Occupation Statute in March 1951 established a foreign ministry (to be headed by Adenauer); the Council of Europe accepted Germany as a full member on May 2; and the Western Allies ended the official state of war with Germany on July 9, 1951. These foreign-policy successes, coupled with an upward turn in the West German economy, bolstered the standing of the Adenauer government. Adenauer’s Westpolitik, however, was not yet secure at home.

The Struggle over Rearmament In the summer of 1951, the rearmament negotiations took a sudden turn.52 The United States now backed German rearmament within a European army, and the French began to accommodate the Federal Republic’s demands for the equal treatment of its soldiers in the future European Army. By late August 1951, Adenauer indicated his full support of a European army. 53 In Paris on October 1, France, the Federal Republic, Italy, and the Benelux states began their formal negotiations on a European Defense Community (EDC). Despite this progress toward a European army, the question of the Federal Republic’s relationship to NATO remained unanswered. Whereas France was still intent upon keeping West Germany out of NATO, Bonn maintained that West Germany could not truly expect equal treatment unless it also participated in NATO security decisions. The issue of NATO membership rose to the fore in late January 1952 after the German negotiator Walter Hallstein demanded a resolution of the matter.54 Parallel to the Paris conference, the Allied High Commission and the West German government were discussing a new framework for AlliedGerman relations. Despite the lack of consensus on a range of issues, the Western Allies and Germans agreed that a series of official agreements

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between the two sides would gradually replace the Occupation Statute. They also linked an end of the Occupation Statute to a German defense contribution.55 On September 24, the Allied High Commission presented the outlines of a “General Treaty” that was to serve as the basis for further talks. Adenauer was disappointed. The Western Allies stubbornly clung to a set of far-reaching prerogatives that precluded the full restoration of German sovereignty. For instance, they retained vague emergency powers, carefully guarded their supreme authority in Germany, and imposed numerous restrictions on the Federal Republic in a series of supplementary treaties.56 Despite their disagreements, Bonn and the Allied High Commission continued their talks on the General Treaty. In early 1952, as the terms of the draft EDC and General treaties became known, vocal critics in the Federal Republic denounced the treaties as discriminatory and at odds with German unification. In this setting, the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dispatched a sensational note to the Western Allies on March 10, 1952. A “war of the notes” between the USSR and the Western Allies followed. In the notes, the USSR called for a peace treaty with Germany and proposed a neutral, united, and armed Germany within the 1945 borders. Stalin hoped to forestall rearmament by offering West Germany a chance at unity. To the chagrin of Adenauer, the question of reunification, made timely by Stalin’s note offensive in March 1952, would now surround the discussion that led up to the signing of the EDC Treaty. Adenauer tried to dismiss the Soviet offer as a red herring, but he could not suppress the reinvigorated debate over unity. The nature of the opposition to Adenauer’s foreign policy had changed. In the fall of 1950, Adenauer had been anxious to acquire church, labor, and business backing. A year later, he no longer feared open opposition from these groups. Within the Protestant Church of Germany, the initial uneasy truce between the supporters and opponents of rearmament had given way to intense political infighting. But the EKD did not veer from its noncommittal policy of 1950. It upheld its earlier position that since the gospel offered no clear directive in the matter of rearmament, all church officials should practice the “greatest reservation” in their public statements.57 By early 1952, the DGB had also backed away from the controversy over rearmament. Within the unions, the rank and file generally opposed rearmament, while the leaders generally supported it. The trade union leaders hoped to be rewarded in the area of codetermination. Through carefully worded statements, they had kept the opposition to rearmament at bay. This ended in January 1952 when the trade union leader vom Hoff, in a moment of candor, indicated his support for rear-


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mament. On January 22, the DGB’s federal executive committee convened to clarify its position. The resolution stated conditional support for a defense contribution.58 A ground swell of rank-and-file opposition followed. Workers quit their unions and withheld dues; locals demanded the resignation of Fette and vom Hoff; and the Bavarian trade unions held a special congress on February 10 to discuss the matter.59 At this congress, the 120 delegates unanimously passed a resolution that condemned a German defense contribution. Speakers urged the DGB to debate the question of rearmament and to engage in active resistance.60 Within the DGB, the metalworkers’ union (IG Metall), the coal miners’ union (IG Bergbau), and the railway workers’ union supported the DGB’s position, while the leadership of the chemical, textile, and transportation unions spoke up against a defense contribution.61 Radicals rejected cooperation with Adenauer and demanded instead a “final assault” on the government and rearmament. With this unanticipated uproar, the year 1952 had begun inauspiciously for the DGB. This was to be the year when the unions hoped to demonstrate discipline in their push for parity codetermination. Instead, the controversy over rearmament had exposed serious fissures within the trade union movement: base versus leadership and SPD-loyal versus the independent. The DGB retreated on rearmament. It declared in late February 1952 that “the decision on a German defense contribution is to be placed in the hands of the entire nation.”62 This formulation approximated the Social Democratic call for new elections. It calmed tensions at the union base and extricated the DGB from the center stage of the rearmament struggle. While the DGB and EKD had slashed a retreat from the foreignpolicy arena, party leaders in Bonn reproached Adenauer about the terms of rearmament. Once more, Adenauer was exposed to nationalist criticism. Schumacher proclaimed a “sell-out of the German position” and railed against Adenauer’s inability to negotiate an end to the Allied occupation.63 Familiar themes reappeared. He criticized French attempts to keep Germany politically and militarily disadvantaged, the maintenance of Allied occupation prerogatives, and the construction of a clerical Paris-RomeBonn federation that was a “federation of invalids.”64 His party petitioned the federal constitutional court in early 1952 to test the constitutionality of German rearmament. Since Stalin’s March note, the SPD focused even greater attention on the question of reunification. As the date for the signing of the EDC and General treaties neared, the SPD position hardened further. Schumacher opposed the ceremonial signing on May 22, 1952, as a “fully tactless victory celebration of the Allied-clerical coalition

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over the German people,” further proclaiming, “He, who supports the General Treaty, ceases to be a German.”65 Whereas Adenauer was accustomed to SPD opposition, he now faced a more serious development; opposition was mounting within his governing coalition. During the earlier negotiations over rearmament and the General Treaty, Adenauer had excluded all potentially disruptive forces and withheld information from the public, opposition, parliament, cabinet, and ministries. Only a very small group of chosen representatives had been privy to the proceedings.66 The parliamentary and cabinet uprisings of spring 1952 were a reflection of the frustration with Adenauer’s secretive diplomacy and with the treaties. The Free Democrats led the mutiny by blaming Adenauer for not fully restoring German sovereignty in return for German rearmament.67 In parliament, the FDP warned of the discrimination against German soldiers, the unfair financial burdens of rearmament that were expected of the Federal Republic, discriminatory clauses within treaties, the “cementing” of elements of the Allied occupation, and German exclusion from NATO membership.68 Most unpopular was the so-called obligations clause (Bindungsklausus) within the General Treaty. This clause stated that the rights and duties of the treaties would automatically extend to a united Germany upon reunification. To its detractors, this clause would deter the Soviets from ever agreeing to the unification of Germany since the unified country would automatically form part of the Western camp. Opposition mounted within the governing parties.69 The leader of the CDU in the Bundestag, Heinrich von Brentano, resisted a hasty signing and warned Adenauer on April 25 that the CDU Bundestag deputies were not yet sufficiently informed about the treaty contents. Moreover, “in the current state of negotiations, or let us rather say briefing, a consent to the entire treaty is more than doubtful.”70 Brentano then mentioned the obligations clause and financial issues as being particularly problematic. He continued:“I have the impression and this I cannot keep secret that the negotiations perhaps were not conducted in the way they should have been conducted. May I remind you that I have pointed out time and time again that the incorporation of politically responsible representatives of the Bundestag parties, or at least from the government parties, seemed to me imperative.”71 On May 7, Brentano championed in even stronger terms the “rights of the parliament,” warned against “a return to a politics of bureaucratic secrecy,” and ominously mentioned “a growing resentment in the parliamentary grouping.”72 Adenauer’s method of conducting foreign policy was coming back to haunt him.


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A second offended party, Franz Blücher (FDP), who had long resented Adenauer’s monopoly of foreign policy, soon joined the fray. In late April, the FDP chairman assembled representatives of the governing coalition to review the General Treaty. The participants unanimously and “most emphatically” rejected the obligations clause on the grounds that it would hinder German reunification efforts.73 On May 1, the top FDP officials compiled a lengthy list of necessary modifications to the General Treaty, secretly agreeing to quit the government if their wishes were not met. By May, an alliance of several cabinet members (Blücher of the FDP, Dehler of the FDP, and Kaiser of the CDU) and the leaders of the CDU/CSU, FDP, and DP in the Bundestag rejected the obligations clause of the General Treaty.74 They held a trump. A defeat of the treaties in parliament would mean disaster for Adenauer’s entire foreign-policy conception. Adenauer’s standing in parliament eroded when the CDU deputy Linus Kather, who headed an important association of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, rejected the terms of an equalization of the burdens bill (Lastenausgleich). The bill was to provide compensation for those Germans who had suffered most as a result of the war. The obstinate Kather, who was determined to improve the contents of the bill, led a huge demonstration of refugees in Bonn on May 4. He and other expellees also threatened to defect to the party of the refugees (BHE).75 Adenauer faced a dilemma; a postponement of this piece of important social legislation seemed ill advised,76 but he could not very well risk a break with Kather and the refugees in view of the upcoming treaty ratification. He needed their votes. For Adenauer, the European Defense Community treaty and the General Treaty were intended to cap his foreign policy. He believed that they would counter German tendencies toward neutrality, advance Western European integration, and assure a continued American presence in Europe. Since the treaties were his top priority, he acted decisively to secure shaky bases of domestic support. As in early 1951, he used his policy-making powers to secure a coalition for an embattled foreign policy. This time, however, his response ended foreign and economic policy provisionalism in the Federal Republic. Adenauer moved quickly to consolidate his standing in the Bundestag in May 1952. In the interest of assuring the continued support of an estimated 20 to 30 deputies, he bargained with Linus Kather over the final terms of the Equalization of Burdens Act.At the last moment, the two men reached an agreement that corresponded more closely with the expectations of the refugees. The bill was passed on May 16 with a vote of 209 in

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favor, 144 against.77 This last-minute deal demonstrated Adenauer’s ability to secure by compromise much-needed foreign-policy support. Once again, the chancellor had intervened directly and personally in a key domestic-policy matter. Adenauer had strengthened his position among influential refugee groups in exchange for generous terms on the Equalization of Burdens Act. Adenauer also bowed to the cabinet mutineers by consenting to discuss with the Allied High Commission the possibility of omitting the controversial obligations clause from the General Treaty. After Adenauer failed on this score, a group of Bundestag deputies, under the direction of von Brentano, met on May 25 with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson to discuss the problem. In the end, the Western Allies reworded Article 7, Paragraph 3 in a fashion that weakened the obligations clause.78 This concession marked the end of the governing coalition’s revolt against the General Treaty. On May 27 in Bonn, the Western Allies and the Federal Republic signed the General Treaty; in Paris on the following day, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the FRG signed the European Defense Community treaty. The treaty signing crowned Adenauer’s foreign-policy efforts and signified, in the chancellor’s words, “the end of an entire epoch, the epoch of hostilities and wars between the nations of the West.”79 By binding Germany firmly to the West, the treaties ruled out a German “third way” between East and West. Moreover, the Federal Republic’s foreign policy had ceased to be “provisional.” Thereafter, it remained institutionally embedded in the West. When the EDC failed to pass the French national assembly, West Germany was quickly brought into NATO in 1955. Although Adenauer had to tolerate numerous delays after the signing of the EDC Treaty, he never had reason to doubt the ratification of the EDC in West Germany. After committee reviews and dramatic constitutional court deliberations, the Bundestag on May 19, 1953, passed the General Treaty (225 in favor, 165 against) and the EDC treaty (224 vs. 166); only two defections from the government camp were recorded.80 A further hurdle, Bundesrat approval, was cleared on May 15.

Works Constitution Act of 1952 Yet the last-minute deals of spring 1952 did not alone appease the conservative Bundestag deputies. The codetermination settlement of 1952


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was an integral part of the foreign-policy equation. As in the past, codetermination and Western integration remained inextricably linked. Once again, the chancellor legislated codetermination to boost support for his government and its foreign policy. Whereas in 1951 he had acquired backing from the trade unions, now he supported a restrictive codetermination bill that favored the FDP and industry. This episode confirms a major theme of this book: the making of domestic policy was also the making of foreign policy. After its success in early 1951, the trade union leadership was hopeful that it could extend parity codetermination by cooperating with Adenauer and moderate business leaders. Its high hopes were soon dashed by the Western Allies’ return of confiscated shares to former owners in the Ruhr region and by the lack of progress in extending codetermination. In June it suffered a further setback when the Bundestag ignored trade union objections and enacted a federal railway law that did not contain worker rights of parity codetermination.81 By the summer of 1951, the DGB had begun to reassess its strategy. On July 24, it sounded the alarm of a “general restoration of reactionary forces” and reproached the government for a faulty economic policy. The unions placed a series of demands on the government concerning codetermination, ownership rights in the Ruhr, and real wages for workers. They fired a “warning shot” by recommending to end union participation in the government-sponsored economic committees.82 Adenauer heard this shot and hurriedly invited union leaders to his summer resort in Switzerland to discuss their grievances in early August 1951. At Bürgenstock, he sought to allay trade union fears. He appeared conciliatory, offering the unions influence in the economics ministry, participation in an advisory economic body, and involvement in a future federal economic council. Adenauer expressed sympathy with union concerns although he avoided making any concrete promises on parity codetermination. In short, Adenauer, who was still interested in maintaining good relations with the unions prior to the signing of the European Defense Community treaty, portrayed himself as an honest broker. The DGB leadership postponed severing its relations with the government and agreed to participate in future talks with Adenauer.83 While the meeting at Bürgenstock had restored union hope in the chancellor, it gave rise to considerable suspicion among Adenauer’s conservative coalition partners. Leaving no doubt as to the FDP’s views on a renewed Adenauer-DGB codetermination pact, Blücher, the FDP chairman, openly reproached Adenauer in a telegram delivered on August 9.“I am in no way

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convinced that the former dialogue partner [DGB] can be politically harnessed in the manner that you wish.” Any covert deal with the unions, warned Blücher, meant the end of the coalition government.84 Adenauer dismissed the telegram as “stupid”85 and reprimanded his vice chancellor: “As a result of your announcement, an uneasiness and agitation has arisen in broad German circles which is completely unfounded. . . .You will later see how incorrectly you have judged the entire situation.”86 By the fall of 1951, the chancellor’s stance on codetermination had hardened. Whereas he had previously indicated sympathy for parity codetermination in the chemical industry, he now backed away from special legislation to resolve this issue.87 In December 1951, the DGB announced that it would no longer cooperate in the economic councils, nor support the economic and social policies of the government.88 The trade union leadership contemplated closer relations to the SPD. But to do so, it would have to change its foreign-policy positions. The union leadership, however, was unwilling to oppose the Schuman Plan.89 A year earlier, the DGB had threatened to take this step, but by late 1951, it was committed to the European Coal and Steel Community. Since late 1951, a Bundestag special committee had reviewed earlier codetermination bills. To the chagrin of the unions, by 1952 the conservative majority on the committee had drafted a works constitution bill that corresponded to the wishes of German industry and the FDP. The committee recommended one-third worker representation on the supervisory boards of companies. It also stipulated that at least two of the worker representatives come from the firm. This would diminish external trade union influence in company boardrooms. Moreover, the bill allowed no provisions for a labor director. It also sharply reduced the responsibility of the factory work councils in economic and personnel affairs.90 After a few minor changes, the draft proposal was submitted to the Bundestag for consideration. The DGB strongly opposed the bill because of its restrictions on codetermination rights, its limits on how many outside trade union representatives could sit on the supervisory board, and its work council provisions.91 A union leader described the bill as being “less favorable than the Work Council Law of 1920.”92 Clearly, this was not the economic new order that the DGB had envisioned. The unions, however, lacked a coherent strategy on how to proceed against the bill.93 On the one hand, they prepared for an all-out assault on the government bill, reviewed strike options (among them the general strike), warned that parity representation was their minimum demand, and distributed 10 million brochures declaring that “this proposal


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cannot become law.”94 In mid-May, the DGB staged huge rallies in several German cities; protests and warning strikes followed. From May 27 to 29, parallel to the signing of the General Treaty in Bonn, the industrial union IG Druck und Papier struck for a progressive codetermination settlement. It was an impressive organizational feat. No newspapers appeared for two days. On the other hand, while they fostered a radical image, the unions longed for a compromise. Their past cooperation with the Adenauer government and its foreign policy preempted any full-scale battle for codetermination. This became clear when the union leaders did not oppose rearmament and thereby lost the chance for a united SPD-DGB front against the Adenauer government. In their struggle over codetermination, they shied away from militancy because they did not want to be associated with the campaign against rearmament. Pushing his advantage, Adenauer noted in a letter to Christian Fette, the DGB leader, that the “East Zone” (the GDR) had threatened a general strike in response to the EDC signing. He then queried:“Are you not also apprehensive that political goals which you do not support will be attributed to the German Trade Union Federation?”95 By late May, trade union leaders looked for ways to save face. They demanded a postponement of the final vote on the codetermination bill until after the summer recess, more codetermination rights in the restructured IG Farben complex, and the building of a federal economics council.96 In retreat, the union leaders even agreed not to strike until they met with Adenauer on June 13, 1952. In sharp contrast to the January 1951 situation, they now took pressure off Adenauer, who kept the DGB on hold while making his final preparations for the ratification of the codetermination bill. In July, Adenauer refused to postpone the ratification of the controversial works constitution bill. He deprived the DGB of any chance to avoid defeat.Throughout the long struggle, he had consistently preempted a more radical trade union response, while pursuing a settlement that satisfied the FDP.The SPD was powerless to block the final codetermination bill but recognized that Adenauer had made a deal: no parity codetermination in return for FDP support for his foreign policy. As the SPD in the Bundestag declared,“In this instance it concerned and concerns . . . a political deal within your governing coalition. And do you really believe that the people outside don’t know that there is a inner-connection between the question of the General Treaty and EDC treaty ratification and the forced passage of this [codetermination] law on the day before holidays?”97 The government coalition held. The final tally showed 195 in favor, 139 against, and 7 abstentions by CDU deputies with ties to the

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unions. The DGB mourned what it called this “black day for democracy in Germany.”98 As in 1951, Adenauer had shepherded an unpopular foreign policy along an obstacle-strewn path in 1952. As late as January 1952, Adenauer’s approval rating among the German public had stood at a scant 29 percent.99 While Stalin would tantalize the West Germans with his offer of unity, the General Treaty and the EDC treaty seemed unappetizing to many in the Federal Republic. Whereas the threat to his foreign policy in early 1951 led Adenauer to reach out to the DGB, the threat of a foreign-policy setback in 1952 triggered a return to a conservative constellation. Earlier the codetermination settlement of 1951 had pacified the DGB, but infuriated the conservative FDP. In 1952, Adenauer yielded to conservative pressure as the ECSC and EDC ratification debates approached. In order to firm up support for his unpopular foreign policy, he adopted a set of policy-making tactics similar to those of 1951. He offered concessions to the refugees, backed the FDP demands on codetermination in 1952, and restricted participation in foreign-policy negotiations. This last practice, however, provoked a backlash within the governing coalition. The policy making of 1952 was again a showpiece for Adenauer’s chancellor democracy. He once more personalized relations with interest group representatives. Böckler was dead, but his successors hoped for a continued partnership with the chancellor. Even when it was clear that Adenauer was not intervening on behalf of parity codetermination, they visited him in the Swiss mountains, kept up negotiations until the bitter end, and suppressed a trade union revolt against rearmament. Adenauer also had dealt personally with Linus Kather when the two men hammered out the final terms of the important Equalization of Burdens Act. As both these examples indicate, Adenauer personally crafted crucial domestic policies. This was a second feature of the chancellor democracy of these early years. Not only would Adenauer determine the “general policy guidelines,” as foreseen in the Basic Law, but he shaped the specific form that foreign and domestic policies took. His prerogatives in domestic policy–making were translated into concessions for those groups and parties that backed his foreign policy.

Conclusion The rise of the Cold War had resulted in a divisive foreign-policy debate, new domestic alliances, and chancellor democracy in the Federal Repub-


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lic. Whereas the national profile analysis of chapter one laid out interest group and party positions on the new Westpolitik, an overview of the foreign policy–making of 1950–52 has shown how Konrad Adenauer forged new interest coalitions behind his controversial Westpolitik. To do so, the first chancellor exhausted the policy-making resources at his disposal. He linked issues, excluded opponents, and offered concessions. Under difficult conditions, he secured new majorities for the Schuman Plan in 1951–52 and for the European Defense Community (EDC) in 1952–53. Abroad he overcame the unwillingness of the Western Allies to offer the West Germans the favorable terms that they expected; at home he outmaneuvered opponents within industry, unions, churches and both left and right sides of the political spectrum. To safeguard his foreign policy, Adenauer made good use of his relationship with influential pressure group leaders such as Böckler, Berg, and Kather. By dealing with these individuals directly, he secured the foreign-policy support of the most powerful interest groups. Had Adenauer not reached out to the trade unions in the winter of 1951, he would have faced much stiffer trade union opposition to the Schuman Plan, rearmament, and the Works Constitution Act of 1952. Had Adenauer not struck a deal with Linus Kather over the terms of the Lastenausgleich of 1952, then Kather, who later did switch to the party of the refugees (BHE), might have abandoned the CDU/CSU at a critical moment. Adenauer’s intervention in the formulation of critical domestic policies such as codetermination and the Equalization of Burdens Act shaped the foreign-policy alignments that defined the chancellor democracy of the early Cold War. The policies of 1952 marked an end to both the foreign-policy and the industrial-policy provisionalism of the initial postwar era. They dealt the opposition crushing blows; they provided a solid institutional framework for Adenauer’s social market economy and his foreign policy of a little Europe; and they contributed to continued stability and prosperity in the Federal Republic. In the words of Theo Pirker, “in this year, 1952, the working class movement in West Germany—Social Democracy and the trade union movement suffered such crushing defeats that they should never again recover from them. . . . The parliamentary opposition and the trade unions were beaten, formally beaten.”100 In the aftermath of the lost struggles over the ECSC and EDC, the SPD initially continued to oppose Adenauer’s Western policy stressing its harmful implications for unification.101 By the late 1950s, however, the SPD had accepted what had long ago become political reality: the mooring of the

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Federal Republic in the Western alliance and the futility of pursuing unification as a short-term goal. Just as the West German decision for the Schuman Plan and the EDC established the foreign-policy direction, the Works Constitution Act of 1952 all but concluded the postwar struggle over a fundamental restructuring of the West German economy. Its impact on DGB self-understanding, strategy, and demands was enormous. Not only did the law plainly expose the limits of constructive engagement with Adenauer, it also brought about union submission to the final authority of the parliament. The union defeat in 1952 heralded a gradual shift within the DGB leadership, away from demands for radical economic reform and toward wage demands. A product of the crushing defeat of 1952, this change of course found clear expression in the DGB’s “Program of Action” of 1954, which, in stark contrast to its earlier demands, deemphasized the struggle for radical reform. The events of 1952, culminating in the return of shares to the old Ruhr industrialists and in a restrictive codetermination settlement, induced the SPD to alter its economic policy as well. Its bitter defeats, coupled with the death of Kurt Schumacher, triggered a rightward shift in the party’s economic program. Although the SPD still demanded socialization and a radical economic new order for some time, such demands were unrealistic after 1952. As an opposition party within a state that was wedded to the conservative, Catholic countries of Western Europe, the Social Democrats had little chance to implement far-reaching economic reforms. Schumacher had gotten this right. Yet Adenauer’s foreign policy had provided the Federal Republic with markets, growth, and a stable investment climate. Schumacher had gotten this wrong. The economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) of the 1950s undercut enthusiasm for socialism in the Federal Republic. The Bad Godesberg program of 1959 marked the final Social Democratic reckoning with the economic realities of the Adenauer era. With this document, the SPD officially gave up its demands for radical economic change. The Cold War was the forerunner of the bourgeois anti-socialist coalition of what soon came to be known as the Adenauer era. This is well known. What has not been sufficiently appreciated is how hard the battle to create this alignment was fought and how Chancellor Adenauer wove foreign and domestic policies together to unite odd bedfellows behind a controversial Westpolitik. To further develop these themes, we will now turn to the late 1960s when a Social Democratic chancellor faced a different foreign-policy challenge, yet his response heralded an unexpected return of chancellor democracy.

Part II

The Détente Era


Chapter Three

Détente and Democracy

We want to be a nation of good neighbors and will be at home and abroad. —Chancellor Brandt Opening Bundestag Address October 28, 1969

Much like the Cold War’s rise, the thaw in Cold War tensions in the late 1960s introduced a foreign-policy imperative that disturbed established political alignments in the Federal Republic. But as a national profile analysis will show, the controversy over Ostpolitik also created an opportunity for new interest coalitions to form. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bonn had not recognized the postwar borders of East-Central Europe. In the absence of a peace treaty ending World War II, the 1937 boundaries of Germany were, according to Bonn, still valid under international law. Accordingly, the Federal Republic did not recognize the current Polish-German border (Oder-Neisse line) and laid legal claim to the formerly German yet now Polish and Soviet lands of Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia. In addition, Bonn refused to establish official diplomatic relations with any of its Communist neighbors to the East, with the exception of the USSR. Bonn shunned the GDR in particular. In fact, the West German government at this time never spoke of the GDR, but rather referred to it as the “Soviet occupation zone,” the “Zone,” “Mitteldeutschland,” or the “so-called GDR.” Bonn claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of the German people, and in its Hall-

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stein Doctrine even went so far as to break off its diplomatic relations with any state that formally recognized the GDR, as it did with Yugoslavia in 1955. In short, Bonn’s Ostpolitik was premised on a nonrecognition of the East. This did not present a problem at the height of the Cold War when the West had few diplomatic, economic, and political ties to the Soviet bloc. Yet it would become a problem if the two superpowers were to settle their differences.

East-West Détente Tensions first began to ease between the United States and the Soviet Union after the death of Josef Stalin in 1953. They rose, however, by the late 1950s when Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet premier, sought to bully the United States into improved relations. His efforts at “détente through intimidation” precipitated serious global crises in the late 1950s and early 1960s.1 Ironically, two of these crises, the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, probably set the stage for a subsequent improvement of superpower relations in the late 1960s. Until August 1961, West Berlin was a hole in the East-West fence. Through this hole millions of East Germans fled to the West. The Soviets tried to solve this problem in the late 1940s, but the Americans answered with the Berlin Airlift. In the late 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev tried to intimidate the Western Allies into leaving West Berlin. His threats only worsened East-West relations and fanned anti-Communism. Not until the Soviets and their East German allies built the Berlin Wall in August 1961 did they plug this last remaining gap in the iron curtain and end the flow of East German refugees westward. The historian John Lewis Gaddis concludes of Khrushchev’s motives that “it seems likely that his decision in August to erect the Berlin Wall, although it appeared at the time as a new provocation, was in fact an effort to defuse the crisis.”2 The building of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, was a landmark occasion. First, it had shown that the Soviets were willing to go to great lengths to secure their backyard, even if this meant walling in the GDR. Rather than upset the balance of power in Berlin, as they had attempted to do in the 1950s, they now had quite literally cemented it in Berlin for many years to come. In the process, the hope for German unification faded. Second, the events of August 1961 had shown that the Western Allies were respecting the Soviet sphere of influence. They might have gone to war over West Germany, or even over West Berlin, but they had not


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fought for East Berlin. Instead, they continued to garrison in West Berlin, upholding the Cold War status quo. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was another milestone in Cold War relations. In October 1962, U.S. reconnaissance flights discovered the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. A tense showdown followed. The Kennedy administration quarantined the island and unequivocally demanded that the Soviets withdraw their missiles from Cuba. The world stood on the brink of nuclear warfare until Khrushchev backed down and agreed to remove the missiles. Once more, the Soviet premier had tried and failed to upset the balance of power. Like the Berlin crises of the 1950s, the Cuban Missile Crisis was counterproductive to Soviet goals and dangerous to world peace. After the crisis, Khrushchev finally gave up his hopes of intimidating the West into seeking détente.3 Improved relations followed between the two superpowers, and by 1963 they had negotiated a nuclear test-ban treaty. The Soviets hoped that the West would formally recognize the status quo in Europe. Their desire stemmed in part from the problems that they were having on their eastern flank. The Soviet rift with Communist China worsened, culminating in the border clash at the Ussuri River in March 1969. When the Nixon administration in Washington began to play its “China Card,” recognizing the People’s Republic in hopes of isolating Moscow, the USSR had even more reason to normalize relations with the West. But to do so, the Soviets would need the West Germans. By 1969, the Russians had become more conciliatory toward the Federal Republic.4 They encouraged the FRG to support the non-proliferation treaty, softened their position on West Berlin, showed a readiness to discuss a renunciation-of-force treaty, and eased their demand for a formal recognition of the GDR under international law. The Americans also wanted better relations between the Federal Republic and the Soviet bloc. This was understandable: West German intransigence jeopardized their own détente efforts. In October 1966, President Lyndon Johnson had stressed the shared duty of the West to build bridges to Eastern Europe.5 Under Charles de Gaulle, France was initiating détente, but the FRG hesitated. In September 1968, Secretary of State Dean Rusk reaffirmed Washington’s view that a new German Ostpolitik would be a useful attempt to overcome the political paralysis in Central Europe.6 East-West relations had gradually improved in the 1960s. Nearing the end of the decade, both the Soviet Union and the United States desired normalized relations on the basis of the territorial status quo in Europe.

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This undercut Bonn’s Ostpolitik in several ways. First, it reduced the fears of a Soviet invasion. If the Soviet bloc no longer threatened the Federal Republic, then why should Bonn not improve its relations with the East? Second, unless Bonn moved toward détente, it risked falling out of step with its Western partners who were pushing forward with détente. Meanwhile its Hallstein Doctrine threatened to backfire. If third world states, and perhaps even the Western Allies, began to recognize the GDR, then the FRG would have to break off its relations with them and risk its own diplomatic isolation in the process. The events of the 1960s had revealed the limits of Bonn’s hard-line approach toward the East. Adenauer’s “policy of strength” had not unified Germany. Instead, the Berlin Wall indicated that the GDR would be around for a long time to come.

Ostpolitik Preferences in the Federal Republic By the mid-1960s, leading interest groups and parties in the FRG were favoring a less rigid policy toward Eastern Europe. West German industry hoped that a more flexible policy would bolster its trade with the East. The churches also called for reconciliation. A new West German government under the leadership of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (CDU/CSU-FDP) was developing informal contacts to Eastern Europe. At this time, Bonn established trade missions in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. In 1966, Erhard was replaced by the Grand Coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats (CDU/CSU-SPD) that lasted until 1969. While the CDU and SPD had formed a coalition to master the economic downturn of 1966–67,7 they had also hoped to develop a more flexible Eastern policy. The new government built upon the policy of its predecessor. It eased the Hallstein Doctrine by not cutting off diplomatic ties to Romania, even after Bucharest had recognized East Berlin; downplayed the divisive issue of borders in its relations to Eastern Europe; and promoted West German trade in the East.8 Despite these reforms, the Federal Republic did not overturn key elements of its earlier Ostpolitik. It still did not accept the territorial status quo in Europe nor a second state on German soil. It still had no formal diplomatic relations with any Eastern state but the USSR. In August 1968, the Soviet Union reasserted its sphere of influence by marching into Czechoslovakia and ending that country’s attempt at a more humane socialism. Once again, the Soviets upheld their hegemony in Eastern Europe. Once again, the Americans did not stop them. In the words of Wolfram Hanrieder, after August 1968 it “was more apparent than ever


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that the United States and Soviet Union had tacitly agreed to respect one another’s spheres of influence and thus were not about to redraw them.”9 In September 1969, federal elections were held in the Federal Republic. The SPD improved its share of the vote from 39.3 percent in 1965 to a record 42.7 percent. Its chief rival, the CDU/CSU, sustained slight losses, winning 46.1 percent of the vote, down from 47.6 percent in 1965. The FDP fell from 9.5 percent to just 5.8 percent. To the relief of many, the National Democratic Party (NPD), a party on the far right, won only 4.3 percent of the vote and did not clear the 5 percent hurdle needed to enter the parliament. Following the election, the SPD and the FDP formed a new government with a narrow majority. Willy Brandt (SPD) became chancellor; Walter Scheel (FDP) became foreign minister. This change of power (Machtwechsel) sent the CDU/CSU into opposition for the first time. It also marked the start of a new Ostpolitik. International developments had made a new Ostpolitik possible and desirable, yet they had not created a domestic consensus on what this policy should look like. In fact, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 drove the CDU/CSU and the SPD apart on foreign policy. The Christian Democrats retrenched on Eastern policy, while the SPD hoped to push forward with an even more daring conception. The basic controversy was over borders in Eastern Europe. Without a West German recognition of the territorial status quo, there could hardly be a normalization between Bonn and its Eastern neighbors. As a national profile analysis reveals, this issue cut across class, partisan, and religious lines. Like Westpolitik in the early 1950s, it touched upon fundamental issues of national identity, a fact that helps to explain why the debate was so bitter. Willy Brandt Willy Brandt emerged as the leading West German proponent of a new Ostpolitik. He was a controversial figure in Germany. Born in 1913 as the illegitimate son of a saleswoman in the northern German town of Lübeck, Brandt had joined a far-left splinter party during the Weimar Republic (1919–33). During the Nazi era, he was active in the antifascist resistance before fleeing to Norway and later to Sweden. Upon his return to Germany after the war, he entered the Social Democratic Party and became a protégé of Ernst Reuter, the popular SPD mayor of Berlin in the late 1940s and early 1950s. By 1957, the still-young Brandt had himself become lord mayor in West Berlin. He kept this post for nine eventful years when the Berlin crises of the late 1950s and the construction of the Berlin Wall in

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1961 were unnerving the city and the world. At this time, Brandt and Egon Bahr, a close associate of the mayor, developed the concept of constructive engagement (Wandel durch Annäherung) with the East, that of “overcoming the status quo by not changing the status quo in the short run.”10 By 1964, Willy Brandt was chairman of the SPD. In 1966, he became foreign minister in the governing CDU/CSU-SPD coalition in Bonn. Brandt’s SPD called for better relations between the Federal Republic and Eastern Europe. At its Nuremberg congress in 1968, the party advocated diplomatic relations, the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border, the conclusion of non-use of force agreements with the Eastern states, and the establishment of improved economic relations. Although the party still did not recognize the GDR, it supported direct negotiations in order to achieve “the highest degree of cooperation between the two parts of Germany.”11 Its demands endured the following year despite the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Willy Brandt would later write, “with teeth clenched, I did not stray from the view that we must maintain our course which aimed at a reduction of tensions.”12 The SPD was prepared to accept the territorial status quo in Europe. Rather than insist that German unification in the short term and the liberalization of Eastern Europe were the measure of a successful Ostpolitik, the party scaled back its expectations. Although it did not renounce unification as its paramount goal, it now focused on other short term goals. These included peaceful coexistence between the blocs; renunciation of the use-of-force treaties; and mutual recognition of the territorial status quo in Europe, whether along the GDR-Polish border or in the divided city of Berlin. The SPD accepted the existing political realities in Europe, sobering as they were, as a basis for its Ostpolitik. The Christian Democrats In the late 1960s, the CDU grew more critical of West German overtures toward the East. Its leadership maintained that the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 had demonstrated the futility of accommodation with the Eastern bloc. Not only had West German advances failed to liberalize Eastern Europe, but they had prompted a Soviet crackdown. The party retrenched on its Ostpolitik, showing little interest in an intensified initiative. It returned to the positions of the Hallstein Doctrine.13 No clearer evidence of this shift can be found than in the statements of KurtGeorg Kiesinger, the Christian Democratic chancellor during the Grand Coalition. Earlier a critic of a defensive Ostpolitik, Kiesinger, who was also


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the CDU party chairman, now declared that “as long as the Soviet Union shows itself unprepared to resolve the German question by way of compromise, then at this time we can only maintain the remaining German positions.”14 Such intransigence found support in the rural Catholic regions of western and southern Germany and among expellee groups. It also resonated among nationalist Protestant circles in northern Germany.15 Although the CDU remained somewhat divided over Ostpolitik, its leaders had moved the party to the right. As the Bavarian sister party of the CDU, the CSU rejected a conciliatory Ostpolitik. Its position had hardened after the Prague invasion, which party leaders saw as further evidence of the bankruptcy of the Grand Coalition’s Ostpolitik. Franz-Josef Strauss, the CSU’s staunchly anti-Communist leader, favored a policy of Western strength as the best way to wring concessions from the East.16 He would view the SPD’s new Ostpolitik as “betrayal” of German national interests. Why was the CSU such a firm opponent of a new Ostpolitik at this time? Electoral factors surely influenced the decision to move to the right on foreign policy. The party had a large Catholic constituency that was conservative and anti-Communist. The party also sought to ward off the challenge of the far-right National Democratic Party, which was making inroads among Protestants in northern Bavaria (Franconia) and among the expellees. Bavaria was home to about two million Germans who had been driven from the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia after World War II. Expellees, comprising one-fifth of the Bavarian population by the 1950s, generally opposed concessions toward the East and showed a disproportionate tendency to vote for the far right.17 To maintain its support among the expellees, the CSU honed its attack against a new Ostpolitik. The Free Democrats By the late 1960s, the Free Democratic Party was supporting an ambitious détente policy.18 Whereas the party in the 1950s had espoused nationalist positions regarding both unification and national borders, its foreign policy now resembled that of Willy Brandt and the Social Democrats. Within the FDP, the rise of the reform-minded Walter Scheel signaled the party’s new foreign policy. The FDP called for a normalization of West German diplomatic relations with the Warsaw Pact states, nuclear non-proliferation, renunciation of force agreements, and a security conference between the rival military blocs.19 It even stood to the left of the SPD on some matters concerning FRG-GDR relations.20 Yet despite its new course, the FDP

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still contained a residual “national” wing that resisted the party’s new Eastern orientation.21 The National Democratic Party Founded in 1964, the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) was a far-right political party that would achieve some electoral success in the mid to late-1960s. Beginning in 1966, the party had begun to enter state parliaments throughout the Federal Republic. By 1968, it was present in seven state parliaments and had won just under 10 percent of the vote in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.22 The party did especially well among rural middle-class voters, Protestants, and expellees. The NPD presented itself as the guardian of German national interests. In its manifesto of 1964, the NPD declared: “Away with the lie of sole German guilt, with which billion mark sums are blackmailed from our nation. . . . For two decades the spirit of subordination and the recognition of a German collective guilt has paralyzed German politics.” Regarding eastern borders, it proclaimed that “Germany has a right to those areas where the German nation has lived for centuries.”23 It demanded a return of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, although this region was not part of Germany until 1938 when Hitler annexed it. By 1967, the party was castigating the Grand Coalition for its supposed “renunciation” of German interests. The NPD hoped to win over those nationalist voters who were upset over the Grand Coalition’s hesitant steps toward rapprochement with the East. The Trade Unions Following the SPD’s lead, the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) also supported a rapprochement with the East. In May 1969 at its congress in Munich, the DGB planned to renew its ties with the East European unions despite the invasion of the Czechoslovakia.24 It also encouraged Bonn to negotiate with the Eastern bloc. Its concern with foreign policy, traditionally lower among its priorities, showed how central Ostpolitik had become to the West German political debate. Industry During the Grand Coalition (CDU/CSU-SPD), West German industry generally refrained from the Ostpolitik debate.25 By the late 1960s,


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though, the BDI and prominent business papers were encouraging Bonn to accept the political realities in Eastern Europe.26 A return to the inflexible positions of the late Adenauer years, they feared, would jeopardize the recent boom in West German–Soviet trade. In 1966, West German trade exports to the USSR totaled 541 million DM; in 1969, they reached 1582 million DM.27 Refugee Groups Among the German interest groups, the Federation of German Expellees (BdV) was certainly the best organized, most steadfast opponent of territorial concessions in the East.28 Formed in 1958 as the umbrella organization of the expellees, it reported a membership of nearly 2.5 million and claimed to represent nearly 11 million refugees in the Federal Republic. The BdV reasserted the right of expellees to return to their homeland. It also rejected the Oder-Neisse line. No less than 52 expellees were deputies in the Bundestag between 1965 and 1969. They were split almost evenly (24:23) between the CDU/CSU and SPD, while a smaller share (5) were Free Democrats.29 The expellees energetically sought to shape public opinion. While neither the largest nor the most influential of the West German interest groups, they were a vocal, politically engaged opponent of a new Ostpolitik. The Churches The Protestant Church of Germany (EKD) was an engaged proponent of normalized relations between the East and the West. In its 1965 report on Ostpolitik, the EKD noted that West Germany must recognize postwar borders as a condition for a diplomatic dialogue with the East. Approved by the Church in 1966, this widely circulated report was “certainly the most important contribution that the Protestant Church had achieved in the area of foreign policy after 1945.”30 The EKD also prepared a study that acknowledged “two political entities” in Germany and urged greater cooperation between the FRG and the GDR in the interest of all Germans. The Catholic Church was more cautious in its approach toward the East. It stood by the expellees, many of whom were Catholic.“Because of the hierarchical pattern of the Church and the Vatican’s firm guidance in matters of policy, the German Catholic clergy, unlike the Protestants, is not openly divided on the expellee issue. . . . [B]ecause the Church views the entire problem against the background of persecution by and struggle against

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communists in East Europe, it represents a major source of support for the expellee movement.”31 By the late 1960s, some catholic groups were nonetheless dissenting from this position.32 At the catholic congress of 1968, speakers openly favored recognizing the GDR. However, the central committee of the Catholic Church in March 1969 rejected any recognition of the GDR.33 The West German Public By the late 1960s, public opinion in the FRG had shifted in favor of reconciliation with Eastern Europe. In June 1967, only 19 percent of those polled had supported West German acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line. By late 1969, however, a majority favored recognizing the Oder-Neisse border and coming to terms with the GDR.34 Profile Summary The Eastern question cut across West German society in the late 1960s. The refugees, comprising nearly a fifth of the West German population, were present in all major political parties and interest groups.Yet their representatives were not the only opponent of a new Ostpolitik. Many older Germans, conservatives, and practicing Christians resisted any accommodation with Communist Europe. Emotions ran high and would escalate further. Should the Federal Republic move forward with détente, even if this wrote off former German lands in the East? Should Bonn negotiate with East Berlin, even if this meant recognizing the GDR? Foreign-policy tensions had risen in the Federal Republic, reaching levels that were not present since the rearmament debate of the early 1950s. Now, however, fewer towering personalities dominated the foreign policy–making of the leading interest groups. There was no Hans Böckler of the DGB, nor Fritz Berg of the BDI to independently formulate positions for their powerful organizations. As a result, there was less opportunity for political leaders to orchestrate deals with the individual heads of divided organizations. Interest groups, in fact, would play less of a role in the ratification of a new Ostpolitik.

The Democratization Debate of the Late 1960s The controversy over “democratization” in the Federal Republic was to play a critical role in the Ostpolitik debate. On the one hand, it cut across


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the foreign-policy battle lines that were forming. On the other hand, since the democratization debate raised hopes and fears that were closely associated with the new Ostpolitik, it intensified the struggle over the new Ostpolitik. Political opponents sought alternatively to link and to uncouple these two divisive concerns as they strove to create a foreignpolicy majority. The democratization debate therefore must be briefly examined. By the late 1960s, an increasing number of Germans were calling for a democratic renewal of the Federal Republic. They demanded parity codetermination throughout the economy; pressed for a fundamental overhaul of the schools and universities; and urged a modernization of the legal code regarding divorce, abortion, and alternative lifestyles. They protested what they saw as a rigid, conservative society that had not come to terms with either its past atrocities or its present injustices. While the call for democratization was heard throughout the advanced industrial world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was perhaps loudest in West Germany. The younger generation of West Germans questioned the values and practices of an older generation that had led, served, and obeyed in the Third Reich. Those in this younger generation accused their parents of excessive deference to authority and an indifference to the problems of capitalism. They revolted against the widespread consumerism and conservatism of the Adenauer era (1949–63) in the Federal Republic. Because they feared a new wave of authoritarianism, they protested against the far-right NPD and Bonn’s passing of state-of-emergency legislation. They organized at the universities and in an extra-parliamentary opposition (APO). In so doing, they acquired allies as well as bitter enemies throughout German society and politics. As part of the democratization debate, the call for parity codetermination was vigorously renewed at this time. By the late 1960s, the German Trade Union Federation had redoubled its efforts to overturn the Works Constitution Act of 1952 and achieve parity codetermination. The DGB prepared legislation that extended codetermination as practiced in the steel, iron, and coal sectors to all large enterprises.35 It intended to advance codetermination beyond the stagnant sectors of heavy industry, where parity representation fell victim to firm closings and mergers, into the highly concentrated, dynamic sectors such as chemical production.36 With the SPD in the Grand Coalition and with the public favoring reforms, the moment seemed right to extend parity codetermination. DGB chief Ludwig Rosenberg phrased his demands in terms of the broader principle of democracy.“Whoever wants a free and democratic order, must

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want it in its entirety.”37 The West German public was sympathetic, but showed little understanding of the issue.38 Once again, the trade unions found support among left-wing Christian Democrats and the SPD for their codetermination demands. The CDU’s social committees, as advocates of worker interests within the party, backed parity codetermination in the Offenberger Declaration of 1967.39 The SPD also adopted a more aggressive stance on codetermination in the late 1960s.40 In December 1968, the SPD parliamentary grouping proposed legislation that would broadly extend parity codetermination across the West German economy. In so doing, it disregarded an earlier agreement within the Grand Coalition to hold off on new codetermination initiatives.41 The SPD pushed for other contested reforms as well. In a 1969 article called “The Alternative,” Willy Brandt defined the disagreement between the two largest parties as follows: “For the CDU/CSU, democracy means a form of state organization. For the SPD, democracy means a principle that must influence and imbue the societal being of the person.”42 He continued: “Only a thorough democratization of our schools and universities can bring about a vanquishing of the spirit of servility . . . that has caused our people so much harm. The end of social and economic injustices and absurdities can only be attained through means of democratic codetermination.” The SPD party chairman reached out his hand to those that wanted a new Federal Republic.43 “Hitler has finally lost the war,” Brandt declared after his election victory in the fall of 1969.44 Although he would earn a reputation as the “Peace Chancellor,” he aspired to be known as “the chancellor of domestic reforms.”45 In his opening address to parliament, Chancellor Brandt declared that “we want to venture more democracy.” He promised that education stood “at the pinnacle” of reforms, yet also mentioned tax reform, environmental protection, profit-sharing for workers, and legal reform. Brandt concluded his address on a hopeful note. “Ladies and Gentlemen, in recent years many in this country have feared that the second German democracy will go the path of the first. I never believed this. Today I believe it less than ever. No. We are not at the end of our democracy, we are only just now really beginning.”46 Answering Brandt’s call to action, thousands of young activists left the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO) for the SPD. Between 1969 and 1973, an estimated 410,000 new members would join the party. Whereas in 1964 nearly 54 percent of SPD members were workers, by 1972 the largest share (34 percent) came from the new middle classes; 15 percent of


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the members were students. Such an influx of young educated people, many of whom were socialized during the turbulent 1960s, guaranteed an outspoken force for sweeping societal reform within the party.47 In particular, it radicalized the SPD’s youth organization, the Young Socialists (Jusos). In the years to come, the Jusos would clash with the more traditional trade union wing of the party, known as the “sewer workers.” The unions hoped that democratization meant parity codetermination, but student activists generally had other things in mind.48 Foremost, they demanded a radical restructuring of the schools and universities. In the words of student leader Rudi Dutschke, “the politicization of the university is the starting point for a politicization and correspondent transformation of society.”49 With such an outlook, it is little wonder that youth activists failed to build many bridges to the labor movement. But they did find allies among intellectuals, clergy, educated professionals, and the liberal press. The historian Georg Picht, for instance, crafted widely noted arguments that laid out the case for a democratization of the educational system. To Picht,“Democracy today is far more jeopardized by the lack of worldly knowledge and expertise, by the breakdown of all measures of thinking and interaction, by the inability to critically examine, evaluate and combine information, and by the spiritual and intellectual servitude of those members and victims of the consumer society than it is by those authoritarian structures and the power monopolies that also exist.”50 Such arguments contributed to a widespread public interest in social reform by the late 1960s. Some even spoke of a “reform euphoria.” At this time, the Free Democratic Party became an ardent supporter of certain reforms. In its Hanover Action Program of 1967, the FDP called for educational and legal reform. In 1969, it campaigned under the promise of “new life chances in an open society.”51 To signify that it had shifted from a conservative national liberalism to a modern social liberalism, the FDP added periods between its initials to become the F.D.P. But the change was much more than cosmetic. The share of self-employed members in the party fell from 31 percent to 22 percent between 1965 and 1967, while the percentage of salaried employees (Angestellte) increased from 25 percent to 40 percent.52 Despite its new look and its new members, the party still opposed parity codetermination and remained skeptical of left-SPD efforts to transform society. West German conservatives viewed the call for democratization as an ideological assault on such cherished principles as employer prerogative, law and order, and deference to elders. They argued that democracy could not be extended to the firm without violating a natural division of labor.

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Endowed with both technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit, employers, they maintained, must be free to manage without worker interference. Sharing this view, a prominent business newspaper, Industriekurier, concluded that “the democratization of the economy is as preposterous as a democratization of the schools, the military bases, and the jails.”53 In each case, hierarchy ensured that the institution performed its function. Business intensified its fight against parity codetermination in the late 1960s. Industrialists founded organizations such as the “Workshop on Codetermination” and the “Action Front for Security through Progress.” They also spent over two million DM for anti-codetermination propaganda prior to the CDU party congress in Berlin in late 1968. This pressure further ensured that the bourgeois parties would reject parity codetermination.54 In its Berlin Program of 1968, the CDU generally maintained its earlier positions on education and codetermination. The party vaguely endorsed social partnership in the firm rather than support parity codetermination. In its discussion of democratic reform, it focused on administrative reforms (electoral reform, federalism, and managerial reform) not on societal issues.55 The CSU was even more upfront about its defense of the old order. In its Basic Program of 1968, the CSU unabashedly declared itself a “conservative force.” As such, it was “against every type of political utopianism, as well as a total technologicalization of life which has no consideration for the individual or for freedom.”56 The far-right National Democratic Party was at odds with the radical West German youth of the late 1960s. In its manifesto, the party proclaimed that “Germany needs a youth, conscious of duty and sincerely educated, in order to resist threatening enslavement through Communism and the atheistic thrust downward into the masses.”57 The NPD wanted to spread military values, not democratic ones. Presenting itself as the party of law and order, it won nearly 10 percent of the Baden-Württemberg vote in April 1968, after a wave of student riots had swept the country following the attempted assassination of student leader Rudi Dutschke.

Conclusion The thaw in the Cold War hollowed out Bonn’s former Eastern policy, but did not create a majority for a new course of action. Instead it introduced a deeply divisive foreign-policy debate that undermined the corporatism


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of the Grand Coalition era (1966–69). Rather than promoting social partnership, the controversy over Ostpolitik had opened up the way for alternative foreign-policy coalitions. By late 1969, the CDU/CSU favored a cautious Eastern policy, while the SPD and FDP demanded a bold new orientation. Each envisioned different societal alliances to achieve their foreign- and domestic-policy goals. Conservative Christian Democrats and nationalist Free Democrats strove for a status quo bloc that united conservatives and nationalists within industry, the churches, the refugee population, and the middle classes. It rejected the borders of Central Europe and opposed parity codetermination and an overhaul of the educational system. This bloc had many resources at its disposal. The CDU/CSU had the largest parliamentary opposition in West German history and was well represented at the state level and within the Bundesrat.58 It had good relations with industry, the Catholic Church, and the farmers’ lobby. However the Christian Democrats, despite these assets, were wracked by rival factions ranging from the more nationalist CSU to the moderate labor and student associations. Although factions had always existed, they had been tempered by the integrative force of Konrad Adenauer, and by the parties’ access to the spoils of electoral victory. Adenauer was now gone, and the CDU/CSU had entered the opposition in the fall of 1969. At least two alternative courses might return the Union parties to power. First, they could exacerbate tensions over controversial domestic reforms, while downplaying Ostpolitik. They might, for instance, submit a restrictive codetermination bill to test the partnership between the SPD and the FDP. Such tactics might split the governing coalition and restore a CDU/CSU/FDP alliance. However, it also might divide the Christian Democratic worker wing from the Christian Democratic business wing. A second strategy was even riskier and involved a head-on foreign-policy collision. Although this approach would unite the SPD and FDP, it might nonetheless end the socialliberal experiment in Bonn. Those Christian Democrats who favored an all-out assault on the new Ostpolitik anticipated the defection of nationally minded deputies, particularly expellees and national-liberal Free Democrats, from the governing parties in the Bundestag. Strengthened by these defections, the CDU/CSU could acquire a parliamentary majority to oust Brandt and place the next chancellor. This strategy might lead to sole CDU/CSU rule. The Free Democrats hoped for an altogether different political alignment that sustained a new Ostpolitik and limited domestic reform. The

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chief proponents of a liberal bloc were leading Free Democrats, such as Walter Scheel (foreign minister) and Hans-Dietrich Genscher (interior minister). However, it also found some sympathy among the ranks of the CDU left and the SPD right. West German industrialists tended to support this bloc as well. Its resources ranged from the indispensable role of the FDP within the government to the strong position of industry in the Federal Republic. For a liberal bloc to prevail, the FDP would have to curtail Social Democratic reforms. This was risky since the FDP was weak and divided. It housed an obstreperous national-liberal wing that resisted reform and a social liberal faction that clamored for social change. If openly obstructionist, the party would not only endanger its own tenuous unity, but would imperil its relations to the SPD, a party it apparently needed for its own survival. Chancellor Brandt hoped for a reform coalition of Social Democrats, left Free Democrats, trade unions, and liberal professionals who supported a new Eastern policy and far-reaching domestic reforms. A reform coalition might be built upon SPD strength and FDP weakness. Brandt’s powers were considerable. He directed a major mass party, as had Adenauer. Like Adenauer, he could call upon the support of the federal chancellor’s office (BKA), now stewarded by Horst Ehmke, a capable reformer. Foreign policy gave the chancellor particular policy-making advantages over the opposition. These included privileged information and the opportunity for favorable international exposure. A successful Ostpolitik would split the opposition while attracting industrial support. By mobilizing the trade unions and student activists for foreign policy and domestic reform, Brandt hoped to seal a Social Democratic reform coalition. For this to happen, certain obstacles had to be overcome. First, the SPD was itself divided over the pace and scope of reform. Conservatives, such as Helmut Schmidt, opposed the Jusos and their demands for socialism. Second, the governing coalition had a precarious parliamentary majority of just five seats and faced the likelihood of defections to the CDU/CSU. Third, the SPD had to expect business and FDP opposition to its domestic program. Finally, the CDU/CSU enjoyed powerful footholds in the federal states, the Bundesrat and in the courts. Writing in 1970, an observer summed up the dilemma of the new government as follows: “it remains to be seen how the SPD-FDP coalition, after its narrow electoral victory in September 1969, with little prospect of success in foreign policy, at odds in economic and social policy and without support from industry and armed forces, will be able to hold its own


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against a public receptive to nationalistic appeals.”59 Whether Brandt could negotiate and ratify a new Eastern policy under such difficult conditions seemed doubtful at best. The question remained: who would sustain this policy in the difficult period ahead?


Chapter Four

An Alliance for a New Ostpolitik

As superpower relations improved in the 1960s, the Federal Republic of Germany faced the opportunity and the challenge of formulating a new Eastern policy that corresponded with the international realities of the day. This task tested the Brandt government abroad and at home. Abroad it negotiated with its suspicious Eastern neighbors; at home it encountered stiff domestic opposition to a new Ostpolitik believed by many to betray German national interests. Much like the Westpolitik debate of the early Cold War, the Ostpolitik controversy of the détente era created an opening to new interest coalitions and chancellor preeminence. Brandt’s policy making resembled Adenauer’s to a surprising degree. In the chancellor democracy of the early 1970s, Brandt negotiated and signed two Eastern treaties amidst mounting domestic criticism. He linked foreign-policy and domestic-policy concerns to forge a foreign-policy alliance that sustained the new policy during the stormy treaty ratification of 1972. The First 100 Days Brandt’s start, beginning with his government address and followed by a flurry of diplomatic activity, introduced political patterns that characterized the new government’s tenure in office. In this regard it was not unlike Adenauer’s debut 20 years earlier. From the outset, the Brandt government proclaimed a new foreignpolicy course.1 It announced its scrapping of the Hallstein Doctrine, its plan to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and its intention to act

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quickly on Soviet and Polish offers to negotiate renunciation-of-force treaties. These treaties formed the crux of Bonn’s Eastern policy. Rather than wait for a comprehensive peace settlement that regulated the outstanding matters of the last war, the coalition embarked on more modest efforts to normalize its relations with its Eastern neighbors. “In the firm conviction of the federal government, the policy of non-use of force, which respects the territorial integrity of the respective partner, is a decisive contribution to détente in Europe.”2 Brandt also heralded a new relationship with the GDR by acknowledging for the first time that there were “two states in Germany.” But Brandt still withheld official recognition and insisted that the GDR was not a foreign country. He instead proposed deeper diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations in the interest of the German people. Brandt proclaimed, “we must prevent a further estrangement of the German nation and try to move beyond an ordered co-existence (Nebeneinander) to real cooperation (Miteinander).”3 In short, he said, patriotism “demands the courage to recognize reality.”4 Once in office, the Brandt government promptly embarked on its new foreign policy. In November 1969, it signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty despite CDU/CSU opposition; in early December, Brandt attended the European Community summit at the Hague where he helped secure British entry into the Common Market. Later in the month at a NATO Council of Ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Bonn won British and American backing of its Ostpolitik; at this time, the FRG began its negotiations with both the Soviets and the Poles over non-use-of-force treaties. By year’s end, the new government was pursuing an active foreign policy, showing, in the words of Brandt, that “it intended to do more than talk.”5 It had also allayed fears that its Ostpolitik jeopardized West German ties to the West. With Western support secured, the new government countered those critics who claimed that it was embarking on a second “Rapallo,” referring to the Weimar Republic’s sudden deal with the Soviets behind the backs of the Western democracies. The Brandt government chose to hold off on domestic reforms. The chancellor did not trumpet immediate action, but instead promised the speedy preparation of domestic plans “so that parliament and the public in the first year of the 1970s can have a comprehensive picture of the government’s reform project.”6 The CDU/CSU was divided in its response to the new government. Rainer Barzel, a young and ambitious presence within the CDU, headed the Union’s parliamentary group. Barzel, who aspired to become the next


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chancellor, believed that the Christian Democrats must remain open to reform if they were to stay politically viable. In his first speech as opposition leader, he asserted that Brandt’s domestic aims built upon an already modern democratic state, as crafted by the CDU/CSU. He offered the new government a qualified partnership on foreign policy, provided that it remained committed to German unification.7 Hard-liners within the CDU/CSU, however, did not share Barzel’s moderate approach. Powerful Christian Democrats, such as the past chancellor and newly reelected CDU chairman, Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, challenged the very premise of the government’s Ostpolitik. In his Bundestag speech of January 15, he proclaimed that “if you wish there to be a commonly shared Germany policy in the future, then you must have as your goal not only the preservation of the nation, but also the attainment of a unified state for the German nation.” He also bluntly stated that the “renunciation of force cannot be the basis of a solution to the Oder-Neisse question.”8 Other Christian Democrats bitterly spoke of a “stolen victory” and a “betrayal of the voters.”9 They embarked on a “total opposition.” Their intransigence on Ostpolitik promised to reconsolidate the political right in the FRG at the expense of the NPD. Indeed that party soon faded into irrelevance. The hard-line Christian Democrats also targeted the FDP, which they perceived as the weak link of the new government. With their rigid stance on foreign policy, they sought to divide nationalist Free Democratic deputies from the SPD and induce them to leave the FDP. They also hoped, in the words of Kiesinger,“to catapult the FDP out of four state governments” in the state elections of 1970. In so doing, they would further demoralize the FDP and encourage its deputies to desert the party. This was the strategy of the CDU hard-liners. They had a friend in Franz-Josef Strauss and the CSU. After the 1969 election, the CSU’s newspaper, Bayernkurier, accused Brandt of selling out German national interests, writing for instance that “Brandt will go down in history as the Renunciation Chancellor, provided he has enough opportunity to implement his anti-European, pro-Soviet platform.”10 These attacks polarized the political climate in the Federal Republic. Brandt’s first one hundred days defined the domestic debate along foreign-policy lines. This paralleled the situation of fall 1949 when Adenauer had defended the Petersberg Protocol against raucous SPD criticism.Then, Westpolitik was the area of fierce confrontation between government and opposition. Now, it was Ostpolitik. A few weeks earlier, the issue of currency revaluation, not Eastern policy, had dominated the federal election campaign.Yet Brandt shifted attention toward foreign policy. Whereas his

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domestic-policy initiatives were amorphous and less immediate, his activist Ostpolitik, a coherent and highly visible trademark of the new government, represented a natural point of attack for the opposition. Its criticism was heightened by the manner in which Brandt had presented his foreign policy. For instance, he made the “two states in Germany” speech without consulting either the opposition or the cabinet.11 In 1969, as in 1949, the opposition objected to the new foreign policy and how it was conducted. Foreign policy again exposed rifts within the opposition. Whereas in the early 1950s the trade union leadership and the SPD leadership had differed over Westpolitik, now it was primarily factions within the CDU/CSU that split over Ostpolitik.12 Rival personalities, operating within differing institutions, put forth alternative strategies in response to Brandt’s foreign-policy initiatives. In his function as leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary grouping, Barzel appeared to offer the government his cooperation in exchange for participation. In contrast, Kiesinger and Strauss, as party chairmen, adopted a course of unabashed confrontation. They were more interested in establishing the CDU and CSU as the stalwart champions of Germany’s national interests. The first hundred days of the Brandt administration had provided a preview of the conflict to come. They had shown that the governing coalition was serious about a new Ostpolitik, that it was not deterred by the polarization at home, and that it was prepared to exclude the opposition.

Negotiating a New Ostpolitik As it embarked on normalized relations with Eastern Europe, the Brandt government confronted a dilemma that Adenauer had faced in the early 1950s. The initial costs of its new foreign policy (concessions on borders and recognition of a second German state, for example) were up-front and visible, while the benefits remained distant and uncertain. Brandt realized that his new Ostpolitik, if successful, would bring the FRG greater prestige, more freedom of action, improved trade prospects in Eastern Europe, relaxed tensions in Berlin, and fewer travel restrictions between the two Germanys. These measures would boost the Brandt government at home, just as Allied foreign policy had eventually buoyed the Adenauer government at home. Yet to achieve these aims, the Brandt government faced two daunting problems. First, it had to negotiate with Communist states that were demanding Bonn’s formal recognition of the political status quo in Central


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Europe. Second, the government had to await a legal settlement on the status of Berlin. It had earlier made the normalization of relations in West Berlin a precondition for its ratification of treaties with Eastern Europe. But the wartime Allies, not the Germans, maintained legal jurisdiction over the city under the terms of their Potsdam Agreement. In March 1970, they began quadripartite talks on Berlin that would last until September 1971.13 In the meantime, Bonn found itself in an unenviable situation. Although not responsible for the fate of West Berlin, it was held accountable by the CDU/CSU. “From Berlin a third Germany must not arise,” Barzel ominously warned the Bundestag.14 Bound by the Allies to secrecy, the government could not refute opposition charges regarding Berlin.15 Instead, it had to patiently await a resolution. The lag that separated difficult negotiations from tangible benefits became a problem for the new government. While waiting for a breakthrough in negotiations, Brandt, like Adenauer before him, was accused of violating German national interests. Public approval soon wavered on key issues such as the Oder-Neisse line and the GDR.16 Whether led by Schumacher in the early 1950s or by Strauss in the early 1970s, the nationalist opposition hoped to take advantage of the government’s high start-up costs during the early stages of negotiations. If the government accommodated nationalist demands, then it risked derailing the negotiations. If it ignored the nationalist agitation, then it risked losing its narrow majority in parliament. How did the Brandt government respond to this difficult situation? It followed a two-track approach toward the Christian Democrats. Chancellor Brandt, who represented his government’s Ostpolitik to the outside world, strove for the impression, if not the reality, of bipartisan support for his government’s objectives. He stressed that the government and the opposition, while disagreeing over methods, did share fundamental goals.17 He sought to strengthen the impression abroad that his policies manifested the will of West German society.18 Brandt therefore appeared open to sharing information and access with the opposition. On January 16, 1970, he declared, “I know this must be much more developed, not only concerning the number of appointments, but rather the substance of the consultations—and I do not just mean information, I mean consultation. Let’s try this together.”19 Yet this was not the approach of Herbert Wehner, who headed the SPD parliamentary group in the 1970s. A former ranking Communist, Wehner had passed time in Moscow during the Third Reich before he broke with the Communists while living in Sweden during the war. He would have

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trouble living down a past that his opponents always held against him. In the Bundestag, Wehner was known for his biting sarcasm and his tactical skill. In early 1970, he chose to dismiss Barzel’s offer of cooperation, claiming that the CDU/CSU was far too divided to be a reliable partner. “No, I do not need the opposition,” he said when asked about its role in German-Polish reconciliation. Wehner contended that the governing parties must look after national interests on their own. “That the opposition will not take part in this is its business,” he said, and advised Brandt against “laying all its cards on the table ahead of time.”20 Wehner, whose job it was to look after his government’s Ostpolitik in parliament, found that clear battle lines were useful. By rebuking the overtures of moderate Christian Democrats, Wehner had strengthened the hand of the hard-liners in the CDU/CSU. He hoped to lock the opposition into a rigid, impractical opposition. This would have a multiple effect. Not only would it deprive the CDU/CSU of a constructive role in the foreign-policy debate, but it would make the government look like the lesser of two evils to foreign negotiators. It also disciplined the government’s own forces.21 In this regard, Franz-Josef Strauss was for Brandt what Kurt Schumacher had been for Konrad Adenauer: a useful enemy. In January 1970, the Federal Republic, the USSR, and Poland began their exploratory talks on renunciation-of-force treaties. In the following months, it soon became clear that the Brandt government was restricting Christian Democratic involvement as Herbert Wehner had proposed. Although it frequently informed the opposition leaders of the general direction of its negotiations with the Soviets and Poles, it did not actively involve them in the policy-making process, nor did it provide them with many specific details. An exasperated Gerhard Stoltenberg (CDU) would later interrupt Foreign Minister Scheel’s report to parliament, protesting that “everything you say is familiar from the newspapers! Couldn’t we learn a bit more?”22 Bonn perfected a secretive, personalized style of diplomacy. This was particularly true of its early negotiations with the Soviet Union. In late January 1970, Egon Bahr, the top West German negotiator, flew to Moscow where he conducted talks with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister, on the contours of a possible treaty.23 The choice of Bahr, later dubbed Brandt’s “Henry Kissinger,” reflected the chancellor’s preference for exclusivity. Since his days as mayor of Berlin, Brandt had known and trusted Bahr. Soon after Brandt became foreign minister in the Grand Coalition, he appointed him to be head of the planning staff within the foreign ministry. Bahr and his advisors reviewed numerous possible varia-


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tions of Ostpolitik at this time, working through likely scenarios. These exercises probably formed the basis for the initiatives of 1969–70.24 Given Bahr’s expertise, Brandt now picked him as his chief advisor on Ostpolitik within the federal chancellor’s office (BKA). Staffed with other experienced hands in foreign policy, the BKA became a de facto second foreign ministry at the chancellor’s disposal.25 Bahr could develop innovative foreign-policy initiatives in a manner “largely independent of established institutional channels and existing power groupings.”26 He had Brandt’s fullest confidence, and negotiated with Gromyko as he saw fit, sharing the details of his difficult negotiations with but a select few.27 The West Germans and the Soviets could not reach an agreement at this time. The governing coalition wanted a straightforward renunciationof-force agreement and a four-power accord on Berlin. Moscow wanted to settle other matters. They wanted Bonn to recognize the GDR and its borders under international law, renounce reunification, officially recognize the Oder-Neisse line, and treat West Berlin as a political entity distinct from the FRG.28 These terms were of course unacceptable to the West German side. By May 1970, Egon Bahr had managed to extract enough concessions from the Soviets to justify official negotiations on a renunciation-of-force treaty. He had persuaded the Russians that West Germany, as a semisovereign state, would be violating four-power responsibilities as established at the Postdam Conference of 1945 if it recognized the GDR or the OderNeisse line under international law. Eager to maintain its legal position in Germany, the USSR eventually withdrew its demands regarding de jure recognition. It also yielded on Berlin, allowing Bonn to defer treaty ratification until the unsettled legal situation of West Berlin had improved.29 In its talks with the Poles over a renunciation of force, the West German government again practiced secretive diplomacy.30 Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz led the exploratory talks in Warsaw. A state secretary in the foreign ministry, Duckwitz had the full confidence of Brandt. The chancellor had lured him out of retirement. An insider, Duckwitz regularly attended early morning meetings at the federal chancellery, where Brandt’s top advisors briefed the chancellor about pressing concerns.31 While the exploratory talks with the Poles were underway in early 1970, Duckwitz and other participants occasionally met with opposition leaders and representatives of expellee groups, but withheld the specific details. The opposition did not take part in meaningful policy making.32 The Warsaw talks were difficult. Whereas the governing parties had hoped that a tacit recognition of postwar borders would suffice, the Poles

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understandably wanted a binding commitment to their western border. After months of wrangling, the West German side compromised by formally recognizing the Oder-Neisse line, yet insisting on the validity of its earlier treaties. Bonn had in mind a specific clause within the Paris Agreements of 1954 that reserved the final settlement of the border issue to a peace treaty ending World War II. The Poles accepted this compromise in April. After this breakthrough, the West Germans and Poles focused on trade concerns and the emigration of ethnic Germans living in Poland. The Brandt government also had the GDR on its agenda in 1970. It embarked on direct talks, but had little success in satisfying the East Germans, who were insisting that Bonn recognize the GDR under international law, accept unconditionally the postwar boundaries, conclude a renunciation-of-force agreement with the GDR, and treat West Berlin as an independent political entity.33 Although Brandt categorically rejected these terms, he nonetheless met the East German prime minister in Erfurt and in Kassel during the first half of 1971. He achieved little in these highly publicized talks. Nevertheless, both sides agreed to negotiate on a range of practical matters (postal service, economic relations, travel) as they awaited the outcome of the quadripartite talks on Berlin. With the GDR talks, the chancellery (BKA) had taken the lead in formulating and presenting Bonn’s positions. Brandt and his closest advisors were virtually unchallenged, enjoying an “absolute monopoly over decisions.”34 They did, however, decide to involve the opposition to a greater extent. At important junctures, such as before and after the summit meetings, government representatives made a point of briefing the CDU/CSU. It even heeded the advice of the opposition at times.35 By excluding the opposition from most of its foreign policy–making, the government had initially sheltered its foreign policy. This worked well during the early stages of the negotiations. The BKA was a lesser security risk than either the foreign ministry, which housed many career officers opposed to the new Ostpolitik, or the Bundestag, where hostile forces waited. Among these were the CDU/CSU, the national-liberal wing of the FDP, and a section of the Social Democratic Party, which was close to expellee groups.36 By withholding detailed information from parliament until after the treaties were drafted, the government hoped for a fait accompli. Yet two events undermined this strategy in mid-1970: the FDP slumped badly and the “Bahr Paper” was released. In regard to the former, Foreign Minister Scheel (FDP) had languished in the background, while Brandt’s confidants made policy. An event in late April reinforced this im-


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pression. Upon Brandt’s bidding, State Secretary Duckwitz had delivered to Wadyslaw Gomulka, Poland’s leader, a letter from Brandt that reaffirmed his commitment to existing borders. Since neither Brandt nor Duckwitz had bothered to mention the letter to Scheel, the foreign minister found himself unwittingly relaying false information to the Bundestag committee on foreign policy. The CDU/CSU exploited this incident to embarrass Scheel and the FDP, while underscoring their objections to Bonn’s secrecy.37 Scheel’s poor public image contributed to the FDP’s electoral crisis at this time. In the Saar, the FDP dropped out of the state parliament altogether as its share of the vote shrank from 8.3 percent in 1965 to just 4.4 percent in 1970. In Lower Saxony, the party failed to break the 5 percent mark, recording just 4.4 percent in 1970. And although the FDP did manage to secure 5.5 percent in the North-Rhine Westphalian vote, it nonetheless sustained heavy losses. These electoral results unsettled the FDP’s parliamentary group. In the wake of the electoral fiasco, Erich Mende and Siegfried Zoglmann formed a “National-Liberal Action” (NLA) to organize FDP opposition to the new Ostpolitik. Although a mass FDP exodus to the CDU/CSU did not occur, the two NLA founders and a third deputy abandoned the FDP in October 1970, thereby whittling down the government’s majority to just six votes (251:245).38 On June 12, the conservative Bild newspaper published parts of the topsecret “Bahr Paper” that had been leaked to the press. The brief contained the terms that Bahr and Gromyko had tentatively agreed should form the basis of their countries’ renunciation-of-force treaty. Its publication created an uproar within nationalist circles, and vindicated past government efforts to protect its information tightly. After this leak, Bonn found itself with a weaker bargaining position. The Soviets could now claim that if they made additional concessions they would lose face. This complicated matters for Foreign Minister Scheel whose job it was to attain better terms during the official negotiations.39 The leak also played into the hands of domestic critics. Wrote Barzel,“the impression established itself that the government had something to hide. And this was indeed so. Justified suspicion arose.”40 Others were less restrained in their criticism. Kiesinger lambasted the new Ostpolitik in tones reminiscent of the diatribes of Kurt Schumacher.41 Strauss encouraged the founding of numerous “Friendship Circles of the CSU” throughout the FRG. They mobilized those elements who opposed a recognition of the GDR. They also threatened the more moderate CDU since they might form the basis of a CSU expansion northward. Strauss described the CSU in July as a “collective movement for the salvation of the

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fatherland,” and a safe haven for all those intent on toppling the current government.42 After the conclusion of the exploratory talks in late spring 1970, Bonn, Moscow, and Warsaw began their formal treaty negotiations. In light of FDP woes and the Bahr Paper, the Brandt government more actively consulted and disseminated information at cabinet sessions, committee meetings, and party congresses.43 It also strove to strengthen the position of Walter Scheel. First, clearer lines were drawn between the foreign ministry and the chancellery to protect the former from BKA encroachment. The official retirement of State Secretary Duckwitz on June 1, 1970, did much to close off the “open flank” between the foreign ministry and the federal chancellery.44 Second, Scheel assumed a much more prominent role in the diplomatic process. In late July, he embarked on official negotiations with the Soviets in an effort to improve the terms of the Bahr Paper. On key points, Scheel managed to wring concessions from the Soviet side.45 On August 7, Scheel and Gromyko drafted the final terms of the treaty between the FRG and the USSR. Five days later, the treaty was signed in Moscow. Scheel improved his own reputation and bolstered that of his party. The electoral benefits soon followed. In an event known as the “Hessian Miracle,” the FDP won 10.1 percent of the vote in the Hessian state elections of November 1970. Its achievement signaled that the FDP had finally stabilized itself after the defeats of 1969 and 1970. The governing coalition was now somewhat more secure. In December 1970, Brandt traveled to Warsaw to sign the finished treaty between the FRG and Poland. On this trip, he fell to his knees at a memorial to the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The picture flashed around the world, enhancing Brandt’s reputation as “the good German.” His governing coalition in Bonn had in fact accomplished much. Despite a shaky parliamentary majority in the Bundestag, sharp criticism from the opposition, and considerable Soviet and Polish resistance, it had negotiated and signed treaties with the USSR and with Poland. In so doing, it had come to terms with the realities of the postwar settlement in Europe. “Nothing is given up that was not gambled away long ago,” Brandt pointed out.46 With the treaty signings in Moscow and Warsaw, the government won widespread recognition for its new Ostpolitik. In the eyes of many, they had restored the position of the Federal Republic in international diplomacy. The treaties enjoyed broad support within the Federal Republic.Yet the absence of a Berlin settlement, East German intransigence, and treaty


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ratification each stood in the way of a successful conclusion of Brandt’s détente efforts. To this point, the foreign policy–making of Brandt and Adenauer had much in common. Both defined the political debate along foreign-policy lines; both excluded the opposition from significant participation; both turned success abroad into success at home.

The Domestic Reforms—Ostpolitik Nexus of 1969–1972 Both the Adenauer and the Brandt government also linked domestic and foreign policy. Yet they did so in very different ways to very different effect. Adenauer pushed through parity codetermination in 1951 to acquire trade union backing for his foreign policy. In 1952, he supported a very restrictive codetermination to shore up support among the FDP and industry. In contrast, Brandt held back on controversial reform projects in an effort to maintain domestic support for his controversial Ostpolitik. He chose strategic inaction rather than strategic action. This appears puzzling. After all, Brandt and the SPD left were envisioning a broad social coalition whose appeal extended well beyond foreign policy. For Brandt, sweeping reforms at home were needed to anchor both working-class and middle-class support for his government. He and other reformers assigned domestic reforms a central role in the realization of what Horst Ehmke called an “historic alliance” between the workers and the liberal bourgeoisie.47 As noted, they promised a wider social net, legal reform, educational reform, and expanded rights of worker participation. With these proposals, they targeted those electoral groups that the CDU-led governments of the 1950s and 1960s had neglected. These included traditional Social Democratic constituencies, such as the trade unions, and elements within the new middle classes, such as women, students, and liberal professionals.48 To Brandt, the march toward a socially just, modern capitalist society complemented the renewal of West German foreign policy. Together, it was hoped, they formed the basis of a durable reform coalition. Why did Brandt and the SPD left not actively pursue their muchvaunted democratization project? Why did they not mobilize on the left? Some scholars have focused on personal leadership, noting that Brandt was active and forceful in matters of foreign policy, but oddly passive and indecisive in matters of domestic policy.49 Others have suggested that the institutional composition of the Federal Republic limited the possibility of

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far-reaching domestic reform.50 Others pointed to the difficult financial circumstances. As early as 1971, rising public expenditure on defense, welfare, transportation, and schools produced a large federal deficit.51 International disturbances, such as the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, shook the FRG.52 Rising wages, inflation, a leveling-off of consumer demand, and diminished rates of private capital investment posed additional problems for the government.53 To some, they showed the limits of social democratic reform under capitalism.54 Yet these explanations are incomplete. Yes, Brandt was probably more interested in foreign policy than in domestic policy, although he disputed this charge.55 But so was Adenauer, who nonetheless implemented parity codetermination in early 1951 at great effort. The enactment of codetermination in 1951 also suggested that fragile parliamentary majorities do not exclude controversial domestic policies. Like Brandt, Adenauer depended on the FDP, a party that was even less interested in social transformation during the 1950s. Finally, whereas financial difficulties hindered reform in the mid-1970s, the starting condition in 1970 was more favorable. Horst Ehmke, head of the BKA, later indicated that the lack of reform was not due to a shortage of money.56 The government had after all expanded the welfare state at great expense.57 Codetermination and legal reform were cheap in comparison. And the greatest education expense was the expansion of capacity, not new educational structures. Brandt and the SPD held back on domestic reforms for foreign-policy considerations. On the one hand, it would have been very difficult for Brandt to have pushed through domestic reforms against the will of the FDP. And if he had done so, he may well have lost FDP support for his foreign policy. On the other hand, as long as foreign policy polarized West German society into a left and a right, Brandt did not fear a revolt on the left. He simply did not need to mobilize workers and students for his foreign policy. He did, however, need the active help of the FDP. He therefore chose not to rock the boat with domestic reforms until his foreign policy was implemented. His strategy was one of delay and restraint, rather than attack and mobilization. This is clearly seen in three policy areas: education reform, codetermination, and the Decree against Radicalism in Public Services (Radical Decree). In the 1960s, Bonn and the federal states had embarked on educational reform in an effort to ensure continued West German competitiveness.58 Largely developed under the guidance of independent councils of experts, reforms included expanded facilities, more shared governance at the universities, and increased federal jurisprudence over educational matters. Such


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measures had the support of the major parties and interest groups. By the early 1970s, the consensus had evaporated amidst a widespread politicization of the issue. Unlike earlier governments, the Brandt government now stressed education’s role in transforming society. It saw the need for a citizen “who is able through a process of continual learning to recognize and behave according to the conditions of his [or her] social existence.”59 Despite staunch Christian Democratic opposition, the SPD supported comprehensive schools (Gesamtschule) as an alternative to the existing tripartite system of vocational schools, university-track schools, and pre-business schools (Realschule).60 It also favored integrated universities where students, professors, and nonacademic personnel shared university governance. By late 1972, the Brandt government had yet to implement its proposals. Bonn had expanded capacity at the universities, but introduced few innovations.61 This failure stemmed in part from the “unusually large number of decision-making sites in which opponents could rally opposition.”62 The federal system, which assigns the Länder primacy in matters of cultural policy, enabled CDU-dominated states to hinder Bonn’s initiatives in the early 1970s. Government strategy further explained the failure to introduce reform. Brandt strove to foster bipartisanship when he selected Professor Hans Leussink as education minister. Leussink, who belonged to no party, received little backing from his fellow cabinet members.63 Frustrated by his ministry’s lack of financial support, he resigned in early 1972. His successor, Klaus von Dohnanyi, a junior SPD politician, struggled to meet the “massive counterattack” that was being waged by conservatives.64 In light of the government’s previous pronouncements and the high public expectations, one might have expected a counter-mobilization on behalf of educational reform. It was not forthcoming. Instead, the government de-emphasized the issue prior to the fall 1972 federal elections. Writes Heidenheimer, despite ample funds and planning “what was missing was the direction to channel this [reform] energy into a self-propelling ‘rolling reform’ process. This was provided neither by Chancellor Brandt nor by any of the half-dozen most powerful cabinet-party personalities.”65 The Brandt government had not wished to jeopardize Brandt’s controversial Ostpolitik by shifting focus to the divisive issue of educational reform. His government was also concerned that a renewed emphasis on education might turn away potential voters who favored the government’s foreign policy.66 It therefore chose to wait until after the next election. For the Brandt government, the extension of worker codetermination was a second important area of reform. During its first three years, the

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Brandt government did legislate a new work council law that replaced the Works Constitution Act of 1952.67 The new law, which took effect in 1972, increased work council influence over personnel, social, and economic matters at the shop level. Although it did not fully correspond to union demands, it represented a success for the trade unions.68 Yet, it did not affect codetermination within the company boardroom. Regarding parity codetermination, the SPD and FDP party leaders had agreed in late 1969 not to introduce a parity codetermination bill during the government’s first term. Without this accord, it is doubtful that the partnership between the two parties would have arisen at all. The Free Democrats, who maintained close relations to industry and to the managerial middle class, had been adamant.69 Brandt had reluctantly accepted this condition, effectively sacrificing codetermination for Ostpolitik. This did not end the discussion on codetermination, however. To the contrary, the early 1970s saw a proliferation of proposals and models. After an exhaustive review of West German codetermination practices, the Biedenkopf Report was released in 1970. It had been commissioned by the Grand Coalition and was led by Professor Kurt Biedenkopf (CDU). It favorably assessed the past workings of codetermination, but fell short of endorsing the extension of parity representation. The DGB, disappointed over the government’s delay and the Biedenkopf Report, pressed hard for its primary objective, the extension of parity codetermination as practiced in the steel, iron, and coal industries. For their part, industry representatives (BDI, BdA) warned against a “trade union state” (Gewerkschaftsstaat).70 The major political parties at this time were refining their positions on codetermination.71 At its Düsseldorf party congress in 1971, the CDU proposed that the owners hold seven of the twelve seats in company supervisory boards. At its Freiburg party congress the same year, the FDP also dodged parity by recommending a 6:4:2 division of the supervisory board; six seats would go to the representatives of capital, four seats to labor representatives, and the remaining two to senior salaried workers. The SPD remained committed to a settlement that ensured that five seats apiece went to labor and capital, while a neutral arbiter held the tie-breaking vote. Yet the SPD continued to practice legislative restraint. This demands explanation. After all, the party had made and broken its pledge not to introduce codetermination legislation during the Grand Coalition. The SPD once more had compelling reasons to reverse its decision. There were signs that the trade unions, the SPD’s most important sponsor, were uneasy over the slow pace of reform. Prospects for success on codetermination, moreover, were not all that bad. Over half of the deputies in the Bundestag be-


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longed to a trade union, while 44 percent held membership in the DGB, the most ardent of all supporters of parity codetermination.72 With nearly one-fifth of the CDU/CSU affiliated with a union, the possibility existed that a temporary SPD-CDU alliance would suffice for the deed, as it had in early 1951. Brandt, however, held back on controversial domestic reforms in the interest of his government’s Eastern treaties. As the vote on ratification neared, the governing coalition scrambled for votes. Controversial domestic initiatives, such as a parity codetermination bill, would have disrupted the already unraveling FDP, whose composure the government badly needed for the success of its Ostpolitik. This is the reason why the SPD and its progressive chancellor “on principle renounced any intention to mobilize via organized campaigns or demonstrations its core constituent groups, such as workers organized in the DGB, for its intended reforms.”73 Promulgated in January 1972, the Radical Decree further demonstrated the close link between domestic policy and foreign policy.74 Signed by Brandt and the ten minister presidents of the federal states, this decree banned political extremists from the West German civil service. The decree arose in response to CDU/CSU pressure. At this time, Christian Democrats warned of growing left-wing radicalism in the Federal Republic. Their campaign took a dual tack. On the one hand, they pressed Brandt to bar Communists (DKP members) from government service.75 On the other hand, they argued that Brandt’s Ostpolitik promulgated Communism within the Federal Republic. In his article “‘No’ to the Eastern treaties,” which appeared in the newspaper Die Zeit, Gerhard Schröder, a leading Christian Democrat as well as the former foreign minister under Erhard, cautioned that Bonn’s policies “open up, parallel to the treaties as it were, a sinister leftward shift.”76 These accusations led the Brandt government to show its anti-Communist mettle. The result was the 1972 decree against radicals, an ill-fated policy that sanctioned extensive background probes of 3.5 million teachers, railway officials, and other federal employees. As a result of the decree, 2,200 were not hired, 256 were fired, and 2,100 were punished.77 In his memoirs, Brandt placed this decidedly illiberal measure into context: “One cannot understand the Radical Decree apart from the Ostpolitik and the battle that was fought over it.”78 Brandt had hoped that Germany would become a good neighbor abroad and at home. He assumed these two goals were mutually supporting. But in order to become a good neighbor abroad, he had sacrificed good neighborliness at home.

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The Ostpolitik Showdown of 1972 The foreign policy–making of 1969–71 was bearing fruit by 1972. The government began to translate its foreign-policy success abroad into benefits for the West German public, as well as into greater prestige for itself. This linking helped the government acquire more domestic support for its Ostpolitik in 1972. The coalition for a new Eastern policy carried the day, both in the ratification debates and in the federal elections. By the start of the year, the worst of the lag problem was over for the Brandt government. The four powers achieved a breakthrough on Berlin in late May 1971. On September 3, 1971, the quadripartite agreement on Berlin was signed.79 It contained significant Soviet concessions, including improved transit between West Berlin and the FRG, better access for West Germans and West Berliners to East Berlin and the GDR, and closer links between West Berlin and the Federal Republic. The accord represented a great success for Bonn. It was popular; it improved the lives of West Berliners; and it dispelled the opposition’s charges that Bonn was selling out West Berlin. Perhaps most significant, the agreement opened the way for the ratification of the Eastern treaties and for the preparation of an FRG-GDR accord. The SPD-FDP coalition was finally reaping the benefits of its past concessions on border recognition. In late 1971, Willy Brandt became the first German since Gustav Stresemann to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This international recognition bolstered the popularity of the new Ostpolitik. Barzel noted wistfully, “Our struggle in the opposition had become even more difficult as a result of this exalted achievement for the chancellor. Willy Brandt was raised onto a pedestal.”80 The Brandt government received foreign help from East Berlin and Moscow as well. During the Easter holidays in 1972, the East Germans let more than one million West Germans and West Berliners stream across the Berlin Wall, even though the Berlin agreement had not yet been formally implemented.81 The Soviets did their part to help Brandt as well. In November 1972, they permitted three thousand ethnic Germans to emigrate from the USSR into the Federal Republic, thus providing further evidence that the new Ostpolitik was bettering German lives.82 Yet despite the popularity of Brandt’s foreign policy, its parliamentary fate was far from certain. The government majority dwindled as the Bundestag vote on the treaties with Poland and the USSR neared. Deputies defected to the Christian Democrats rather than ratify the Eastern treaties. In January 1972, Herbert Hupka, a leading spokesman for the refugees,


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transferred from the SPD to the CDU. In April 1972, two FDP deputies announced their intentions to join the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. Another followed on April 23. With these defections, the government no longer had a majority in parliament. Its Ostpolitik was in danger. The Christian Democrats were divided over the Eastern treaties. Rainer Barzel wanted them to pass, yet he led an unruly party that contained such influential treaty opponents as Franz-Josef Strauss, Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, and Gerhard Schröder.83 In search of middle ground, Barzel articulated his position of “Not as it stands” (So Nicht!) to the treaties, thereby making CDU/CSU support conditional on a revision. In April, Barzel decided to venture a constructive vote of no confidence to unseat Brandt as chancellor. This was the first time such an attempt had been tried. Encouraged by the recent defections, Barzel believed that his Christian Democrats in parliament had the votes to elect him chancellor in place of Brandt. Once chancellor, Barzel intended to renegotiate the Moscow treaty along more nationalist lines and then hold new elections. This at least was his plan. What took place was far different. Upon word of the constructive vote of no confidence, a storm of protest arose in West Germany. In industrial centers throughout the country, tens of thousands of trade unionists engaged in wildcat strikes or participated in protest rallies. In the city of Emden, 17,000 workers walked off the job. Numerous work councils demanded a general strike if Brandt indeed fell from office.84 The Young Socialists (Jusos) were also active, staging large demonstrations in major West German cities.85 These spontaneous protests revealed that Brandt held significant mobilizing potential among workers and students. On April 27, the constructive vote of no confidence was held. This was to be one of the most dramatic days in the history of the Bundestag. Barzel had counted heads carefully and was quite sure of success. But Herbert Wehner and the Free Democratic leaders made matters as difficult as possible.86 They had agreed that the SPD would not take part in the secret ballot, while only a few trusted FDP leaders would cast their vote. This served a dual purpose. On the one hand, if there were pro-Barzel deputies within the SPD-FDP ranks, they would have to get up and walk to the ballot box, past their glaring colleagues who now knew of their design. On the other hand, because several in the coalition did take part in the vote, they provided some cover for those deputies in the CDU/CSU who were thinking about secretly abandoning Barzel. This would make it harder for them to be later identified. When the final votes were tallied, Barzel had fallen two short of a majority. Several CDU/CSU deputies had deserted

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him at the last moment. Corruption was involved, but the details, and the extent of East German foul play, remain to this day unknown. The Brandt government survived the April 27 vote, but it still had no workable majority in parliament. On April 28, its proposed budget was defeated. Rather than call for new elections right away, the government and the opposition agreed to seek a compromise on the Eastern treaties.87 The ensuing two weeks brought forth a bipartisan declaration on the treaties, but failed to secure CDU/CSU treaty endorsement. On May 17, the Moscow and Warsaw treaties passed the Bundestag. The Union parties abstained. Shortly later, the Bundesrat approved the treaties. The commotion over Ostpolitik extended into the election campaign of fall 1972 to the chagrin of the Christian Democrats. The CDU/CSU had tried to make fiscal policy rather than foreign policy the primary focus of this election.88 Its leaders warned of economic and social chaos should Brandt remain the chancellor. They cautioned against a radical SPD, and saw an unholy alliance forming between young extremists and old trade union Marxists.89 Most West Germans, however, were sanguine about their own personal situation, which offset the dark prognoses of the CDU/CSU.90 The Christian Democrats could count on the backing of West German industry. While industry continued to favor the new Ostpolitik, it had become less hopeful of the economic benefits of détente. Eastern Europe still did not account for more than 4 percent of West German trade in 1972.91 Industry representatives actively opposed Brandt’s reelection for domestic-policy reasons. Since 1971, they had been waging a “cold war” against the government.92 In November 1971, in fact, the head of the BDI and 62 cosigners ran a page-long antigovernment advertisement in German newspapers, proclaiming “We Cannot Remain Silent Any Longer.” During the election campaign of 1972, leading industrialists criticized excessive trade union influence within the government, a reckless fiscal policy, and a resurgent left. They mounted an extensive advertising campaign that provided SPD supporters with supposed evidence of capitalist “conspiracy” and a “class war from above.”93 Brandt protested that “it is dubious to the highest degree when well-funded groups take part in the election campaign anonymously, spreading in part truly foul demagogic slogans.”94 The Catholic Church opposed the Brandt government on moral grounds. The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZDK) issued a controversial pastoral letter in November 1972 that read like an implicit endorsement of the CDU/CSU. They cited abortion reform, the “shock to the moral foun-


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dation of marriage and family,” and “moral erosion” in the schools. In response, SPD and FDP leaders loudly bemoaned a “return to the 1950s,” when Catholic bishops had openly favored the Christian Democrats.95 Yet despite the efforts of the CDU/CSU, industry, and the Catholic Church to focus attention on domestic concerns, foreign policy still dominated the political debate. The din surrounding the recent ratification of the Eastern treaties had not yet dissipated. The political climate remained tense and polarized. By negotiating a Basic Treaty between the FRG and GDR shortly before the elections, the Brandt government kept Ostpolitik in the minds of the West German voters. In this treaty, the FRG accepted the territorial integrity of the two states, agreed to exchange “permanent representatives” instead of ambassadors, and supported separate membership in the United Nations. Yet it refrained from recognizing GDR sovereignty under international law and reasserted its goal of a peaceful unification of Germany. In return, East Berlin relaxed travel restrictions for West Germans, especially for those living near the border. It also eased the guidelines on interstate family reunions.96 Shrewdly, Bonn arranged that the two parties initial the Basic Treaty immediately prior to the election and sign it soon thereafter. The November 19 election was therefore transformed into a plebiscite on the popular Basic Treaty.97 The new Ostpolitik was an ideal campaign issue for the governing parties. It kept attention on an area where the government had not only excelled, but had garnered widespread recognition at home and abroad. It favorably contrasted the two chancellor candidates: the Nobel Prize winner Brandt and Rainer Barzel, the frustrated spoiler. On November 19, 91.2 percent of eligible West Germans participated in the federal elections. By the end of the day, the governing parties had won a resounding victory.98 For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic, the SPD emerged as the largest single party, winning 45.8 percent of the votes. It performed especially well among the industrial working class, youth, and Protestants. Each group was closely identified with the government and its Ostpolitik. Trade unionists and Jusos had mobilized on behalf of the Eastern treaties in the spring, while prominent representatives of the Protestant Church of Germany (EKD) had openly endorsed treaty ratification.99 The FDP, whose overall share of the vote rose to 8.4 percent from 5.8 percent, performed especially well among urban professionals.100 Although the CDU and CSU maintained their predominance within agrarian and Catholic regions, they won less than 45 percent of the vote overall, their worst showing since 1949.

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By 1972, the Brandt government had secured a broadly based alliance of support for its Ostpolitik. Workers, students, Protestants, and urban professionals comprised its core. Each had come through for the government in 1972. These groups, joined by many among the new middle classes, had given the Brandt government a clear majority in the parliament (272:224). There was little inevitable about this coalition. International conditions had not determined either its composition or its breadth. Among those groups that defended the Brandt government’s foreign policy in 1972, interests had diverged widely on domestic policy. For the new Ostpolitik to bind them together, the Brandt government had surmounted imposing obstacles. Brandt’s foreign policy–making was exemplary coalition building. Like Adenauer, he had shielded his foreign policy from its domestic opponents during negotiations. In addition, he had defined the political debate along foreign-policy lines. Try as it would, the CDU/CSU proved incapable of presenting its opposition in terms of domestic policies. Its attempt and failure to do so contributed to the government’s electoral success in late 1972. The Brandt government had also linked policies. It implemented popular measures, such as the expansion of schools, transportation, and welfare, but strategically postponed codetermination and education reform. This helped relations between the SPD and FDP and defused the Christian Democratic charge that dealing with Communists abroad unleashed Communism at home. Moreover, the Brandt government had negotiated a foreign policy that was popular in the Federal Republic. It relaxed interstate travel between the two German states, improved conditions for those Germans living in Poland, and increased German emigration from the USSR. Many in the Federal Republic were proud of their Nobel Prize winner and what he had accomplished on the international stage.

The Collapse of the Brandt Coalition The social coalition that had sustained the new foreign policy dissolved soon after forming. The decline of Ostpolitik and the lack of domestic reform drove this process in 1973. In an interview in the spring of 1972, Willy Brandt had been asked whether his Ostpolitik would still excite the voters in the fall of 1973, the original date set for the federal elections. He assured the reporter that this would indeed be the case. “In a certain sense, things will only really get


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going after the [Eastern] treaties are ratified.” He then listed the expected developments. These included a controversial treaty with the GDR; a treaty with Czechoslovakia; diplomatic relations with Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia; and preparations for the upcoming Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). “Therefore” continued the chancellor,“the topic of East-West policies will remain on the daily agenda and will continue to interest the people.”101 Soon after the November 1972 election, the journalist Theo Sommer expressed a different opinion. To Sommer, the dramatic phase of Ostpolitik was over. Government officials would now work out the details of the broader policy direction that Brandt, Bahr, and Scheel had laid. “It is now the moment for domestic policy. No longer may the chancellor let the reigns go, no longer can he anticipate a period of clemency,” he wrote. “Tax reform, judiciary reform, societal reforms, a reasonable educational reform—much was left hanging that now needs tackling. The majority obliges it.”102 Sommer was right about Ostpolitik. Bonn’s Eastern policy no longer captivated the West German public as it had in the past. There were a few reasons for this. The CDU/CSU, while still opposed to Bonn’s initiatives, did not have the votes in parliament to mount a serious challenge. Drama was also missing from the negotiations between Bonn and Prague that focused on the complicated legal questions of the Munich Treaty of 1938 and the repatriation of Sudeten Germans.103 The Brandt government also had trouble with the East German government.104 The GDR at times resumed its harassment of incoming traffic, doubled the required currency exchange to enter East Berlin, and limited East German travel into the Federal Republic.105 By the middle of 1973, the new Ostpolitik no longer united the governing coalition. Herbert Wehner led the revolt against his government’s now sluggish Ostpolitik by secretly visiting Erich Honecker, the leader of the GDR, in May 1973. He did obtain certain concessions on behalf of the East Germans, but he aroused suspicion. In the fall, Wehner again embarrassed his government. On a trip in the USSR, he criticized Bonn’s recent Ostpolitik and implicated Brandt directly:“What this government is missing is a head.” Coming from the chairman of the SPD’s parliamentary grouping, these charges created a stir throughout West Germany.106 The disappointment over the direction of Ostpolitik spread beyond internal critics. By 1974, opinion polls showed a growing displeasure among the public.107 Once the source of great optimism and pride in the government, Ostpolitik now fostered suspicion and unease.

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Whereas foreign-policy reforms slowed, major domestic reforms never really got started. The oil shock of 1973 had complicated efforts. The earlier, more favorable conditions were gone for good. After the oil shock, resources became even more scarce as the government confronted an approaching recession. Expenditures on energy dramatically increased, economic growth stagnated, capital investment declined, inflation rose, and unemployment shot upward. Compared to other industrialized countries, Bonn dealt well with the consequences of the oil shock. All the same, the oil crisis diminished the opportunity for new programs by dampening spirits within the government and among the larger public. “By way of driving restrictions and colder living quarters, the oil crisis in the fall of 1973 impressed upon all citizens the limits of growth. Gradually there was a reversal from reform euphoria to realism.”108 Yet the Brandt government had not helped its own cause after its victory in 1972.“There could be no serious talk of a reasonably managed reform program,” concluded Arnulf Baring. “One really set about nothing: neither codetermination, nor tax reform nor the internal shaping of educational reform. . . . In all these areas there were no shortage of suggestions. Instead, what was missing was creative fantasy and the patient determination to translate it into practical policy. Fatigue had spread wide; one waited; everything was postponed.”109 University reform, for instance, continued to stall as the plight of the university framework bill showed.110 Originally proposed in late 1970, it did not survive its initial review in the Bundesrat. Debate on the measure extended over the next several years. During this time, the federal constitutional court issued rulings that curtailed the possibilities for reform.111 A revised version of the bill finally passed the Bundestag, but it died in the Bundesrat in 1974. Further compromises produced the 1976 Framework Law, a law that satisfied neither reformers nor conservatives. The meager results confirmed a characteristic pattern:“of the [education] reforms, only expansion [of capacity] remained.”112 Codetermination resulted in yet a further disappointment. After the 1972 election, the trade unions had eagerly awaited parity codetermination. In early 1973, Heinz Vetter, the head of the DGB, made union wishes clear. “Time is up. Our demand for the extension of parity codetermination in all large enterprises and firms is and will remain our number one demand.” He warned that “[e]mployees and their unions cannot accept any further delay in this crucial question of societal reform.” In particular, Vetter stressed that “[i]n the area of codetermination, the decisive step forward must be taken during this legislative period.”113


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The Brandt government finally presented a proposal in January 1974. Yet it revealed the hand of the Free Democrats.114 It proposed a codetermination settlement for all companies with over two thousand workers. The supervisory boards among the very large firms would comprise 20 members. Of these 20, one-half, among them the chairman of the board, would be selected by the shareholders. The other half would be chosen by delegates that the workers had elected. However, those selected to represent the workforce had to include at least one senior salaried employee. From the perspective of the trade unions, this condition hindered true parity since the representative of middle management would probably vote on the side of the owners. Despite vigorous trade union objections, the SPD stood by the compromise. It even conceded more to the FDP during the final legislative process. In March 1976, the final bill passed the Bundestag. Vetter, the chairman of the DGB, described it as the single biggest disappointment of his tenure in office.115 As the economic situation worsened by 1974, key societal groups turned against the Brandt government. Industry was still uncooperative. “In the leading posts of the economy,” lamented Brandt,“a plaintive mood spread: not a word about lending a hand or rolling up the sleeves.”116 The chancellor also missed the support of past supporters. The trade unions called for high wage settlements in order to preempt the wildcat strikes that had shaken the country in 1973.117 In early 1974, the powerful public workers’ union (ÖTV) rejected Bonn’s calls for wage restraint at this time of inflation. It instead struck in early 1974 for a 15 percent wage hike. The employer, in this case the federal government, dismissed any double-digit increase as irresponsible. But as garbage piled up and public transportation slowed down, Brandt eventually succumbed to trade union pressure. In mid-February, Bonn granted over two million employees an 11 percent raise. For many in West Germany, this episode showed Brandt to be a weak leader. It also indicated that a powerful West German union would push through its wage demands at the cost of a Social Democratic chancellor. There was little evidence of working-class solidarity. By early 1974, the Jusos were aggravating Brandt’s situation. In the words of the chancellor, “the Young Socialists in fact behaved as if they were a party within or next to the party. The nonsense which they advocated was considerable.”118 The Jusos had viewed the election victory of 1972 as a mandate for sweeping change. When nothing happened, they grew impatient and openly critical of Brandt.119 They drew upon their strong organizational position at the local level (especially in Munich and in Frankfurt) to make their positions felt within the SPD.120 For instance,

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they embarrassed the government by supporting the wildcat strikes of 1973.121 They provoked a conservative reaction among Free Democrats and conservative Social Democrats.122 Whereas the Jusos had earlier stood by Brandt during his trials of 1972, they now stood apart. The SPD suffered a string of losses during West German state elections. Its performance was particularly bad in Hamburg, an SPD stronghold, where its share plummeted below 45 percent. National polls indicated that fewer than 60 percent of those who had voted for the SPD in the federal elections of 1972 still backed the party. Only about one-third of the West German electorate said they would vote for the SPD.123 Many voters had doubtless been influenced by the West German media, which had turned sharply against the chancellor.124 Brandt’s protracted slump contributed to his decision to resign after a spy scandal broke in April 1974. He did not command the support of leading elements within his party and within West German society. Social groups that had earlier rallied behind Brandt did not encourage the chancellor to fight on. For example, in marked contrast to their spontaneous pro-Brandt strikes in April 1972, trade unionists rallied in Bonn on May 8, 1974, a day after he resigned, against the codetermination bill. Not only did important social groups not come to Brandt’s rescue, they assisted his demise. Labor problems, radical youth, a critical press, and lost elections all worsened the situation for the chancellor. The Brandt government’s failures at domestic reform had encouraged this opposition. Many workers, students, and liberal professionals accepted neither the results nor the effort. Even when they considered the constraints that the government faced, they doubted whether Brandt had fought the good fight.

Conclusion The chancellor democracy of the early 1970s developed during the implementation of a new Eastern policy. As the Brandt government adjusted its Ostpolitik to the détente era, it faced a determined opposition whose nationalist appeals resonated across political parties and interest groups. To implement its embattled foreign policy, the Brandt government took full advantage of the policy-making opportunities of the early détente era. It excluded the opposition from its negotiations with the Eastern bloc, defined the political debate along foreign-policy lines, delayed disruptive domestic initiatives, and turned its success abroad into success at home. In so doing, the Brandt government brought together an alignment of po-


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litical parties and interest groups that sustained its foreign policy in the early 1970s. As in the 1950s, the chancellor again stood at the center of the political system. He wielded a powerful policy-making instrument in the federal chancellor’s office (BKA); he enjoyed special access to foreign negotiators and foreign media; he not only determined the policy direction, but the specific policy contours. As a result, Adenauer and Brandt were in a position to shut out the opposition from important policymaking. They could pursue an exclusionary strategy toward Schumacher and Strauss. The opening to a new Ostpolitik in the early 1970s had produced a return to the type of personal decision making of the early 1950s. In domestic policy–making, however, chancellor democracy had yielded to what political scientists called “coordination democracy,” that is the balancing of powerful, well-represented societal interests. As a result, the divide-and-conquer strategy, as practiced by Adenauer, was now much more difficult. To recall, Adenauer had driven a wedge between the unions and the SPD by legislating parity codetermination in return for trade union backing on foreign policy. By the 1970s, chancellors could not make domestic policy in such a way. Rather than attempt to implement a controversial domestic policy such as codetermination, Brandt delayed on several of his most controversial domestic reforms. In the short run, this protected his foreign policy. In the long run, it alienated the government’s supporters on the left, who then withdrew their support once the Ostpolitik was through. For a reform bloc to form, Brandt would have had to mobilize workers and the left around domestic reforms. Yet this jeopardized his governing coalition and his cherished foreign policy. He therefore chose to restrain the unions and the students. By so doing, he implemented Ostpolitik, but steered the Federal Republic in the direction of a liberal bloc. He had set the stage for the Schmidt-Genscher government (1974–82) and in the process made himself redundant. The developments of 1969–74 recast policies and politics in the Federal Republic. The new Ostpolitik was secure. After Brandt, the Schmidt government further developed ties to the East by loaning much money, especially to Poland. Even when U.S.-Soviet relations were deteriorating in the late 1970s, the Schmidt government favored an Ostpolitik of constructive engagement that linked Bonn’s economic incentives to the East’s political flexibility.125 The Christian Democrats opposed the new Ostpolitik throughout the 1970s, much like the Social Democrats had opposed the new Westpolitik

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in the 1950s. In fact, Franz-Josef Strauss campaigned hard against Ostpolitik in 1980 when he was the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate. He lost badly, just as the SPD had lost badly in 1957. And the CDU/CSU defeat in 1980, much like the SPD defeat in 1957, encouraged the party to finally accept a policy that was providing security and economic benefits. When Helmut Kohl (CDU) became chancellor in 1982, he did not end Ostpolitik, but rather advanced it further. Even Cold Warriors like Franz-Josef Strauss would now deal with the Communists of East Germany. On the domestic-policy front, the events of 1969–74 were equally momentous. The demise of Brandt and the rise of Helmut Schmidt ended the social-liberal reform project. On the right wing of the SPD, Schmidt had little intention of mobilizing workers and students for domestic reform. His relationship to the Jusos had always been a tense one, earning him a reputation as a “Juso-eater.” Whereas Brandt had stressed democratization and reform, Schmidt emphasized consolidation and stability. Reform initiatives were now put off. Horst Ehmke wistfully concluded that “there can no longer be talk of continuity of Social Democratic reform policies.”126 Writing in 1982, when the restored Christian Democrats and Helmut Kohl were proclaiming a Wende or turning point in West German politics, the historian Arnulf Baring pointed out that in fact “the Wende already arrived eight years ago.”127 Yet the ever-hopeful Brandt continued to insist upon a “majority this side of the Union.” In 1982, he was proclaiming SPD determination “to forge anew a social coalition between the working class, the progressive middle class [Bürgertum], the younger generation and the intellectuals.”128 However, for the last eight years, Schmidt had implemented a policy that was singularly ill-equipped to reconstitute such an alliance. Instead, despite his considerable executive talents, Schmidt had driven the remnants of the Brandt bloc further apart. Ironically, he remained popular among the public as he fell from power in 1982. In conclusion, the chancellor democracy of the early 1970s resembled its predecessor of the early 1950s. Again, a Cold War change required a difficult foreign-policy adjustment on the part of the Federal Republic. Once more, a controversial foreign policy cut across class and confessional lines, and cleared the way for new interest coalitions. Like Adenauer, Brandt seized the policy-making initiative, uniting working-class and middle-class elements behind a new foreign policy. In the interest of his foreign policy, he put off controversial domestic reforms. This strategy reappeared in 1990 when a Christian Democratic chancellor unified the two Germanys at the end of the Cold War.

Part III

Unification


Chapter Five

The Two Dimensions of Deutschlandpolitik

Would the national question now become a social question? —Helmut Kohl1

In the late 1980s, Communism’s collapse undercut Bonn’s foreign policy toward East Germany without creating a consensus on a new policy. During unification, Germans quarreled over how quickly the two states should unify and whether this process should lead to a new legal and institutional framework in Germany. Like the past Westpolitik and Ostpolitik controversies, this debate also related to national unity. It introduced a political division that, as a national profile analysis indicates, cut across domestic positions on the social dimension of unification. The End of the Cold War As the 1990s neared, the Kohl government (CDU/CSU-FDP) extended Brandt’s policy toward the GDR. Its Deutschlandpolitik showed that the Federal Republic had accepted the postwar borders and normalized its relations to its Eastern neighbors. Since the Kohl government saw unification as a long-term objective, it pursued a constructive engagement with the GDR. Franz-Josef Strauss (CSU), once the arch-enemy of Brandt’s Ostpolitik, secretly flew to Leipzig in 1983 to announce a one billion DM credit for the GDR. And Helmut Kohl did what no SPD

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chancellor had dared to do; he welcomed Erich Honecker to a Bonn visit in 1987 that included military honors and the playing (but not singing) of the GDR hymn. Like its SPD-FDP predecessor, the CDU/CSU-FDP government claimed that contacts with the GDR was improving the lives of normal East Germans. Under Kohl, the FRG established more partnerships with East German cities, encouraged youth exchanges, improved phone connections and mail delivery, and paid East Berlin so that East German political prisoners could come to the West.2 Its policy reflected the widely held belief that the second German state was here to stay and one better make the best of the situation. This approach made sense in a divided Europe. By the late 1980s, the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe had become expensive for the USSR. Since the 1970s, the region was purchasing Russian oil at prices well under market value, at an estimated loss to the Soviets of $3 billion a year.3 Eastern Europe ran a deficit in its trade balance with the USSR, and those goods that it did export eastward tended to be of low quality. Its best products went to the West for hard currency.4 Soviet hegemony was costly in other ways. Moscow may have spent up to a quarter of the USSR’s entire national product on the military, much of it stationed in Eastern Europe.5 The huge military-industrial complex, while necessary to maintain its armies, badly distorted the Soviet economy, draining money and expertise from the underdeveloped consumer goods industries. The Soviet economy sputtered and stalled under this burden.The historian Paul Kennedy wrote of imperial overstretch.6 When the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he introduced reforms intended to revive the stagnant Soviet economy and to serve as a model throughout Eastern Europe. He favored more democratic freedoms (glasnost) and economic restructuring (perestroika). These measures did not spark a Soviet recovery, yet they did encourage Poles and Hungarians to test the limits of the new openness. In Poland, the Solidarity movement elected a non-Communist prime minister in the summer of 1989; in Hungary, the Communists turned socialist and started dismantling their fortified border with Austria on May 2, 1989. Remarkably, the Soviet Union did not stop them, nor would it use its military to prop up Communist governments in other countries. The bipolar division of Europe was at an end. The rise of Gorbachev had raised hopes in the GDR, one of the most repressive regimes in all of Eastern Europe.Yet the rulers in East Berlin resisted reform despite a worsening economic situation in East Germany.7 In 1989, they restricted the sale of a Soviet youth magazine (Sputnik) deemed

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too liberal, declared allegiance to Ceausescu in Romania, manipulated election results in a blatant fashion, and cheered the Communist crackdown in China. In February 1989, East German border patrols shot and killed Chris Gueffroy, a 20-year-old trying to scale the Berlin Wall to the West.The East German rulers were clinging tenaciously to an increasingly untenable portrayal of East Germany as a preferred “anti-fascist,” “socialist” alternative to the Federal Republic. Whereas in the past East Germans had blamed the Soviet Union for repression, by early summer 1989 they were identifying East Berlin as the source of the hard line.This recognition of an indigenous German Stalinism evoked desperation in the GDR, dashing hope in the consequences of Soviet reform and driving many East Germans to desperate acts.8 In August 1989, large numbers of people spontaneously fled the GDR, leaving behind friends, family, and possessions. More than three thousand escaped across the Hungarian-Austrian border. Others whiled away time in Hungarian internment camps. Still others thronged into crowded West German embassies and diplomatic missions in Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, and East Berlin. Highly charged scenes abounded.There was the rapture of the seven hundred who, on the occasion of a pan-European picnic in Hungary, bolted into Austria on August 19; the anguish of the thousands caged up in West German embassies throughout Eastern Europe; and the desperation of the Dresden crowds who attempted to board moving trains that were westward bound. By October 1989, the numbers of refugees reached startling levels, creating labor shortages in the GDR and refugee camps in the FRG. One hundred thirty thousand had fled since the start of the year, about as many as during the previous five years. They tended to be valuable members of East German society.They were predominantly young, skilled workers and professionals who had recently finished their formal training.9 The exodus of late summer and early fall gave rise to a second form of protest.While demonstrators in Leipzig initially declared “We want out!,” by late September the crowds proclaimed “We’re staying here” and “We are the people.” Leading the demonstrations, East German intellectuals demanded personal liberties, freedom of travel, free elections, the licensing of opposition groups, and an end to secret police terror. As the largest holder of private property in the GDR and as a home for regime opponents, Protestant churches provided the opposition with capable leadership. The events of the fall have been called a Protestant revolution since “at the moment of the [regime] breakdown the churches played a decisive role.”10 By September 1989, East German citizen groups courageously articulated a

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vision of a democratic republic. The most prominent association, “New Forum,” challenged the government to an open dialogue over the reform process. The protest movement gathered momentum throughout the country. In Leipzig, later dubbed the city of heroes, the number of protesters attending Monday demonstrations soared: 5,000 on September 25; 70,000 on October 9; 300,000 on October 23. A half million people crowded onto the Alexander Platz in East Berlin on November 4 to cheer on artists, writers, and members of the opposition. It marked the largest demonstration in East German history.11 Departures and demonstrations were the two-pronged assault on the East German regime. As tens of thousands fled the country, hundreds of thousands demanded reform. Under growing pressure, the ruling Communist elite considered—but without Soviet assistance did not risk—a “Chinese solution,” that is, a massacre. On October 18, the politburo member Egon Krenz replaced the aged Erich Honecker as head of the ruling SED, thereby becoming the top East German leader.Yet the disintegration of Communist power continued unabated. On November 6, the government resigned; the next day the politburo stepped down; and on November 9, amidst a good deal of confusion, the Berlin Wall opened. The opening of the Berlin Wall marked a watershed in the East German revolution. After November 9, the national question quickly exposed the underlying and previously disguised weakness of the movement to reform the GDR. Unlike the situation in Poland, where workers and intellectuals worked together in Solidarity to bring about the end of Communist rule, in East Germany workers and intellectuals had worked apart to topple the SED dictatorship. Skilled workers fled, while pastors, dissidents, and artists organized mass protests. Neither side engaged in a dialogue with the other, nor were lasting institutional or personal ties forged. It soon became clear that the two groups held very different conceptions of the East German future.The leaders of the citizen groups generally conceived of an ecologically sensitive democratic socialism: a “third way” between capitalism and state socialism. In contrast, the East German workers were generally opposed to more socialist experimentation. They viewed the Federal Republic as an economic, social, and political model worthy of adoption.Whereas their flight out of the GDR in the summer and fall of 1989 forced the Stalinists to accept reform or quit, their exodus in the winter and early spring of 1990 forced both East Germans and West Germans to hurriedly rethink the national question. The events of 1989 undercut the premises of Bonn’s old Deutschlandpolitik. Unification was no longer a far-off dream; the Communist leader-


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ship in East Berlin was no longer a credible negotiating partner; and stability in Central Europe no longer turned on the postwar division of Europe. Bonn watched nervously as Communism collapsed, as the iron curtain fell, and as East Germans came westward, took to the streets, and called out for unification.The FRG needed a new Deutschlandpolitik.

National Preferences The events of fall 1989 undermined domestic support for two states in Germany. In the FRG, all major parties and interest groups had long paid lip service to the goal of national unification. This was the life-sustaining lie of the Federal Republic. Established as a provisional state, the FRG had long ceased to be provisional. Nonetheless, its Basic Law was committed to a peaceful unification of the two Germanys. Prior to the opening of the Berlin Wall, no one considered unification to be practical. Once again, it was Willy Brandt (SPD) who was among the first to recognize the opportunity for a new policy. On November 10, the former chancellor boldly declared that “what belongs together will now grow together.”12 In the weeks to come, Brandt, enjoying a newfound prestige, came to be seen as the apostle of unity. On November 28, 1989, Chancellor Kohl delivered in the Bundestag a “Ten Point Plan” for overcoming the division of Germany and Europe.13 In the address, he proposed the gradual development of treaties, confederate structures, and finally a federation between the two German states.To embed this process within European institutions, he called for the inclusion of Eastern Europe within the European Community, the development of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and further arms control.14 Privately, Kohl estimated at this time that unity would take five to ten years.15 Backed by his party chairman Hans-Jochen Vogel, Karsten Voigt, the Social Democratic foreign-policy spokesman in the Bundestag, immediately embraced Kohl’s plan.“We agree with you on all ten points,” assured Voigt, and “we offer you our cooperation in the realization of this concept, which is our concept as well.”16 The SPD would later distance itself from the chancellor. By February 1990, a near consensus had arisen in support of unification in both German states. As late as December 1989, the SED, its longstanding coalition partners (bloc parties), its mass associations, and the East German pro-democracy opposition all supported the notion of separate

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German states.A relict of the immediate postwar German landscape, the bloc parties were “bourgeois” parties that had faithfully served in an SED-steered Democractic Bloc. The SED, aided by the Soviets, had coopted the CDU and the LDPD (Liberals) after the war. In 1948, they manufactured two more parties: the DBD (an agrarian party) and the NDPD (National Democrats). The SED-controlled East German mass associations included a youth organization (FDJ), the trade unions (FDGB), a farmers’ association (VdgB) and a women’s organization (DFD). With the collapse of the SED state, these associations lost their influence. By February 1990, all the major East German groups had come to accept unification. Two developments changed their allegiance. First, the exodus from the GDR continued in numbers approaching two thousand a day. A total of 58,000 East Germans moved to West Germany in January 1990, adding to the nearly 350,000 that had fled in 1989.17 The GDR had lost nearly 2.5 percent of its entire population, and the bleeding continued. Second, East Germans were still protesting on the streets. Whereas in December those attending the rallies were divided on the issue of unification, by the middle of January the vast majority of demonstrators cried out for German unity. And, in contrast to the peaceful protests of the fall, the demonstrations had grown angry and aggressive.The call for retribution for past SED crimes drowned out the call for reform. Rival political factions, including far-right elements, used the demonstrations as a forum to advance their political views.18 Both economic and political factors triggered this unrest. Whereas the promise of economic performance and political stability had long provided the Federal Republic with legitimacy, by early 1990 such hope had all but vanished in the GDR. On the economic front, industrial output faltered as the disintegration of planning mechanisms crippled the centralized economy. The steady outflow of skilled workers further hampered production and created a health-care crisis.19 During this time of economic dislocation, Prime Minister Hans Modrow, a popular SED reformer, could not sustain confidence in his government.20 Despite Modrow’s hopeful beginning in November, his credibility plummeted after he attempted to reconstitute the East German secret police in late 1989. This aborted initiative prompted the storming of the State Security (Stasi) headquarters, national protests, calls for a general strike, and a marked increase in distrust toward the reform process in East Germany.21 As frustration in the GDR grew, many grasped at an attractive alternative, one German state. East German parties and opposition groups followed suit. They hoped that the promise of unification would restore economic and political sta-


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bility to the GDR. The approach of free elections in GDR, originally slated for May and then moved to March 18, provided them with a powerful electoral incentive to declare their support for unification.This happened quickly, and culminated on February 1, when Modrow dramatically announced his own plan to unify the two Germanys. Modrow was a member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) which, as the successor to the SED, had been the staunchest champion of independence. By late winter, all major East German and West German parties had reconciled themselves to the approach of unification. The events of 1989 generated an emotional unification debate in Germany. Prior to November 1989, the issue of whether to unify had broadly placed the West German parties against the East German parties; now, the question of how to unify divided groups on both sides of the Elbe. Rival camps emerged. And although the groups and parties within these respective camps constantly modified their positions to keep pace with new political realities, they maintained distinct visions of unification.These in turn informed their policy preferences. Deutschlandpolitik featured two cross-cutting lines of division that persisted throughout 1990. Unification had both a national component and a social component.The ways they were linked would determined the political alignments that formed.Their relationship was as important as the relationship between Westpolitik and codetermination in the early 1950s, and the relationship between Ostpolitik and democratization in the early 1970s. Unification’s national dimension revolved around questions of how soon the FRG and GDR would unify, who would participate in statebuilding, and whether this process would create new laws and institutions for Germany or rather extend those in the Federal Republic eastward. Like the Westpolitik and Ostpolitik debates of bygone eras, the unification debate of 1990 was about the future of the German nation-state at home and abroad. These three policies represented the nexus where international treaties and national self-understanding intersected. As such, they each aroused an intense domestic opposition. The conventional conception of national unity was of a gradual unification process. After the two German states had stabilized the GDR, they would deepen relations to one another. They would cap the unification process by drafting a new constitution for a unified Germany. The West German Basic Law contained a provision (Article 146) that anticipated such a scenario. Article 146 declared that “the Basic Law shall cease to be in force on the day on which a constittution adopted by a free decision of the German people comes into force.”22

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The assumption that unification would lead to a new German state had long dominated thought on unification. Not only had the founding fathers in Bonn explicitly preserved this option with Article 146, but West Germans and East Germans alike had put forward plans in this spirit. Moreover, it built upon and intensified past policies of constructive engagement. The Federal Republic would provide financial support, know-how, and legitimacy to help the East German government create the necessary conditions for a dignified unification process. Unification might occur quickly or slowly; it might modify the old Federal Republic somewhat or a lot. Whatever the outcome, it entailed constitution-building between two sovereign partners. It assumed that such a process would help the new Germany come to terms with its divided past and recognize its future responsibilities as a unified state. Social Democrats The West German Social Democrats favored this path to unity. In their “Berlin Declaration” of late December 1989, they urged immediate West German aid for the GDR; the coordination of economic and social policies in the two German states; a contractual network of extensive cooperation (Vertragsgemeinschaft); and finally the formation of economic, environmental, and cultural confederate structures.23 While the Social Democrats soon favored a quicker process, they continued to oppose an absorption of the GDR within West German institutions, calling instead for a new constitution under the terms of Article 146 of the Basic Law. At its founding congress in mid-January, the Social Democratic Party of the GDR proposed a course similar to the West German Social Democratic program. On the national question, while firmly committed to German unity, the East SPD initially backed a deliberate unification course under the terms of Article 146.24 As Markus Meckel noted in early February, “unity for us does not mean an annexation of the GDR by the FRG.” Rather than demand instant unification, Meckel and the SPD asked “which realistic steps are now possible?”25 In early 1990, polls indicated that the East SPD was the most popular party in the GDR. West German Greens The West German Greens were divided over Deutschlandpolitik.26 Whereas one grouping within the party stubbornly insisted on two separate states, leading party moderates by mid-January were conditionally accepting uni-


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fication. In the Bundestag, a party leader spoke of an “environmental federation of two radical democratic German republics within one Europe that would be pacifist.”27 To party moderates, “if the sovereign citizens of the Federal Republic and the GDR, each with a mutual veto right, support one German state, then it will come about one day.”28 Rejecting a rush to unity as unrealistic and provocative, they noted that unification first “requires several years of coexistence.” In the meantime,“we should address all the things that would be needed for this according to the principle of two states in a contractual network of extensive cooperation.”29 The Party of Democratic Socialism The East German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), as the legal successor to the ruling SED, hesitantly signaled its qualified support for a gradual unification of the two German states. Hans Modrow, earlier a reformer within the SED, headed the East German government from midNovember to the March 18 elections. Modrow presented his own unification plan on February 1, 1990. It was entitled “Germany United Fatherland” and it proposed a step-by-step unification process as well as military neutrality for a united Germany.30 At a party congress in late February, the dynamic young chairman of the PDS, Gregor Gysi, also backed an eventual unification if it maintained the GDR’s “independence during the process of unification.”31 The PDS also sought to protect the “societal values and accomplishments” of the GDR during unification.32 As part of its electoral strategy, the PDS appealed to lingering pride in the German Democratic Republic and did not stray from its determination to resist a rapid merger of the two states on West German terms.33 By supporting a gradual coming together of two equal partners, the post-Communist PDS sought to protect a constituency that perhaps had much to lose from a quick West German takeover of the GDR. Its members included those state administrators, military personnel, industrial managers, and professionals who had sustained the repressive regime. Politically tainted, they faced an uncertain future in a united Germany that had been created in West Germany’s image. East German Citizen Groups The East German citizen groups also argued that East Germany must actively participate in the building of a new German state. In the words of Jens Reich, a founder of New Forum:“We are worth something; we have

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freed ourselves; we have drawn up elements of the socio-political culture of the next century; we do not want to be mercifully taken aboard and assigned to the ship’s middle or lower decks.We want to have a say when it concerns the future, which without change the current Western societal and industrial model cannot master.Western Europe needs Eastern Europe as well, its people, its ideas, and its proposals.”34 Reich and his fellow activists recognized that in order for the East Germans to make a meaningful contribution to unified Germany, they must first shore up the crumbling East German state.A broken-down, undemocratic GDR would be no match for a vigorous Federal Republic during negotiations over the terms of unity.Therefore they decided, albeit reluctantly, to enter into the Modrow government in late January.35 The groups that backed a gradual unification process viewed the Round Table in Berlin as the institutional vehicle to carry out their strategy. Formed in early December 1989, the Round Table convened regularly and was attended by the SED, the former bloc parties, and the opposition. At the assembly, the opposition groups energetically undertook steps to create the conditions for a dignified unification process. In addition to composing a social charter, participants at the Round Table drafted a preliminary constitution for the GDR that closely resembled the West German Basic Law. They intended both to democratize the GDR and to debate a new constitution for Germany. In the words of the East German human rights activist Wolfgang Templin, “the coming together of two states that were apart for so long is a fundamental historical turning point. It demands a thorough self-assurance on the part of both sides about the direction they have gone and the direction they will go.”36 Churches and Trade Unions The events of 1989 caught all major interest groups and parties unprepared.While the political parties adjusted quickly to the new political reality, the leading interest groups in Germany generally were less decisive in their responses. Several factors accounted for this. Unlike the parties, they did not face direct electoral pressures that forced them to commit on this issue. In addition, they tended to possess neither the mechanisms, nor the mandate to lead on the national question. Competition between political parties, rather than established social partnership, drove the unification process in 1990.37 At this time of upheaval, the interest groups focused on putting their own houses in order. While the discredited mass organizations in the GDR crumbled quickly, the churches and West German trade


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unions pondered closer relations with their counterparts in the other German state.Turned inward, they reacted rather than led. Unlike in the great policy debates of the early 1950s and early 1970s, German interest groups played a diminished role in the shaping of unification. Instead, party leaders courted voter blocs and public opinion during unification. The increased importance of voter blocs, at the expense of organized interest groups, shaped policy-making strategies in 1990. All the same, one found ample evidence that the churches and trade unions favored Article 146. The Protestant churches in both states jointly declared in January 1990 that “we want the two German states to grow together”; they also urged “a measured tone in the realization of this new unity.”38 Protestant leaders in the GDR openly opposed a hurried process. Church officials moderated the proceedings at the Round Table, which was attempting to resuscitate the East German state. Although the Church generally kept a low profile in 1990, “numerous voices within the Protestant Church criticized the process of unification as badly prepared, overly rushed and undignified for the citizens of East Germany.39 The West German trade unions favored a gradual unification.40 While the DGB soon came to accept a rapid pace, the powerful industrial union IG Metall protested more vigorously against a hurried unification.41 In regard to the East German electorate, a poll taken in early February indicated that 75 percent of East German voters planned to vote for a party (SPD, PDS, New Forum) that favored a gradual unification. It predicted that the SPD would win 59 percent of the vote.42 Similarly, over two-thirds of the West Germans polled in February considered the pace toward unity to be too fast.43 Christian Democrats By late January 1990, a second camp was articulating a very different view of the national question than that of the SPD and the East German government. It called for a rapid absorption of the GDR under the terms of Article 23 of the Federal Republic’s Basic Law.Article 23 listed the federal states where the Basic Law was currently binding and declared that “in other parts of Germany it shall be put into force on their accession.”44 Those who wanted a rapid unification process did not pursue the economic and political stabilization of the GDR, but instead, in the words of Lothar Späth (CDU), wanted an “unconditional surrender” of the Modrow government in East Berlin.45 They would not prop up the teetering GDR edifice.

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By February 1990, Helmut Kohl was the chief proponent of quickly absorbing the GDR within West German structures. In an address to the Bundestag on February 15, he defended his offer to negotiate right away the terms of a currency union with the East Germans.“In a politically and economically normal situation, there would have been another way: that is, step-by-step reforms and adjustments with the unified currency coming at a later point in time. With this in mind, and I’ll say it, there has been criticism from experts [toward my approach]. In addition, the Council of Economic Experts has voiced its opinion on this matter.We take these arguments seriously. Nevertheless, we are deciding for the path I have just outlined.”46 Why did Helmut Kohl reject a step-by-step approach? He pointed to the deepening crisis in the GDR and to the unabated flight of its citizenry to the Federal Republic. Personal and party political considerations certainly played a role, as did Gorbachev’s admission in late January that the Germans had a right to national self-determination. Although Kohl professed a sincere, long-standing desire for unification, his opponents believed that he was driven to become the chancellor of national unity. He did, after all, have himself compared with Otto von Bismarck at political rallies.47 The chancellor claimed to see a “window of opportunity” to overcome Germany’s painful division, but his critics claimed that he saw a “window of opportunity” to victory in the upcoming federal elections. Less than a year before, the Kohl government had appeared headed toward electoral defeat. According to polls, 73 percent of the West Germans had wanted another chancellor.48 The Alliance for Germany By early February, Kohl had brought together an electoral alliance of three East German parties. Dubbed the “Alliance for Germany,” it contained the East CDU, the citizen group Democratic Uprising (DA), and the CSUsponsored German Social Union (DSU).49 Within this pact, the two smaller parties (DA and DSU) urged an immediate unification by way of Article 23.50 The East CDU also favored Article 23, yet desired a more leisurely pace.The East CDU had recently freed itself from the GDR’s Democractic Bloc, which had united the four bloc parties within an SED-dominated government.51 With its large membership and its developed party structure, the CDU first broke with the Democractic Bloc, in December 1989 and then left Modrow’s governing coalition in late January 1990. Lothar de Maizière, its new chairman, strove to win the confidence of Helmut


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Kohl, who valued the party’s organization in the East, but worried about its credibility after its 40 years as an SED vassal. West German Industry In his endeavor to accelerate the pace of unification, Kohl could also count on the support of prominent industry representatives. Early on, Tyll Necker, who presided over the still-influential Federation of German Industry (BDI), spoke out in favor of a rapid extension of West German institutions into the GDR.52 Backed by the Federation of German Employers’ Associations (BdA), the BDI opposed East German statist initiatives to more tightly regulate industrial and labor practices in a unified Germany. Industry representatives did not want a constitutional debate, hoping to avoid debates over a “right to work” clause and more worker codetermination. It is also possible that they believed a gradual unification process gave the Communist managers in the East more time to consolidate their hold on the Eastern economy. Profile Summary By February 1990, two opposing camps had formed.A first advocated new patterns of inter-German cooperation, new institutions, and a new constitution. Its proponents included Oskar Lafontaine (SPD); the trade union leadership, particularly IG Metall; the churches, particularly the East German Protestant churches; the Greens; the reformed Communists; and the East German citizen groups. According to polls taken in early February, both East Germans and West Germans favored this approach. A second grouping contained the chancellor, his coalition, the Alliance for Germany, West German industry, and nationalist elements in both German states. It favored a unification that quickly extended Western institutions and practices to the East.

The Social Dimension Next to this national question, there was a second, closely related dimension to unification.Who would bear the immense costs of national unification? This was the “social” question. It was less concerned with formal state unity than with the redistributive implications of unification. As in the codetermination debate of the early 1950s and the political struggle

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over domestic reforms in the early 1970s, opposing sides in 1990 debated the questions of social justice and the role of the state in the economy. There were two main responses to the social question in early 1990. One grouping insisted that the costs of unity must be openly discussed and fairly distributed; another grouping rejected the portrayal of unification as a social problem, arguing instead that all Germans benefited from unification. Each camp supported a currency union between the two German states, yet for very different reasons.The first saw it as a way to redistribute wealth eastward; the second as the start of another “economic miracle” in Germany. Oskar Lafontaine and the Social Democrats led the discussion of the costs of unity. As minister president of the far-western federal state of the Saar, Lafontaine was a rising star in the party. In February 1990, he had agreed to serve as the SPD chancellor candidate in the upcoming federal elections on the condition that his party let him challenge Kohl on unification.According to Lafontaine, Kohl’s policy held grave consequences for Germany.53 Lafontaine viewed the German question differently than did Kohl.“When we speak of German unity, then it does not chiefly concern the unity of a nation-state, but rather the well being of the people,” he said.54 “The path to unity is the path of social justice.”55 To achieve justice, Lafontaine demanded the disclosure of unification’s costs and the repeal of planned tax cuts for business. Lafontaine accused the government of intentionally concealing the bill for unity and of unifying at the expense of the socially disadvantaged.56 He favored delaying the currency union between the two German states.57 To the SPD, the currency union was but one important element within its larger project of alleviating social hardship in eastern Germany.The party opposed separating it from other forms of financial help. By stressing the importance of fairness during unification, the SPD bridged differences between its older, more nationalistic wing (represented by party chairman Hans-Jochen Vogel and honorary chairman Willy Brandt) and its younger, less nationalistic wing (represented by Lafontaine). This emphasis maintained the party’s long-standing appeal to the disadvantaged as well as its support for unification. It was similar to the position of the West German Greens, who, while much more skeptical about national unification, demanded “immediate assistance to improve living conditions in the GDR.”58 The SPD approach also promised to attract many West Germans who were wary of the likely costs of unity.While only 11 percent opposed unification, 75 percent of those polled expected noticeable tax increases; 61


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percent anticipated higher social security rates; 61 percent expected increased state debt; 47 percent reckoned with higher interest rates; and 44 percent predicted a less stable currency. However, only 25 percent were prepared to tolerate higher taxes, more expensive social security, greater national debt, and higher interest rates. A mere 15 percent indicated that they would accept a less stable DM.59 The churches and the West German trade unions also warned about the costs of unification and the way in which these were to be shared. While DGB chief Ernst Breit declared his support for a currency union, he also urged Kohl to set aside 15 billion DM in immediate aid to the eastern economy.The trade union leader proposed funding this aid in part by limiting business tax breaks. Breit further recommended the formation of “an all-German table” to discuss the great task of national unity.60 Prominent economists did not conceal the high price for unification.61 Most notably, Karl-Otto Pöhl, the president of the Bundesbank, declared that “enormous transfer payments are necessary if the process is to progress without grave social dislocation.”62 Others also doubted the economic wisdom of a hasty currency union.The Council of Economic Experts, an independent para-public organization in the FRG, noted that without an increase in productivity rates, East Germans could not expect a standard of living comparable to that of the West.63 In the GDR, the PDS and the citizen groups all feared the dire social consequences of a rapid unification process.64 Like the SPD, they tended to view unification as a problem of redistribution. In February, the East German government, now a grand coalition of most major parties and opposition groups, requested from the Kohl government a 10- to 15-billionDM “solidarity contribution.” Prime Minister Modrow and an East German delegation traveled to Bonn where they asked for this aid but were summarily turned down.65 The Kohl government downplayed the social dimension of unification and instead promised the economic benefits of national unity. Finance Minister Theo Waigel (CSU) proclaimed on February 15 that “with the introduction of a system of market incentives, the efficiency of the GDR economy will decisively improve, leading to a powerful burst of growth.”66 He noted that “in a dynamically growing economy the initial problems will permit quick resolution as long as one firmly stands by market principles.”67 He also supported his government’s assertion that German unification essentially amounted to a game that everyone won. “If one adds everything up, then I believe one can correctly establish that the [public] investments for German unity are in the long-term cheaper

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and more reasonably placed than the [present] subsidies for the division of Germany.”68 To allay fears about redistribution, the Kohl government issued an assurance that it repeated often in the months to come. It pledged that neither a tax increase nor an unusual sacrifice was necessary to finance German unification. Instead, the extra growth that unity generated would cover the costs of unifying.69 On February 7, Bonn offered East Berlin negotiations on a currency union. To the Kohl government, its offer would advance the process of unification and halt the influx of East German refugees to the Federal Republic. Rather than present the currency union as part of a comprehensive aid program, Bonn portrayed it as an alternative to direct aid. It did not intend to bail out the GDR for the purpose of creating a stronger negotiating partner during unification. Instead, the Kohl government viewed currency reform and market reform as precursors to economic growth, not as precursors to a state-managed redistribution of the costs of unity. Leading industry representatives in West Germany backed the government’s proposed course of action. Like the chancellor, they de-emphasized the costs that were associated with rapid currency union and national unification. The Cologne-based Institute of German Economy (IW), a research institute close to West German industry, issued several reports and statements predicting that a rapid currency union with parity exchange rates would bring bountiful economic rewards. Not only would it keep unemployment and inflation in check, but currency union could also spawn an economic miracle like the one that occurred in West Germany in the 1950s.70 Concurring with the IW, the Federation of German Industry (BDI) expressed confidence in a speedy extension of the deutschmark.71

Conclusion The collapse of Communism led to an emotional debate in Germany over what unification meant and how it should be achieved. By February 1990, the SPD was favoring a slower and more explicitly redistributive approach to unification, while the CDU was calling for the rapid realization of national unity. Each envisioned different alliances to achieve their policy goals. The SPD hoped for a social coalition that included the trade unions, the Greens, the East German government, and most opposition groups in the GDR. It called for a solidarity bloc in support of shared sacrifice during the unification process. For this to occur, the SPD demanded an open


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and informed discussion of costs, as well as broad-based participation in the process of unification.There were reasons to believe that such a solidarity bloc could be forged in 1990.There existed broad support for unification in both states; pressing legal, political, and economic imperatives to unify; and a healthy trade surplus in the Federal Republic.72 Possible mechanisms to forge consensus on unification included grand coalitions, round tables, constitutional conventions, and national plebiscites. This approach built upon the social partnership of past economic policy– making in the Federal Republic and was attractive to those groups who favored a measured unification pace. In early 1990, they included Social Democrats, trade unionists, Greens, reformed Communists in the GDR, clergy, and a large share of the voting population in both states. In contrast, Helmut Kohl envisioned an inter-class, national alliance that backed his government’s rapid absorption of the GDR within the institutions of the Federal Republic.The chancellor had the support of the CDU, the FDP, the East CDU, and West German industry.Yet he needed the electoral support of both East Germans and West Germans. Because these two constituencies had such different class interests, Kohl decided to convey optimism and pride in the accomplishments of the German people rather than discuss the redistributive implications of unification. As Kohl embarked upon his unification plan, he faced daunting obstacles abroad and at home. Overseas, he confronted suspicion among the wartime Allies who still held the final say over “Germany as a whole.” He needed the support of Gorbachev, who resolutely opposed letting unified Germany into NATO. But Kohl’s problems began within Germany where he faced the stiff opposition of the SPD led by Lafontaine. According to polls, most East Germans favored the rival Social Democrats, while most West Germans feared and opposed the costs of national unity. Kohl would seek both eastern and western support during the string of elections scheduled for 1990; these included East German parliamentary (March 18), communal (May 8), and state (fall 1990) elections. A series of important state elections (the Saar, Lower Saxony, Bavaria) and federal elections (December 2) were scheduled in the FRG. If the East Germans did vote for the SPD in the upcoming March elections in the GDR, then Kohl would have to negotiate unity with the Social Democrats whose opposition to Kohl was well known; if the West Germans did vote for the SPD in the western state elections, then his Christian Democrats would lose control of the Bundesrat and once again have to deal with Lafontaine. Given these pressures, would the chancellor pursue a bipartisan, corporatist approach to unification in 1990?


Chapter Six

An Alliance for a New Deutschlandpolitik

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Federal Republic suddenly had the opportunity to unify the German nation. Once again, a contentious national imperative gave rise to chancellor democracy and new domestic alignments. This time it was Helmut Kohl who fashioned an unlikely interest coalition in support of a contested policy. In 1990, Kohl defied all expectations and unified the two German states within a year. To do so, he transformed the plan for a currency union between the two Germanys into a vehicle to achieve a rapid unification. Its formulation defined the unification debate; its terms secured crucial constituent support; and its implementation rendered the opposition helpless. In important ways, Kohl’s currency union created the political conditions for a hurried absorption of the GDR within the Federal Republic. It yielded a national bloc whose formation and subsequent collapse shaped German politics throughout the 1990s. The Volkskammer Elections On March 18, 1990, the East Germans took part in free fair parliamentary elections for the first time since 1932. Despite its historical dimensions, the campaign was marked by mud-slinging and red-baiting. On the campaign trail, the three conservative parties of the “Alliance for Germany” repeatedly and inaccurately associated their chief rivals, the East German Social Democrats, with Communism.They campaigned for the national assembly under the motto “Socialism Never Again” and issued fliers insinuating similarities between the SPD and the post-Communist PDS. Democratic Awakening, the

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smallest of the three alliance partners, printed stickers proclaiming “Stop PDSPDSEDSPDPDS”; the CDU promised a “Future rather than Socialism”; and the DSU proclaimed “Freedom rather than Socialism.” In the campaign, the “Alliance for Germany” (CDU, DSU, and DA) backed a rapid currency union, unification via Article 23, and market reform. Although it was wracked by scandal, disrepute and infighting,1 the alliance still managed to put forth its hopeful message of quick unity and quick prosperity.2 It was helped by Helmut Kohl, who lobbied hard for Article 23 as the quickest, surest route to unity. In his seven campaign appearances in the GDR, he appeared before approximately one-tenth of the entire East German electorate. He promised “blossoming landscapes” in the GDR and a currency union that would exchange small savings at the generous rate of one Eastern mark for one DM.3 Kohl struck a patriotic note at these rallies and was introduced as follows:“Once so far, some 120 years ago, a German chancellor—Otto von Bismarck—brought about the unity of Germany. Today it is Helmut Kohl who will bring us unity.” The crowds roared, black-red-gold flags swayed, and Kohl proclaimed:“We are one Volk and one Fatherland and we belong together.”4 By March 9, 1990, polls indicated that the Alliance for Germany had increased its projected share of votes from 17 percent to 30 percent, largely at the cost of the SPD.5 The East German SPD struggled to articulate its position on unification. It steered a course between the alarmism of the PDS and the unbounded optimism of the Alliance for Germany. It preferred Article 146, but turned toward Article 23 as the election neared.6 The East SPD’s message was also blurred by the divisions within the West German Social Democratic Party. There, the party old guard (Willy Brandt, Hans-Jochen Vogel, and Helmut Schmidt) and the economic experts (Wolfgang Roth and Ingrid Matthäus-Maier) greeted the push for currency union and national unification. But Oskar Lafontaine had emerged in March as an outspoken opponent of the rush to unity and was advocating the delay of the currency union with the East.7 This was hardly a popular position in the GDR where the yearning for the deutschmark was great. The Alliance for Germany surprised the pundits by sweeping the March 18 elections. The Alliance captured 48 percent of the vote, of which the CDU won 41 percent. The success of the Alliance in the highly industrial and once Social Democratic regions of Saxony and Thuringia represented a particularly surprising aspect of the final tally. In these two regions, it won 58 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Among workers, the Alliance garnered 47 percent of the vote, while the SPD managed just


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22 percent among its traditional constituency.8 Overall, the SPD received 22 percent of the total vote; the former Communists (PDS) 16 percent; a coalition of liberal parties, just 5 percent; and the citizen groups, the real heroes of the previous fall, a scant 3 percent. They and the Social Democrats were the main losers of the election. Afterward, analysts pointed to the superior organization of the CDU to explain why the right had triumphed; others looked to economic considerations. Lafontaine quipped that “the people had the impression that if they vote for Kohl, then the money flows.”9 Still others saw the vote as a sign of renewed German patriotism.10 Kohl and his conservative allies had successfully defined unification along national lines. Rather than evoke national power or military prowess, they kindled feelings of patriotism by underscoring the achievements of the West German economy. The currency union, simultaneously a motor for unity and for economic expansion, figured prominently in the conservative parties’ economic patriotism, or what the West German philosopher Jürgen Habermas called “DM-nationalism.”11 The CDU—the party of Ludwig Erhard, the social market economy, and the economic miracle— offered an attractive nationalist message. On February 15, in a Bundestag address, Kohl had stressed the past and future glory of the CDU/CSUFDP coalition: “If we at this time hold fast to the fundamental principles which carried the Federal Republic from an economic nadir after the Second World War to the top ranks of the world’s industrial countries, then we can also overcome the challenges of the 1990s. The coalition of FDP, CSU and CDU has already achieved great things in the formative years of the Federal Republic. . . . We are determined to draw upon these experiences and upon this spirit in the time ahead.”12 This oft-repeated message resonated in the industrial south of the GDR where Communism had ravaged both economy and ecology.13 Impatient East German workers rejected socialism and an independent East German state, the two trademarks of the GDR, and voted for rapid unity and market economy, the two features of the conservative electoral platform. At the same time, leading Social Democrats recommended a more cautious path to unity. Rather than promise national co-prosperity, they discussed costs. This message did not resonate among East Germans, who had little reason to believe that delayed entry into the Federal Republic improved their prospects in a redistributive battle with the West Germans. Widely perceived as Kohl’s victory, the March 18 election result had given the chancellor a mandate in the East for a speedy unification via Article 23. It also ensured that a CDU-led coalition in East Berlin negotiated

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with Kohl over the terms of unification. The new East German prime minister, Lothar de Maizière (CDU), brought the East SPD within a grand coalition. This split the East German Social Democrats, now responsible for government policy, from their West German partner in the opposition.

The April Exchange Rate Debate By late March, an observer was noting how little joy there was over the coming of unification. “Everywhere, here [in the FRG] and there [in the GDR] doubts, misgivings, dissension and suspicion prevail; selfish interests and intrigue are on the rise.”14 The approach of a currency union raised even more concerns about the costs of unity and led to a controversy over exchange rates. Easterners demanded a 1:1 conversion rate of their money into DM; westerners opposed a 1:1 exchange. This quarrel over money threatened the national bloc of East Germans and West Germans that Kohl had hoped would back his unification policy. Kohl faced a difficult choice in April: if he gave in to the East Germans on the currency union, then he risked losing West German support. If he bowed to West German pressure, then he risked his backing in the East. Unfortunately for Kohl, Karl Otto Pöhl was at the center of the exchange rate controversy.15 As the chairman of the prestigious Bundesbank, an institution widely respected as the guarantor of West German price stability, Pöhl warned against a 1:1 exchange rate. He indicated that it would harm the indebted East German economy and generate a severe balanceof-payments crisis. Other experts also discouraged a 1:1 currency exchange for wages, citing the low rate of worker productivity in the GDR, estimated to be as low as 30 percent of the productivity in the FRG. They maintained that a 1:1 exchange made eastern labor too expensive. This, the economists feared, would reduce East German competitiveness in world markets and precipitate mass unemployment. Taking up these arguments, Economics Minister Helmut Haussmann (FDP) also voiced his objections to a parity conversion of East German wages into DM.16 The Bundesbank expressed similar reservations and recommended that the two currencies be exchanged at rates of two East marks for every one deutschmark. Finance Minister Theo Waigel supported this recommendation.17 Helmut Kohl now claimed that he had not promised a 1:1 exchange rate. According to polls, less than one out of five West Germans supported this rate of exchange.18


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Protests followed word of a likely 2:1 exchange rate. In the Federal Republic, trade union representatives called this proposal “socially irresponsible.” They warned of a renewed influx of East Germans and pitched wage battles should East Germany be denigrated to a land of cheap labor.19 The Social Democrats in Bonn accused Kohl of a flagrant breach of faith. To the SPD, a 2:1 exchange rate impoverished East Germans and depressed wages in West Germany. Otto Graf Lambsdorff, the FDP chairman, also rejected the Bundesbank recommendation and accused Kohl of mendacity on the campaign trail. Within the West German CDU, leaders with ties to Catholic workers opposed any exchange rate other than 1:1.20 East Germans bitterly received news of the Bundesbank’s recommendation. They poured into the streets to voice their outrage over Kohl’s “election deception.” An estimated 100,000 people demonstrated in East Berlin; 70,000 in Dresden; and tens of thousands in Leipzig, Halle, and other East German cities. Expressing the wrath of their constituents, all the major East German parties, among them the CDU, demanded currency union at a 1:1 exchange.21 In his inaugural address on April 20 to the East German Volkskammer, Prime Minister de Maizière spoke out unambiguously for a parity exchange of savings, pensions, and wages. He appealed to West Germans to realize that “the division [of Germany] can be overcome only through sharing.”22 Disregarding the Bundesbank, the Kohl government bowed to eastern pressures. On April 23, it announced that wages, pensions, and savings of up to four thousand marks were to be exchanged at 1:1. This decision could be seen as political patronage for the East Germans. Seventy percent of the East Germans polled indicated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the currency union. Two weeks later, the CDU performed well in local elections. Although its overall share of the vote fell by about 6 percentage points, the party remained far ahead of its nearest competitor, the SPD. The results were interpreted as a general affirmation of the government course.23 The passionate exchange rate debate produced the kind of acrimonious politics to be expected from a redistributive issue.24 On the one side, unabashed East Germans demanded the hard West German mark in exchange for a nonconvertible, discredited currency. Concerned West Germans, among them economists and laypersons, opposed such a project and its costs. For the Kohl government, the social question threatened its goal of an alliance of East Germans and West Germans in support of rapid national unification.

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Ratifying the Currency Union The social question was now out in the open. In April and May, the Social Democrats continued to call upon the Kohl government to disclose the costs of unity and to stop pretending that it could be had for free.25 The staid Handelsblatt daily, hardly a friend of the SPD, was estimating with extreme accuracy the yearly costs of unity at between 180 and 190 billion DM.26 At this time, West Germans remained nervous about the pace and expense of Kohl’s unification policy. They opposed Kohl’s decision to ignore the Bundesbank recommendations, and leaned toward Lafontaine in the next elections.27 Kohl responded to this unease in the Federal Republic by excluding his West German critics from the unification process. In fact, from the very beginning of its unification policy, the Kohl government closely guarded its near monopoly over Deutschlandpolitik. In November 1989, it formulated the chancellor’s Ten Point Plan to unity, consulting neither the opposition nor the Federal Republic’s allies. Early on, it built the cabinet committee “German Unity” to be chaired by Kohl, and it set up special subcommittees to work on different aspects of unification.28 Much like Adenauer and Brandt, Kohl guarded with vigilance against unwanted parliamentary involvement. He instead relied on small secretive “kitchen cabinets” of political and economic advisors, as well as special cabinet subcommittees. As the political scientist Gerhard Lehmbruch observed, normal corporatist practices were suspended.29 The opposition and the trade unions had no meaningful role in the formulation of the currency union. The SPD issued a press release in late April stating that “the SPD emphatically protests the chancellor’s practice of barring the Bundestag and the federal states from the preparation of the currency, economic and social union.”30 In early May, DGB chairman Ernst Breit complained that the unions had had only two informal meetings with the government, once with the labor ministry and once with the finance ministry.31 This struck some as an inappropriate approach to such an important national project as unification.32 It ran counter to established practices of consultation and consensual policy making in the Federal Republic. Nonetheless, the government rejected the SPD and trade-union calls for a more open and democratic process. By mid-April 1990, the Kohl government had a draft of its proposed currency union with the GDR. The details were released on April 23.33 This left the East Germans little time to negotiate if they were to meet the target date of July 1 for the currency union.


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As put forth by Bonn, the proposed state treaty for the establishment of currency, economic, and social unions set the stage for a rapid unification on conservative terms. It was conservative in regard to the role that the market was to play and the extent that the treaty was to impose western institutions upon the East. The proposal swept away entire categories of East German law and unfettered the market in the GDR. East German wages, salaries, and savings up to four thousand marks per citizen were exchanged at parity; after that, savings were swapped at 2:1. In return, the treaty transferred sovereignty over monetary and financial policy in the GDR to the West German Bundesbank and finance ministry, imposed West German labor and market practices on the East, abolished state subsidies, and adjusted the East’s political economic principles to those of West Germany. Finally, the proposal envisioned the formation of a joint executive committee to implement the project. The draft did not assign to the legislative branch a meaningful role in the implementation of the currency union.34 East German parties and citizen groups protested that the spirit of the draft proposal ruled out a dignified unification process. Citizens groups, reformed Communists, and Social Democrats noted that the proposal would strip the GDR of its sovereignty in economic and monetary matters and leave the GDR a hollow shell, neither reunited with West Germany, nor in any real sense sovereign. Jens Reich, a prominent representative of the East German citizen groups, said that the treaty imposed relations resembling those between mother country and crown colony.35 Treaty opponents maintained that the sudden imposition of market forces in eastern Germany did not provide for adequate social justice and environmental protection. The East German Social Democrats argued that the draft, itself a product of secret executive level negotiations, subordinated the legislature to the executive branch by transferring East German economic sovereignty to the West German finance ministry rather than to the Bundestag.36 Critics in the FRG argued along similar lines. Kurt Biedenkopf (CDU), who later headed the state government of Saxony, said that the draft treaty did not correspond with the historical dimensions of unification. He urged that an intensive inquiry into the likely costs of unity be followed by a fair distribution of the burden among West Germans. Biedenkopf also criticized the one-sided transfer of sovereignty to West Germany.37 In the Bundestag, the Greens attacked the proposed treaty for its supposedly colonial character, its treatment of environmental issues, its inattention to the question of costs, and its genesis within the executive branch.38 A journal of the trade unions warned that “the state treaty

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erodes trade union and social rights. . . . Deregulation and social dumping could be the consequence.”39 Social Democrats in the Bundestag demanded that the treaty be revised.40 In May, East German and West German government negotiators reached an agreement on the treaty. Under enormous pressure to bring the DM home as soon as possible, the East Germans accepted the final terms with reservation. They had achieved some additional concessions,41 yet had not protected eastern property rights as they had agreed to do in their coalition agreement of April 12.42 On May 23, Finance Minister Theo Waigel (CSU) and his East German counterpart Walter Romberg (SPD) signed the state treaty at a ceremony in Bonn. Kohl described the occasion as the “moment of birth for a free and united Germany,” while de Maizière gave thanks to this “generous political gesture of the Federal Republic” and promised that “no one will be worse off than before.”43 Reluctant to delay the coming of the DM, the East German Social Democrats accepted the treaty terms, but still hoped for further changes.44 The signing of the state treaty represented a great success for Kohl. In an event unprecedented in West German history, Bonn and its East German partner had hurriedly reached a consensus on a treaty of enormous consequence. The alacrity of the process contrasted starkly with the arduous negotiations surrounding the treaty for a European Defense Community in 1952 or the Eastern treaties in 1970. This time, the Federal Republic had negotiated from an overwhelming position of strength, setting the pace and the conditions. Once in place in July, the treaty on currency union all but sealed a rapid unification. It subjected the GDR to extraordinary market pressures that hastened East Berlin’s decision to enter the FRG. The treaty also gave Bonn a pressing economic imperative to speed the unification process. In the words of Finance Minister Waigel (CSU),“we don’t want them to play ‘GDR’ with our money any longer.”45 While Kohl prepared to celebrate the landmark signing of the state treaty, West German voters in two populous federal states were voting for the Social Democrats. In North-Rhine Westphalia, a state with a population as large as the entire GDR, the SPD retained its absolute majority; in Lower Saxony, the SPD replaced the CDU as the largest party, and prepared to govern with the Greens. Although the voters in both states overwhelmingly favored unification, they feared that a “deterioration of the social climate” would follow.46 With its victories, the SPD acquired a majority in the Bundesrat.


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Kohl responded to the electoral defeats by pushing even harder for quick unification. He declared that he would follow “undisturbed” his previous unification course and that federal elections for all of Germany might take place in 1990. Kohl had better chances of success if the East Germans voted as well. He also knew that West Germans, at this late date, had little choice but to accept his policy course. Yet Oskar Lafontaine thought differently. Recognizing the increased concern of West Germans about the short-term costs of Kohl’s unification policy,47 he developed in mid-May a risky plan from his home in the Saar. There he lay in bed, convalescing from the knife attack of a deranged assailant.48 Because of the attack, he was enjoying a wave of public sympathy that was reflected in high approval ratings. This was the moment that he chose for his gamble. He privately threatened to withdraw as the SPD chancellor candidate if his party did not vote in late June against the currency union in parliament. The SPD leadership declared on May 21 that it would not support the treaty in its current form. It demanded changes to help the East German economy adjust to market pressures, to guarantee greater environmental protection, and to ensure that money hoarded by the SED and the Stasi be directed for public welfare.49 Yet certain SPD deputies in parliament disregarded Lafontaine, and spoke up for the state treaty in parliament.50 Incensed, Lafontaine went public in a well-publicized Spiegel interview.51 In the interview, he opposed the proposed currency union. “I still consider the extension of the DM into the GDR on July 1 to be a grave mistake because it will lead to mass unemployment.” Touching upon the costs of unification, Lafontaine also insisted that “the sudden introduction of the DM is the most expensive way for both halves of Germany.” Moreover he thought the social provisions in the treaty were inadequate to avert a full-scale crisis in the East. Lafontaine declared that if he was to campaign against Kohl in the fall, he and his party must assume no responsibility whatsoever for the chancellor’s mistaken policies. Lafontaine’s gamble did not pay off. Rather than mobilize opposition to the currency union, he encountered a barrage of criticism from leading government officials, journalists, industry representatives, and even Social Democrats. His antagonists relentlessly questioned his motives, speculating that he hoped to drum up anxieties for short-term political gain. Lafontaine ended up on the defensive, and soon backed away from his earlier ultimatum. He stayed on as chancellor candidate and even tolerated SPD support for the treaty.52 On June 21, all but 25 of the Social Democratic deputies in the Bundestag voted for the treaty;53 in the Bundesrat,

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the SPD-led states, with the exception of the Saar and Lower Saxony, supported the treaty. On July 1, the currency union came into effect. Lafontaine had failed because he had not offered at this late date a viable alternative to treaty ratification. Although he criticized Kohl’s hasty policy as “the most expensive way,” he advanced no cheaper alternative. In early 1990, a slower unification strategy might have perhaps stabilized East Germany and saved money in the long run. In mid-1990, however, blocking the currency union increased unrest in the GDR and triggered more emigration, as Kohl warned. Lafontaine admitted that delaying the currency union at this late stage was “hardly responsible.”54 In short, Kohl had created a situation by May 1990 that demanded a rapid currency union. He had succeeded by centralizing and personalizing decision making in 1990. Important interests, which had in the past played an integral role in West German policy making, were excluded from the formulation of the currency union. These included the federal states, the parliament, the opposition, trade unions, and the Bundesbank.55 As a result, although polls showed that only 29 percent of the West Germans backed Kohl’s unification policy in May, the issue had become moot.56 The Kohl government had established a speedy currency union as the only viable alternative.

The 2 + 4 Treaty In order for the two German states to unify, they needed the approval of the wartime Allies who retained authority over “Germany as a whole.”57 Among the four powers, the United States was the most amenable to quick unification on the condition that the united Germany remain in NATO. Paris, despite years of attesting its friendship and trust toward the West Germans, reacted suspiciously to Kohl’s headlong rush to unity. Indicating his wariness of German zeal, François Mitterrand in early 1990 nurtured relations with those skeptics of rapid unification in East Berlin, Warsaw, and Moscow. Margaret Thatcher also questioned the pace of unification and showed a concern about German resurgence that was not uncommon among the older generation in Britain. However, it was the Soviet Union that posed the greatest international obstacle. Not only did it initially oppose unification by way of Article 23, but it had a commanding legal, military, and economic presence in the GDR.58 How these foreign-policy hurdles were cleared affected domestic politics in Germany. Versed in the evils of prewar German foreign policy, the


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Germans recognized that a hurried, insensitive unification process would damage the FRG’s relations with its neighbors and set back European integration. FDP, Green, and SPD party leaders freely reproached Kohl for any indiscretions he committed. Oskar Lafontaine, in particular, incorporated international considerations as part of his appeal for a slower unification. He asserted that Kohl’s unification strategy harmed European integration, superpower détente, and good neighborly relations. By arguing that Kohl’s go-fast approach was at odds with European integration, he hoped to undercut support for the chancellor’s policy.59 However, Kohl turned foreign policy–making to his domestic advantage. As early as November 20, 1989, his foreign-policy advisor Horst Teltschik recognized that “the chancellor’s lofty international reputation must be better utilized, and that the German question could serve as a bridge to an improved [domestic] image for the federal chancellor.”60 To this end, the Kohl government exploited its foreign policy–making prerogatives. Not only did it dominate existing policy-making structures, but it established a network of advisory boards that operated independently of the parliament and the opposition. Abroad, Kohl and Genscher engaged in a high-publicity shuttle diplomacy; at home, they relied on inner circles of policy experts. This two-tier approach shut out top-level rival policymakers and allowed the Kohl team to take credit for any policy successes. This arrangement, however, also meant that the government carried the lone responsibility for its policy failures. This occurred in January and February 1990 when the chancellor obstinately refused Poland’s request that the Oder-Neisse line be contractually recognized as a precondition for German unification. While Kohl issued repeated assurances that his government had no intention of casting the border in doubt, he declined a final recognition on legal grounds. Kohl maintained that Germany as a legal entity still persisted in the borders of 1937. He therefore claimed that only an all-German parliament had the authority to act upon the question of German borders. In truth, the chancellor was most worried about losing conservative voters to the right-wing Republican party (REPS) if his government accepted the Polish demands.61 Yet as Poland persisted in demanding a border treaty, it acquired backing among the French and Americans. International pressure on Kohl increased and the Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats joined the fray. Each demanded that Bonn formally recognize the Oder-Neisse line. A coalition crisis ensued that ended only when Kohl agreed that both German parliaments should declare their intentions to finalize the earlier border agreements that East Germany (1950) and West Germany (1970) had concluded separately with Poland.62

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After this inauspicious start, the Kohl government studiously combined its determination to set the pace for German unification with its will to accommodate the fears, security interests, and economic interests of its neighbors. By presenting German unification as a motor for accelerated European integration and economic growth, Bonn overcame Western concerns that unification obstructed European integration. Bonn also assuaged fears among NATO member states by insisting that the Federal Republic remain a full member of the alliance. Finally, the Kohl government actively included the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) in the unification process, agreeing to CSCE approval of the 2 plus 4 treaty. All these measures, in combination with the 2 plus 4 negotiations, quelled suspicion among Bonn’s Western allies. Established at the foreign ministers’ “Open Sky” meeting in Ottawa in February 1990, the 2 plus 4 framework provided for negotiations over the external aspects of German unification between the representatives of the two German states and the four victorious Allied powers of World War II.63 Held on May 5, June 22, and September 12, these talks quickly developed a 5 plus 1 dynamic, with the Soviet Union holding out against the two German states and the Western Allies. The most troubling issue centered on the German military status. Unwilling to accept German membership in NATO, Soviet representatives put forth imaginative counterproposals. These included the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, German neutrality and demilitarization, a special status for Germany in NATO, continued Four-Power rights of occupation, German membership in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Soviet membership in NATO, or special status for East Germany in the Warsaw Pact.64 To overcome Soviet obstruction, Kohl, Foreign Minister Genscher, and top West German advisors engaged in intensive bilateral negotiations with Moscow throughout the spring and summer of 1990. These culminated in Kohl’s dramatic visit with Gorbachev in the Caucasus in mid-July. The results are well known. Bonn and Moscow reached a compromise that included a series of economic, political, and security agreements. Moscow agreed that the united German state recover its full sovereignty, while recognizing its choice to remain in NATO. Within three to four years, the Soviets would pull back their troops from East German soil. In return, the Federal Republic pledged to limit its troop sizes to 370,000 soldiers, while agreeing that no non-German NATO troops or atomic weapons be deployed on former East German territory. Finally, West Germany pledged generous economic aid to the USSR (about 70 billion DM) in part to assist its relocation of Soviet soldiers.65 On July 17, the 2 plus 4 states, with


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Poland present, accepted the security terms of this agreement, which appeared in the final 2 plus 4 treaty. Supplementing this treaty, Germany concluded separate treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland. They fleshed out the terms of German-Soviet partnership and anchored the OderNeisse line once and for all. Kohl won foreign praise for his handling of the international aspects of unification. Scholars and international observers assessed his dealings with the Soviets as a tremendous success, perhaps “the biggest triumph of professional diplomacy in the modern era.”66 He combined principles and pragmatism. On the one hand, Kohl and Genscher went to great lengths to place unification within the context of international cooperation; on the other hand, they shrewdly bargained with the Soviets for months until the two sides struck their celebrated deal in July. Not only did he earn international praise, but Kohl had in fact built the “bridge” to greater domestic recognition that his advisors had hoped for in November 1989.67 He effectively shielded his government from the accusation that rapid unification would usher in German isolation. His chief antagonist, Oskar Lafontaine, recognized this accomplishment, conceding to Kohl that “the result from the Caucasus was a great success for your government because it laid the tracks to the benefit of the people in Germany.”68 Lafontaine dropped his attacks on the government’s foreign policy.

Unification and Federal Elections Taken together, the start of currency union on July 1 and the end of Soviet obstruction on July 16 allowed for a quick unification of the two German states. They helped forged the inter-class, all-German bloc that reelected the Kohl government in December 1990. As many had predicted, the currency union deepened the crisis of the East German economy. The farming sector in the GDR was among the first to feel the impact of the currency conversion. As markets for their goods quickly vanished, desperate East German farmers captured headlines with their efforts to sell agricultural produce from the roadside. The currency union was also catastrophic for many East German firms. Labor costs rose, markets in the East evaporated, worker productivity remained low, and West German and Western European industrial competition proved relentless. Unemployment, long unknown in East Germany, rapidly spiraled upward.69 The social and economic consequences of currency union

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on July 1 convinced West Germans that the decrepit GDR must be quickly absorbed. Political disarray in the GDR was another reason to unify quickly. On July 2, the East German governing coalition approved state elections in the GDR for October 14 and all-German elections for December 2. After this decision, the governing parties bickered amongst themselves over election rules and the date of formal entry to the Federal Republic. This wrangling for electoral advantage tore apart the governing coalition in East Berlin; on July 24, the Liberals left the government; on August 19, the SPD followed suit. Ending weeks of speculation, the Volkskammer voted on August 23 to join the Federal Republic on October 3, 1990, by way of Article 23. In light of the economic and political confusion in the GDR, representatives of the two German governments quickly negotiated a second state treaty (“unification treaty”) in July and August. Two features of the negotiation process stand out. First, there was the imbalance in power between the two German states. On occasion, the West German negotiator, Wolfgang Schäuble, dictated the terms.70 Second, despite their intention to regulate the many outstanding legal and practical questions that related to unification, the chief negotiators, as well as government and opposition leaders, left unsettled a host of issues, including abortion and the future seat of government.71 The treaty was also vague about settling property disputes in the East. In mid-June, Bonn and East Berlin issued a joint declaration regarding disputed property rights in the East. In this communiqué, both parties concurred that East German property, if illegally confiscated between the years 1949 to 1989, should be restored to its rightful owners. Former East Germans who had lost their homes or factories while fleeing to the FRG could petition for the recovery of their property. Hans-Dietrich Genscher and the FDP favored this momentous settlement to show support for the principle of private property rights. The unification treaty reaffirmed this decision to “return rather than compensate,” but it did not spell out the process by which illegally confiscated property was to be returned to its old owners.72 The unification treaty did recognize the key role to be played by a Treuhand agency in the privatization of the eastern economy. Initially established by East Berlin in early 1990, this federal agency had received a new mandate in the Second Trusteeship Law of June 17, 1990. The unification treaty upheld this mandate and placed the Treuhand under the formal jurisdiction of the finance ministry.73 The Treuhand was charged with the privatization and restructuring of state-owned property in east-


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ern Germany. It was the largest holding company in the world. By 1991, the Treuhand oversaw more than thirteen thousand enterprises and employed roughly three million East Germans. It had a staff of three thousand whose top officials came mostly from the old FRG. Its approach to privatization was centralized and statist.74 Detlev Rohwedder, who directed the Treuhand until his assassination at the hands of the Red Army Faction in summer 1991, did not disguise the agency’s underlying philosophy: “privatization is the most effective form of restructuring.”75 Large majorities in both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag ratified the unification treaty on September 20.76 The Bundesrat approved it unanimously the following day. On October 3 in a midnight ceremony, Germany unified. This occasion marked a great personal triumph for Kohl. In seven months, he had realized his goal of a rapid unification via Article 23. He had used the considerable policy-making resources at his disposal to clear formidable domestic and foreign hurdles. Chancellor Kohl had defined unification along national rather than social lines; he had made a key strategic concession in regard to currency exchange rates; he had forced the Social Democrats to accept a fait accompli on currency union; and he had undercut domestic opponents by linking foreign and domestic policy–making. By seizing an opportunity presented by the end of the Cold War, Kohl had reestablished chancellor democracy in 1990. In so doing, he brought forth an unlikely configuration of groups in 1990. Perhaps most importantly, he captured and secured in 1990 an unexpectedly large share of the East German working class for a rapid unification along free-market lines. In February and March, Kohl had successfully presented this option as the surest, most painless route to economic prosperity. Later, he consolidated this support with a 1:1 exchange rate. The May local elections, the October state elections, and the December federal elections confirmed this. In East German state elections on October 14, the CDU beat the SPD by significant margins in four of the five states.77 Once more, the CDU did extremely well in the industrialized regions of Saxony and Thuringia. In the federal elections on December 2, the governing parties in Bonn garnered 55 percent of the East German vote, of which the CDU got 42 percent and the FDP 13 percent.78 West German industry was a second prominent component of the coalition that Kohl had assembled in 1990. Throughout the unification process,the leading industry representatives supported the chancellor’s policy of a rapid market-led unification. The government’s commitment to

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privatization, market economy, and limited state intervention benefited West German industry. In East Germany, the pent-up consumer demands, enormous investment needs, low wages, skilled workforce, and weakened labor unions made an absorption of the GDR on Kohl’s terms attractive to West German industry. Well-founded was the expectation that unification would provide the West German economy with vibrant new impulses. The third quarter of 1990 witnessed a 5.5 percent increase in West German growth, the sharpest rise since 1976.79 Unpopular just a year before, Kohl found favor among the West German voters during 1990.80 By June, he finally overtook the Social Democrats in the polls. He widened his lead over Lafontaine with a string of highly publicized foreign-policy and domestic-policy successes, culminating in formal unity on October 3.81 To attract West Germans, Kohl borrowed to finance the costs of unification rather than raise taxes in 1990. He repeatedly reassured West Germans that no new taxes were necessary to pay for unification. By uniting the two German states, he won back disenchanted conservative voters who had voted for the far right in the late 1980s.82 Older West Germans also voted disproportionately for Kohl in the December elections.83 In short, Kohl had united both East Germans and West Germans. For German patriots, he restored German unity; for nervous West Germans, he promised no new taxes, embedded the new Germany in international organizations, and created a fait accompli for a rapid unification; for East Germans, he promised and then implemented a highly favorable exchange rate; and for West German business, he generated ample profits by prescribing economic shock therapy to the eastern economy. Not only had he succeeded in defining national unity as an important contribution to national prosperity, he delivered material benefits to a variety of different constituencies in 1990. Lafontaine had failed to forge a viable counter-coalition. His illdefined notion of “social justice” divided rather than united East and West Germans. Wrote the journalist Klaus Hartung, “the alternative is not social justice or quick annexation, but quick annexation or democracy.”84 Evoking the spirit of the citizen groups in the fall revolution, the SPD might have refuted Kohl’s unification on different grounds: namely, that he had excluded West Germans, parliament, and the opposition from such a monumental national decision. Yet it is unlikely that this tack would have succeeded. To recall, both Schumacher in the early 1950s and Barzel in the early 1970s had also protested against “undemocratic” policy making to no avail.


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The Collapse of the Kohl Coalition The national bloc of 1990 dissolved soon after the full costs of unification were felt. As the eastern economy collapsed in 1991, both East Germans and West Germans defected from the newly forged Kohl coalition. Forty years of Communist rule had left eastern Germany with an obsolete industrial base and low rates of worker productivity. The policies of 1990 aggravated an already precarious situation. The currency union, later described by Bundesbank president Pöhl as a “disaster,” led to a revaluation by at least 300 percent in the GDR, while opening up the eastern economy to intense competition.85 This shock therapy dramatically reduced the demand for East German products.86 The 1990 decision to return confiscated properties to their earlier owners muddled ownership claims and deterred investment in the new federal states. It would take years to sort out the many competing legal claims. To economists, this mountain of paperwork caused “uncertainty, ambiguity, and confusion. It has manacled the invisible hand.”87 In the new states, the Treuhand struggled to find buyers for its firms. As its asking prices dropped and its restructuring costs rose, the Treuhand liquidated nearly three thousand East German enterprises by mid-1993.88 In 1990–91, the industrial output of the eastern federal states fell by almost two-thirds. The number of eastern manufacturing jobs sank from 3.2 million in 1989 to 1.2 million by 1993; official unemployment reached 17.6 percent in the former GDR, while real unemployment lay somewhere between 30 and 35 percent.89 The speed and scope of the de-industrialization was unprecedented. Because the Treuhand agency sold entire firms rather than shares to the highest bidder, its method of privatization favored West German investors who had more capital and better access to the Treuhand than did potential East German investors.90 The agency presided over a privatization process that left 85 percent of formerly people-owned property in West German possession, 10 percent non-German, and only 5 percent East German.91 In the West, unification initially bolstered sales, but this early boom soon faded and the costs of unification eventually damaged the West German economy. To support the East, West Germans provided approximately $100 billion a year in transfer payments. The government covered its staggering costs with massive loans and significant tax hikes. To check an inflation rate that by 1991 had risen to a rate approaching 4.4 percent a year, the Bundesbank raised interest rates. These hikes brought recession and higher unemployment to western Germany.

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The political costs of unity were soon clear. In the new states, workers protested the ongoing de-industrialization by demonstrating, striking, and fasting against the Treuhand and its primacy of privatization. In the spring of 1991, when Kohl visited the eastern city of Erfurt, he encountered catcalls and a barrage of eggs. Unemployment turned eastern Germans against the Kohl government. In the 1994 federal election, the combined share of votes for the CDU and FDP fell between 8 and 15 percentage points in the five eastern states. In comparison, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), as the successor to the SED, nearly doubled its share of the eastern vote by winning 19.8 percent in the former GDR. In the old federal states, many West Germans resented the tax hikes that Kohl had earlier dismissed as unnecessary. Bitter over this perceived tax deception (Steuerlüge), voters punished the CDU in three state elections in 1991.92 These results returned the Bundesrat to SPD control and left the CDU with a precarious foothold at the state level in western Germany. They also portended further setbacks for the CDU. Trade unions in western Germany made matters worse for Kohl. The two largest trade unions, the metalworkers’ union and the public service workers’ union struck for higher wages in late April 1992. They justified their demands for a wage hike of nearly 10 percent by noting the higher cost of living, the enormous profits that industry had reaped, and their exclusion during unification in 1990. The industrial working class had in fact paid disproportionately much for unity. Farmers, self-employed people, and state officials paid on average between 1.5 percent and 2 percent of their annual gross incomes toward unification. Salaried workers paid approximately 3.5 percent toward unity, while workers sacrificed 4 percent of their gross income. The wealthiest 5 percent of all households gave up just 2 percent of their gross income to cover the burden.93 To some observers, the strike actions of early 1992, the most serious since the mid-1970s, marked an end of the postwar cooperation between labor, industry, and government.94 The worsening economic situation in eastern Germany led the Kohl government away from its earlier free-market approach. It had little choice but to modify its past policy. By 1991, the government had faltered in its efforts to impose budget austerity; it presided over soaring deficits and confronted an SPD-controlled Bundesrat, and its promised “blossoming landscapes” in the East were nowhere in sight. Bonn therefore relaxed its free-market approach and supported a greater state role in the restructuring of the eastern economy. The government and the opposition gradually moved toward a consensus on unification policy.95 Marking its shift in policy, Bonn approved an initiative entitled “Upturn East” in March 1991 that


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designated 24 billion DM for financial assistance and publicly funded job creation in the East (ABM).96 The Treuhand soon provided funding to these employment agencies.97 At the local level, corporatism was most pronounced in Saxony, where the state government, Treuhand, unions, and business representatives all cooperated to salvage eastern firms.98 At the federal level, the emergence of a “solidarity pact” in 1993 signaled the return of consensual policy making.99 The Kohl government called upon labor, business, the federal states, and the opposition to negotiate a new assistance package for the East. Although the talks were difficult, they nonetheless yielded an agreement.100 The federal states increased the transfer of aid to the East. In return they received a higher share of VAT (Value-Added-Tax) earnings. For their part, the trade unions agreed to wage restraint if the government would preserve the remaining “industrial cores” in the new states. West German business groups reluctantly consented to Bonn’s requests that they boost their investment in the new states. Finally, the SPD and the government supported new tax increases for 1995. The solidarity pact of 1993 repudiated the exclusive approach of 1990. In stark contrast to unification in 1990, the government and the opposition, Bonn and the states, and labor and industry now backed industrial policy and economic redistribution from the West toward the East. In summary, the fate of the Kohl coalition of 1990 resembled that of the Brandt bloc of 1972. Each arose around the national question; each achieved electoral expression during federal elections (1972, 1990); and each crumbled in the face of mounting social problems. While Kohl persisted in power, his earlier efforts at anchoring a social coalition around a market-led unification process soon gave way to a more active state role that initially found support among leading social groups and their representatives. The shift in strategy in 1991–92 paralleled the shift of 1973–74. In each case, the governing coalition retained power but redirected its domestic policy. In each case, it made concessions to the opposition in the wake of a worsening economic situation.

Conclusion Once again, chancellor democracy and new coalitions followed a Cold War change. To marry easterners and westerners in a shotgun wedding, Kohl defined unification along national rather than social lines, stressing economic patriotism while downplaying economic burdens. When he faced West German opposition, he excluded it from the drafting of the

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currency union. In the chancellor’s own words, “if I had asked all those who had their reservations, particularly in the western part of Germany, then German unification would not have come about.”101 Kohl also provided concessions to his key domestic constituents. Without his policy making in 1990, German unification would have come, yet it would have certainly looked different and probably arrived somewhat later. In a year of elections, voters blocs acquired influence at the expense of organized interest groups. If Kohl had followed a corporatist strategy, he would have been forced to discuss the question of costs.Yet, as it was, Kohl played the eastern card, that is, he developed a unification policy that maintained East German electorate support in 1990. This strategy paid off in the March elections, in the decision for Article 23, in the signing of the currency union, and in the federal elections of December 1990. In contrast, Lafontaine had played the western card by seeking to capitalize on the fears of West German voters. Like Adenauer and Brandt, Kohl stood at the center of the foreign policy–making process, excluding the opposition and garnering domestic recognition for international diplomacy. Surprisingly, he ignored the Bundesbank recommendation by granting the East Germans a 1:1 exchange rate during the currency union. If the Bundesbank had set the terms and the timing of the currency union from the outset, it would have forced the chancellor to pursue a different unification policy in 1990. Throughout 1990, Kohl exercised his constitutional prerogative to determine the direction of federal policy (Richtlinienkompetenz). Kohl’s exclusion of his West German critics was expedient in the short term but costly in the long term. As snubbed policy experts such as Bundesbank chairman Pöhl pointed out, the terms and timing of the currency union were disastrous. They drove up the costs of unification and drove apart the East German and West German wings of Kohl’s social coalition of 1990. The excluded Social Democrats and trade unions later complicated matters for Kohl. Striking union members in 1992 cited the solitary decision making of 1990 as a justification for their demands of a 10 percent wage hike. Like the policies of 1952 and of 1972, those of 1990 recast the Federal Republic. In the course of one remarkable year, Kohl united the German nation. Today no one abroad or at home seriously questions Germany’s national unity. Its neighbors recognize that unified Germany fosters economic and political stability in Central Europe after the Cold War. Its citizens recognize that its territorial aspirations are finally complete. In 1990, when many abroad and at home feared the return of the


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German question as a destabilizing force in European politics, Helmut Kohl went far in putting the German question to rest. This was a great accomplishment. However, Kohl’s unification policies heightened class and regional tensions in Germany. By separating the national and the social dimensions of unification, Kohl lost his chance to mobilize broad support for a costly but nonetheless widely desired national project. By denying the social costs of unification in 1990, he left behind a legacy of mistrust and resentment in both halves of Germany that would complicate subsequent policy making. The decisions of 1990 contributed to the current economic malaise in Germany. Wrote Nikolaus Piper, “There is ever more poor and unemployed, the debt burden climbs dramatically, and eastern Germany costs hundreds of billions. Helmut Kohl and Theo Waigel drove up these last two items at the start of German unification with aggravating mistakes. It is high time for an admission.”102 The policies of 1990 later fueled class conflict. After years of a troubled economy, West Germans resented the hefty transfers to the East; at this time of high unemployment, industrialists increasingly questioned the expensive German welfare state and the system of collective bargaining. The unification policies of 1990 led many East Germans to resent the western political establishment in Germany.103 Although it was quick and expedient, the wholesale spreading of West German institutions eastward created, in the words of Heidrun Abromeit, a “representation gap” in the political system.104 West Germans dominated in parliament, within the parties, in the interest groups, and in the ministries. They had the numbers, the wealth, the networks, and the know-how. They benefited from a “hegemonic, two-class federalism” in which their federal states were larger, richer, and more influential than the small eastern states. It is not surprising that East Germans grew more critical of the institutions of unified Germany.105 Many considered themselves to be “second-class citizens,” disliked more than ever the influx of western officials imported to run the East, and voted for the PDS as a local insider and a national outsider. Although supported by the East Germans, the unification of 1990 left little room thereafter for an independent East German contribution to the national project. In his Spiegel interview of May 1990, Oskar Lafontaine justified his opposition to Kohl’s unification policy by stating that “a victory on the basis of empty promises is a Pyrrhic-victory.”He predicted that “whoever wins the first election in the GDR, loses the second.”106 Lafontaine’s prophecy that the CDU would decline in the East eventually came true, but far too

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late to save his 1990 campaign to become chancellor. Contrary to his expectations, eastern workers voted for the CDU not only in the first (March 1990), but again in the second (December 1990) and third (October 1994) elections. Only by the fourth elections in September 1998 did easterners finally desert the chancellor in record numbers. Whereas the CDU had won 42 percent of the eastern vote in 1990, it now captured less than 28 percent. In the depressed industrial landscapes of the East, workers turned in greater numbers toward the SPD and the PDS. This assured the end of the Kohl era in 1998.

Conclusion

The rise, thaw, and end of the Cold War produced in the Federal Republic intense national debates, the temporary elevation of the chancellor within the political system, shifting coalitions, and sudden foreign-policy reversals.This book has shown that as a divided nation on the front line of the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany predictably caught pneumonia whenever the superpowers sneezed. It has shown that the causes and symptoms of each contagion were much the same. Three Shifts in the Cold War Each Cold War stage placed the Federal Republic under an intense external pressure. In the early 1950s, the Federal Republic faced a military threat from the East and a pariah status in international relations. It was an occupied, provisional state that had neither a foreign ministry nor a diplomatic corps. It awaited French and American proposals on Western integration rather than initiate its own.When these proposals came, the Federal Republic negotiated its own Western integration from a position of weakness vis-à-vis the Western democracies. In the late 1960s, the Federal Republic no longer feared an imminent invasion from the east. Nevertheless, unless it accepted the frontiers of Eastern Europe, it would not only isolate itself from those states that did recognize the GDR but would also stand in the way of superpower détente.This time, however, the FRG took a leadership role once the two superpowers had given their go-ahead on détente. Bonn moved boldly forward in the early 1970s, negotiating with the Communist dictatorships from a stronger position than it had negotiated with the Western Allies in the early 1950s. In early 1990, East German refugees rather than foreign tanks or diplomatic isolation threatened the Federal Republic. Bonn no longer waited

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for the superpowers to make the first diplomatic move but instead moved on its own swiftly and assertively toward national unification. It developed its own proposals, set its own timetable for unity, and confidently asserted its right to national self-determination. In its negotiations with the East Germans, Bonn had an overwhelming advantage. Although the Federal Republic became stronger and more secure throughout the postwar era, it still confronted unforeseen opportunities after every shift in the Cold War. In 1950, the Korean War led the United States to support a West German rearmament. If the Federal Republic rearmed, it could expect a restoration of its sovereignty, economic benefits, and greater military protection. In 1970, global pressures led the Soviet Union to negotiate with the West Germans. If Bonn recognized the frontiers of Eastern Europe, it could anticipate expanded trade opportunities, more diplomatic leeway, and reduced military tensions in a region where there were more troops stationed than anywhere else. In the late 1980s, the collapse of Communism led the East Germans to call for German unification. Bonn could expect long-term diplomatic, political, and economic benefits from its unification with East Germany. Yet to achieve these benefits, the Federal Republic had to negotiate and ratify a contested foreign policy under difficult circumstances. The Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl governments all pursued diplomacy abroad and coalition building at home. In every instance, they negotiated, signed, and ratified controversial treaties. This was true of the Schuman Plan and the European Defense Community treaties in the early 1950s, the Eastern treaties in the early 1970s, and the treaties of German unification in 1990. Every 20 years, the chancellor played a “two-level game” with foreign negotiators and domestic opponents. While the times changed, the foreign policy–making challenge remained.

Three National Debates In conjunction with international change, a second factor led to the new domestic alignments and the powerful chancellors of the early 1950s, early 1970s, and 1990s. Unlike other frontline democracies, the Federal Republic was part of a divided nation. Whereas shifts in the Cold War required corresponding foreign-policy adjustments in all frontline states, these adjustments were related to territorial unity only in the Federal Republic.1 They were therefore more disruptive than the German debates precipitated by the oil shocks of the 1970s or the Gulf War of 1991. Unlike these

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and other issues,Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik related to the disunity of the German nation. Would Adenauer’s Westpolitik anchor or overcome the division of Germany? Would it return German sovereignty or lose it forever? Would Brandt’s Ostpolitik help the East Germans or betray their interests? Would it lead to unification in the long run or seal the postwar partition of Germany? Would Kohl’s unification create a united state, but a divided nation? The intensity of these debates showed that the national question remained contested throughout the postwar era. A post-national consensus had not taken hold in the Federal Republic. The debates over Westpolitik, Ostpolitik, and Deutschlandpolitik did not neatly order German politics into a left and a right, as the Schumacher-Adenauer exchanges of the early 1950s made clear. They divided the Federal Republic in new ways, cutting across class, religion, and generation. In the 1950s, Westpolitik further strained the unity of the West German working-class movement; in the 1970s, Ostpolitik divided the West German bourgeoisie; in 1990, Deutschlandpolitik again split the German working class and its representatives. Each controversy undermined existing alignments and opened the way for new interest coalitions. A national profile analysis indicates important changes across the three time periods.The leading West German interest groups became less important to foreign policy during the postwar era. In the early 1950s, the unions, business groups, and churches played an important role in the Westpolitik debate. By the 1990s, they had lost influence to voter blocs and opinion polls.Tellingly, Kohl wavered on formal recognition of the Oder-Neisse line in early 1990, less out of deference to the refugee groups than fear that the CDU might lose votes on the right. He was even more attentive to the preferences of another group of voters, namely, the citizens of the GDR. Whereas they were the object of West German foreign policy–making in the 1950s and 1970s, they were active subjects in 1990, hastening unification by demonstrating, leaving, and voting. A profile analysis also shows how parties took turns in the role of the “national” opposition. In the early 1950s, it was the Social Democrat Schumacher who accused the government of selling out German interests in the international arena. He even went so far as to declare that if one backed the European Defense Community treaty, one stoped being German. In the early 1970s, it was the CDU/CSU that denounced the government for violating German national interests.The uncompromising tones of Franz-Josef Strauss (CSU) were reminiscent of those of Schumacher, while Brandt’s acceptance of détente resembled Adenauer’s pragmatic view of the Cold War. By 1990, both the government

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(CDU/CSU-FDP) and the opposition (SPD) were accusing each other of selling the nation short.Yet they differed over what patriotism constituted. To Kohl, it was formal state unity; to Lafontaine, it was the social well-being of all Germans. The profile of foreign-policy preferences in postwar Italy and Japan indicates a very different pattern. These defeated Axis powers were also directly exposed to external pressures but since they were not nations divided by the Cold War, they responded differently to Cold War changes. In both countries, the East-West confrontation of the 1940s had heightened class tensions between the bourgeois and working-class parties. The ruling conservatives favored capitalism and a pro-American defense policy; the Marxist opposition opposed capitalism and a defense policy that subordinated their country within an American-led security alliance. By the 1990s, the end of the Cold War eroded the ideological pillars that had sustained conservative dominance for over 40 consecutive years in both countries. In short, the rise and fall of the Cold War first deepened and then diminished partisan class divisions in Japan and Italy. National profile analyses reveal how shifts in the Cold War played themselves out on the ground in Germany, Japan, and Italy. Rather than reinforcing or relaxing class divisions, as they had in Japan and Italy, shifts in the Cold War introduced national debates within the Federal Republic that cut across class lines and created the chance for unexpected alliances. National Coalitions In Germany, the interest coalitions that followed contained odd bedfellows. The alignment of 1951 united moderate trade union and industry leaders behind the Schuman Plan and parity codetermination in the coal and steel industries. The alignment of 1952 united industry, the Catholic Church, conservative Christian Democrats, and Free Democrats behind the European Defense Community and limited rights of worker codetermination.Twenty years later, an alignment of Social Democrats, Free Democrats, unions, students, and urban professionals found its legislative expression in the Eastern treaties and its electoral expression in the government victory of fall 1972. In 1990, western industry and eastern workers united in support of a hurried merger of the two Germans states. Whereas the alignment of 1952 united center-right groups on the basis of a tough industrial policy and a controversial rearmament, the social coalitions of 1972 and 1990 supported popular foreign policies (Ostpoli-

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tik, Deutschlandpolitik) that had temporarily overshadowed divisive, unsettled domestic concerns. As a result, once the new Ostpolitik and national unity were implemented, these issues no longer united the newly formed blocs, which soon collapsed under the weight of social and industrial conflict. In all three cases, the West German left lost out. In the 1950s, the tying of the Federal Republic to the conservative countries of France and Italy strengthened the West German Christian Democrats. In the 1970s, the normalization of relations with the Communist East led Brandt to curb radical domestic policy–making impulses. In 1990, the unification of Germany gave the Kohl government an unexpected new lease on life.At each moment, forces on the left had hoped for a new start (Stunde Null). The unions had hoped for a new economic order in 1949; the Social Democrats had hoped for sweeping democratic reforms in 1969; and the East German citizen groups had hoped for participatory democracy in East Germany in 1989. In each case, the logic of foreign policy–making had dashed their hopes. Chancellor Democracy The scholarly literature on chancellor democracy has focused much attention on institutions and leadership without adequately placing both factors within an international setting. Therefore scholars have generally viewed chancellor democracy as an unusual feature of the early Federal Republic. Writes Stephen Padgett, “In retrospect it is clear that chancellor democracy was a transient phase in the evolution of the Federal Republic, arising out of the first incumbent’s capacity to exploit the inchoate character of the new state.”2 In its place, a “coordination democracy” restricted the institutional and political opportunities of the chancellor to shape government policy. The findings of this book run counter to this widely held view.3 They do show, however, that in regard to domestic policy–making, the prerogatives of the chancellor declined after Adenauer. Whereas Chancellor Adenauer personally crafted the codetermination settlement of 1951, Brandt and Kohl did not have anywhere near this degree of leeway over domestic policy–making. Yet all three did dominate foreign policy–making at moments of international pressure and domestic controversy. In short, chancellor democracy narrowed, but persisted in conjunction with international openings. Cold War changes created the domestic opportunities for three chancellors to distinguish themselves

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as policymakers and coalition builders. They yielded short-lived openings to chancellor democracy and new domestic alignments. This explains the apparent inconsistency of the Kohl and Brandt leadership.Although institutional constraints had foiled Kohl’s efforts to deliver the big change (Wende) that he had promised in 1982, they did not prevent him from dominating almost every aspect of unification in 1990. Similarly, Brandt masterminded the implementation of a hotly contested foreign policy but was lackluster in regard to domestic reforms. A surprising finding of this study is that the foreign policy–making of each chancellor was so similar. Despite their different eras and different personalities, Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl all safeguarded foreign policy by linking issue areas. Adenauer’s personal intervention in January 1951 secured parity codetermination in the coal and steel industries in the face of stiff conservative resistance; Brandt delayed domestic reforms despite pressure from the unions and the SPD left; and Kohl openly ignored the powerful Bundesbank on currency union. Each choice made sense in terms of foreign policy. If Adenauer had not satisfied union demands in 1951, then he likely would have faced a united trade union–SPD front against his foreign policy and a crippling strike in the coal and steel industries. If Brandt had advanced controversial reform projects, particularly in the area of codetermination, he would have alienated the FDP whose support he needed on foreign policy. Defensive of his Ostpolitik, Brandt restrained the left. If Kohl had followed the Bundesbank’s advice on the currency union in April 1990, he would have lost East German support for his unification policy.The linking of issues was key to foreign policy–making in the early 1950s, early 1970s, and early 1990s. All three chancellors defined the debate around foreign policy in a further effort to divide and conquer their domestic opponents.With the Petersberg Protocol of 1949, Adenauer elevated his Westpolitik to the center stage of domestic debate. Once in office, the Brandt government promptly established Ostpolitik as the major area of conflict between the government and the opposition. Brandt maintained this focus on Ostpolitik until the federal elections of 1972. Kohl also directed attention toward foreign policy by seizing the initiative on unification in November 1989. He was in the spotlight throughout 1990.All three chancellors made full use of the chancellor’s prerogative to determine the direction of government policy (Richtlinienkompetenz). Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl all excluded the opposition from foreign policy–making rather than seek consensus. Adenauer guarded his privileged access to the High Commission; arrived at important decisions with-

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out consulting the federal cabinet, the parliament, or the opposition; and conferred in private with societal elites about government policy. Brandt also curtailed outside involvement in the foreign-policy process, relying on an elite group of associates, mostly from the federal chancellery, to craft his Ostpolitik. Bahr, Ehmke, and Duckwitz worked out the details of the new policy apart from the opposition.To an even greater extent, the Kohl government barred the legislative branch and the opposition from the formulation of its unification policy. Like Adenauer and Brandt, Kohl enjoyed a near policy-making monopoly in this area of inter-German relations by relying upon executive subcommittees, the chancellery, and private advisers. When the Social Democrats in late spring 1990 did achieve a formal say in the formulation of a currency union, they had little choice but to follow the chancellor. While the policy-making of Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl, as chronicled in these pages, may suggest the primacy of individual leadership, this book has placed chancellor democracy within an international context. Cold War changes created a rare chance for the chancellor of a divided, frontline nation to forge new interest coalitions around a controversial foreign policy.

The New Global Context After the Cold War, scholars debated the future of Germany in the new Europe.4 Led by the political scientist John J. Mearsheimer, certain analysts considered the events of 1990 to be a watershed in postwar German politics.5 Mearsheimer warned of a sinister return “back to the future,” when nation-states competed over territory in a multipolar Europe. He argued that the Cold War division of Europe had kept the peace much better than earlier efforts to balance power among several European powers. “Specifically the absence of war in Europe since 1945 has been a consequence of three factors: the bipolar distribution of military power on the Continent; the rough military equality between the two states comprising the two poles in Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union; and the fact that each superpower was armed with a large nuclear arsenal.”6 Without the disciplining effect of the Cold War, a powerful united Germany, Mearsheimer feared, might be susceptible to hyper-nationalism and destabilizing territorial aspirations. It can be argued that Germany still remains on the front line of a politically divided Europe.Whereas the East-West divide once ran along the

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heavily fortified GDR-FRG border, it now runs along the heavily patrolled German-Polish border. To the historian Timothy Garton Ash, full normalization will only occur when Germany is no longer in the middle of a divided continent. “If you really want to be a normal country like Britain, France or America, then you need Western neighbors to your east.”7 Until this happens, Germany will remain on the front line of an economic, cultural, and political divide. Disturbances in the East will likely disturb the Germans more than their Western neighbors. Those who doubt that unification represents a turning point in German politics stress the continuity in Germany’s institutions.They point out that the Federal Republic is committed to its own “taming” within NATO and the European Union.8 They also argue that German power is tamed at home by domestic institutions. Even if a nationalist leader did emerge, he or she would be constrained by the dense network of corporatist institutions that discourage sudden policy changes under normal circumstances. Unification, it is argued, has not changed the basic structure of politics in the Federal Republic.“Internally the future shape and character of the new Germany is no longer an open question; it is simply the old Federal Republic writ large.”9 In regard to the future of unified Germany, this book rejects the debate between those predicting normalcy on the basis of institutions and those forecasting exceptionalism on the basis of geography.10 Although I do not believe that the Federal Republic will become imperialist abroad or illiberal at home, I nonetheless conclude that the FRG has changed in a fundamental way. An era is over. Germany is no longer a divided nation on the front line of the East-West military showdown. In this regard, the FRG and its politics have normalized.11 In the past, when the Cold War shifted directions, it presented the West Germans with painful foreign-policy decisions that were really about the state of the nation. At these moments, the Federal Republic was transformed. Its politics ceased to be consensual and predictable. Bitter debates prevailed, powerful chancellors emerged, unexpected alliances took shape, and sudden policy reversals followed.These moments were exceptional but not coincidental. They flowed logically from Germany’s position as a divided nation on the frontier of the Cold War. This is a thing of the past. Now that Germany has unified there is a consensus at home and abroad that its boundaries are final.While many still ask what it means to be German, and struggle uneasily with their national identity,12 no one anguishes anymore over the territorial unity of the German nation-state.

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In a sense, this closes an era that began with the revolutions of 1848. Since that time, Germans have debated the territorial dimensions of their nation-state. Some nationalists, like the Pan-Germanists of the nineteenth century and the National Socialists of the twentieth century, favored a greater Germany that would house all ethnic Germans. Other leaders, such as Bismarck and Brandt, accepted separate German states within the German nation. Despite the extraordinary regime changes that transformed Imperial Germany (1871–1918) into West Germany (1949–89), Germany lacked an internal consensus on the most basic of questions:What is Germany and what are its borders? Unification in 1990 definitively answered the Cold War version of this German question. In the post–Cold War era, external pressures, such as immigration, European integration, and instability in Eastern Europe, will no doubt introduce into Germany national debates as they have in neighboring France and Britain. These debates will create fluid politics, unexpected alliances between the far right and the far left, and new opportunities for chancellor leadership.They will demand from the Federal Republic difficult policy adjustments. All the same, they are unlikely to reveal the familiar domestic pattern of the Cold War era—as witnessed during the struggle over rearmament, the Eastern treaties, and unification, when three national debates gave rise to chancellor democracy and unlikely social coalitions. This is because the new national debates will no longer occur on the military frontier of a bipolar Europe, nor endanger the territorial unity of the German nation.


Notes

Introduction 1. This is a theme that runs through many textbook accounts of the Federal Republic. See Christopher Allen’s chapter on Germany in Mark Kesselman et al., European Politics in Transition, 3d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), pp. 239–334; David P. Conradt, The German Polity, 6th ed. (New York: Longman Publishers, 1996); M. Donald Hancock, West Germany:The Politics of Democratic Corporatism (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1989); Peter J. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany:The Growth of a Semisovereign State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987). See also,“Model Vision: A Survey of Germany,” The Economist (May 21, 1994): 1–34. 2. See Gerhard Lehmbruch, “Liberal Corporatism and Party Government,” in Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, ed. Phillipe C. Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1979), pp. 147–88; Hancock, West Germany; The Political Economy of West Germany: Modell Deutschland, ed. Andrei S. Markovits (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982); Wolfgang Jäger, “Von der Kanzlerdemokratie zur Koordinierungsdemokratie,” Zeitschrift für Politik 35, no. 1 (1988): 15–32; Kenneth Dyson, “The Economic Order— Still Modell Deutschland?” in Developments in German Politics 2, ed. Gordon Smith et al. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), pp. 194–201. 3. See Charles S. Maier, “Bonn ist doch Weimar: Informal Reflections on the Historical Legacy of the Federal Republic,” in The Political Economy of West Germany, p. 194. 4. For a discussion of Kohl as chancellor, see Clay Clemens, “The Chancellor as Manager: Helmut Kohl, the CDU and Governance in Germany,” West European Politics 17, no. 4 (October 1994): 28–51. 5. This is not to say that the new foreign-policy imperatives were also not contentious in Italy and Japan. During the 1950s and early 1960s, for example, the rearmament debate polarized Japanese politics. 6. Peter J. Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 30. 7. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany, pp. 367–68.

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8. Wolfram F. Hanrieder, West German Foreign Policy 1949–1963: International Pressure and Domestic Response (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 234. 9. Wolfram F. Hanrieder, Germany,America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 335. 10. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, Die Krise der Sicherheitspolitik (Mainz: MatthiasGrünewald-Verlag, 1988), p. 27. In a recent book, Richard Meritt has considered how the American occupation shaped values in postwar West Germany. See Richard Merritt, Democracy Imposed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 11. In particular, the liberals targeted the Prussian army, whose function as the guardian of monarchical prerogative had made it a natural focal point in the conflict over the rights of parliament. 12. Henry A. Kissinger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck,” Daedelus 97, no. 3 (1968): 888–924. 13. See V. R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973); Eckart Kehr, Battleship Building and Party Politics in Germany 1894–1901, trans. Pauline R. Anderson and Eugene N. Anderson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). 14. Gordon Smith, “The Resources of a German Chancellor,” West European Politics 14, no. 2 (April 1991): 48–61. 15. Wilhelm Hennis, Politik als praktische Wissenschaft (Munich: Piper, 1968), p. 178. 16. Arnulf Baring, “Über deutsche Kanzler,” Der Monat 21, no. 253 (October 1969): 14. 17. See for instance, Karlheinz Niclauss, Kanzlerdemokratie: Bonner Regierungspraxis von Konrad Adenauer bis Helmut Kohl (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1988); Peter Haungs, “Kanzlerprinzip und Regierungstechnik im Vergleich: Adenauers Nachfolger,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 39, no. 1–2 (January 6, 1989); Arnold J. Heidenheimer, “Adenauer’s Legacies: Party Finance and the Decline of Chancellor Democracy,” in The Federal Republic of Germany at Forty, ed. Peter Merkl (New York: New York University Press, 1989). Roland Sturm, “The Chancellor and the Executive,” in Adenauer to Kohl:The Development of the German Chancellorship, ed. Stephen Padgett (London: Hurst & Co., 1994), pp. 78–105. 18. Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993); Timothy Garton Ash,“Kohl’s Germany: The Beginning of the End?” New York Review of Books 41, no. 20 (December 1, 1994): 20–26. 19. Fritz Stern, “Adenauer and a Crisis in Weimar Democracy,” Political Science Quarterly 73, no. 1 (1958): 22. 20. Gordon Smith appropriately writes of the “three lives of Chancellor Kohl” to capture the fluctuating leadership qualities of Kohl before, during, and

Notes

21.

22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

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after unification. See Gordon Smith, “The Changing Parameters of the Chancellorship,” in Adenauer to Kohl, ed. Stephen Padgett, pp. 185–90. Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986). Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). Politics in Hard Times, p. 59. Gourevitch concludes that the structure of organizations became more important in shaping policy choices after World War II. Politics in Hard Times, p. 232. Peter Gourevitch, “International Trade, Domestic Coalitions, and Liberty: Comparative Responses to the Crisis of 1873–1896,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8, no. 2 (autumn 1977): 281. Hans Ulrich Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munich: Günter Olzog Verlag, 1971), p. 235. Katzenstein, Politics and Policies in the Federal Republic; and Hancock, West Germany. Smith, “The Resources of a German Chancellor,” 56.

Chapter 1 1. Quoted in Wolfram F. Hanrieder, Germany,America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 329. 2. A. W. DePorte, Europe between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance, 2d ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 104–9. 3. George Marshall, quoted in James Gimbel, The American Occupation of Germany: Politics and the Military, 1945–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 150. 4. Peter H. Merkl, The Origins of the West German Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). 5. Gerhard Wettig, Entmilitarisierung und Wiederbewaffnung in Deutschland 1943–1955 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1967), pp. 307–8. 6. Despite these fears, a Soviet attack was unlikely. 7. William Diebold, The Schuman Plan (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1959), p. 19. 8. Roy F. Willis, France, Germany and the New Europe 1945–1967 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 82–83. 9. Volker R. Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry 1945–1973 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 141–44. 10. See David Large, Germans to the Front:West German Rearmament in the Adenauer Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 84–88. Lawrence Martin, “The American Decision to Rearm Germany,” in Ameri-

160

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany can Civil-Military Decision:A Book of Case Studies, ed. Harold Stein (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press 1963), p. 658. Final Communiqué, September 26, 1950, in Lord Ismay, NATO: The First Five Years 1949–1954 (Paris: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1954), p. 186. Rolf Steininger, Wiederbewaffnung. Die Entscheidung für einen westdeutschen Verteidigungsbeitrag.Adenauer und die Westmächte 1950 (Erlangen:Verlag Dr. Dietmar Strauber GmbH, 1989). See also Norbert Wiggerhaus, “Zum Problem einer militärischen Integration Westdeutschlands 1948–1950,” in Die westliche Sicherheitsgemeinschaft, ed. Norbert Wiggerhaus and Roland G. Foerster (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1988), p. 335. See also Edward Fursdon, The European Defense Community: A History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980). Gerhard Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung in Deutschland 1943–1955 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1967), p. 370. Timothy P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance:The Origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 207. Arnulf Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1971), pp. 159–60. On the eve of the Allied deliberations in New York in September 1950, he delivered two memoranda that indicated his willingness to rearm under certain conditions. He delivered the memoranda without the consent of his cabinet. The Final Communiqué of the NATO conference in New York made reference to “the views recently expressed by democratic leaders in Germany.” Lord Ismay, NATO:The First Five Years 1949–1954, p. 186. See Hans-Peter Schwarz, Vom Reich zur Bundesrepublik (Neuwied: Hemann Luchterhand Verlag, 1966); Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, pp. 86–109. Arnulf Baring,“Grundlagen und Fernziele einer Kanzlerschaft,” in Konrad Adenauer 1876/1976, ed. Helmut Kohl (Stuttgart: Belser Verlag, 1976), pp. 40–52. Josef Foschepoth, “Westintegration statt Wiedervereinigung. Adenauers Deutschlandpolitik 1949–1955,” in Adenauer und die Deutsche Frage, ed. Josef Foschepoth, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1988), p. 33. Hans-Peter Schwarz, “Das Aussenpolitische Konzept Adenauers,” in Adenauer-Studien 1, ed. Rudolf Morsey and Konrad Repgen (MatthiasGrünewald Verlag, 1971), p. 103. Konrad Adenauer, Erinnerungen 1953–1955 (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1966), p. 88. Quoted in Klaus von Schubert, Wiederbewaffnung und Westintegration (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970), p. 181. Arnold Heidenheimer, Adenauer and the CDU:The Rise of the Leader and the Integration of the Party (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960). Dieter Koch, Heinemann und die Deutschlandfrage (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1972), p. 223. Roland G. Foerster, “Innerpolitische Aspekte der Sicher-

Notes

24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

161

heit Westdeutschlands 1947–1950,” in Von der Kapitulation bis zum PlevenPlan, volume 1 of Anfänge westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik, 1945–1956, ed. Das Militärgeschichtliche Forschungsamt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1982), p. 521. Reden und Schriften, volume 2 ofTurmwächter der Demokratie. Ein Lebensbild von Kurt Schumacher, ed. Arno Scholz and Walther G. Oschilewski (Berlin: arani Verlags, 1954), p. 48. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, September 21, 1949, p. 41. Reden und Schriften, ed. Scholz and Ochilewski, 112. Ibid., 91. Ibid., 184. Kurt Schumacher, address at the SPD party congress in Hamburg, 1950. Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitages vom 21. bis 25. Mai in Hamburg (Bonn: Vorstand der SPD, 1950), pp. 74–5. Reden-Schriften-Korrespondenzen 1945–1952, ed. Willy Albrecht (Berlin: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz, 1985), p. 848. Hans-Erich Volkmann, “Die Innenpolitische Dimension Adenauerscher Sicherheitspolitik in der EVG-Phase,” in Die EVG-Phase, volume 2 of Anfänge Westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik, 1945–1956, ed. Das Militärgeschichtliche Forschungsamt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990), p. 495. See Ulrich Buczylowski, Kurt Schumacher und die deutsche Frage. Sicherheitspolitik und strategische Offensiv-Konzeption vom August 1950 bis September 1951 (Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1973), p. 86. Jahrbuch der Öffentlichen Meinung 1947–1957, ed. Elisabeth Noelle and Erich Peter Neumann (Allensbach: Verlag für Demoskopie, 1956), p. 360. Bucyzlowski, Kurt Schumacher und die deutsche Frage, 108. See also Kurt Schumacher, Die deutsche Sicherheit (Hannover: Vorstand der SPD, 1950), p. 7. Reden-Schriften-Korrespondenzen 1945–1952, ed. Albrecht, 856. Sein Weg durch zie Zeit, volume 1 of Turmwächter der Demokratie. Ein Lebensbild von Kurt Schumacher, ed. Arno Scholz and Walther G. Oschilewski (Berlin: arani Verlags, 1954), p. 375. Rudolph Holzgräber, “Die DP. Partei eines neuen Konservatismus,” in Parteien in der Bundesrepublik, ed. Max Gustav Lange et al. (Stuttgart: RingVerlag, 1955), p. 441. Dietrich Wagner, FDP und Wiederbewaffnung. Die wehrpolitische Orientierung der Liberalen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1955 (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1978), p. 84. Günther Mai, Westliche Sicherheitspolitik im Kalten Krieg (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1977), p. 149. See Arnold Sywottek, “Die Opposition der SPD und der KPD gegen die westdeutsche Aufrüstung in der Tradition sozialdemokratischer und kommunistischer Friedenspolitik seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Frieden, Gewalt, Sozialismus. Studien zur Geschichte der sozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung, ed. Wolfgang

162

41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany Huber and Johannes Schwerdtfeger (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1976), pp. 496–610. David Large, Germans to the Front: West German Rearmament in the Adenauer Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 136. Fritz Kraus, Antimilitaristische Opposition in der BRD 1949–55 (Frankfurt: Verlag Marxistische Blätter GmbH, 1971), pp. 50–51; Ulrich Albrecht, Die Wiederaufrüstung der Bundesrepublik. Analyse und Dokumentation (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1980), pp. 36–37. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 330. “Auf dem Weg nach Europa,” Welt der Arbeit 1, no. 20 (May 19, 1950): 1; Ludwig Rosenberg, “Eine Idee Beschäftigt die Welt,” Gewerkschaftliche Montatshefte 1, no. 6 (June 1950): 241–44; Ernst-Dieter Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1982), p. 93. Rosenberg, “Eine Idee beschäftigt die Welt,” 243. Letter reprinted in Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 112–14. Ibid., 210–11. Bernhard Fleckenstein, “Militär und Gewerkschaften in Deutschland,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 26, no. 20–21 (1976): 18. Gerard Braunthal, “West German Trade Unions and Disarmament,” Political Science Quarterly 73 (1958): 82. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 335–6. See Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 226–34. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 333–34. Ludwig Rosenberg,“Adenauer und die Gewerkschaften,” in Konrad Adenauer und seine Zeit, ed. Dieter Blumenwitz (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1976), p. 267. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 336. Braunthal, “West German Trade Unions and Disarmament,” 85–87. Otto Kirchheimer, “West German Trade-Unions: Their Domestic and Foreign Policies,” in West German Leadership and Foreign Policy, ed. Hans Speier and W. Phillips Davison (Evanston, IL: Row, Paterson and Co., 1957), p. 174. See Gerard Braunthal, The Federation of German Industry in Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965). Quoted in Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 321. Ibid., 322. Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry, 128. Ibid., 148, 150–1. Werner Bührer, Ruhrstahl und Europa. Die Wirtschaftsvereiningung Eisen- und Stahlindustrie und die Anfänge der europäischen Integration 1945–51 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Press, 1986), pp. 198–99. Gerhard Brandt, Rüstung und Wirtschaft in der Bundesrepublik (Witten: EckartVerlag, 1966), pp. 86–87. Brandt, Rüstung und Wirtschaft in der Bundesrepublik, 89–91.

Notes

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62. Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Katholizismus und Wiederbewaffnung. Die Haltung der deutschen Katholiken gegenüber der Wehrfrage 1948–1955 (Mainz: MatthiasGrünewald-Verlag, 1981), p. 5. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 350–55. Large, Germans to the Front, 78–79. 63. Quoted in Doering-Manteuffel, Katholizismus und Wiederbewaffnung, 14. 64. Ibid., 6. 65. Adenauer had not consulted his cabinet about the memo prior to its delivery. See Koch, Heinemann und die Deutschlandfrage, pp. 168–77. Large, Germans to the Front, 72–77. 66. Gustav Heinemann, “Was Dr. Adenauer vergisst,” Frankfurter Hefte 7, no. 11, (July 1956): 463–4. See also his letter of October 9 to Adenauer in Koch, Heinemann und die Deutschlandfrage, 513–518. 67. Quoted in Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 357. 68. Letter reprinted in Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1950, ed. Joachim Beckmann (Gütersloh, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1951), pp. 174–75. 69. Sein Weg durch die Zeit, ed. Scholz and Oschilewski, 366. Buczylowski, Kurt Schumacher und die deutsche Frage, pp. 127–28. 70. Johanna Vogel, Kirche und Wiederbewaffnung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974), pp. 133–38. Ernst Nolte, Deutschland und der Kalte Krieg (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1985). 71. Koch, Heinemann und die Deutschlandfrage, 209–11. 72. At this time, Adenauer appointed Protestant backers of rearmament to prominent public positions. For instance, the chancellor picked Robert Lehr to succeed Heinemann as the interior minister. The appointment of the Protestant Lehr helped correct the religious imbalance in the cabinet. In addition, Adenauer chose Hermann Ehlers as Bundestag president. Ehlers, a religious Lutheran, battled the Niemöller circle within the Protestant Church of Germany. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die Ära Adenauer. Gründerjahre der Republik 1949–1957 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), pp. 125–26. 73. Kirchliches Jahrbuch, ed. Beckmann, 166, 223–4. 74. Quoted in Theo Pirker, Die blinde Macht, vol. 1 (Munich: Mercator Verlag, 1960), p. 148. See also Protokoll Gründungskongress des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, Munich, October 12–14, 1949 (Cologne: Bund-Verlag GmbH, 1950), especially p. 318. 75. Herbert Spiro, The Politics of Codetermination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 30–33. 76. Clay wrote, “I am not willing to accept the responsibility here of approving a measure so contrary to American principles and which has not as yet been submitted to the German people as a whole.” The Papers of Lucius D. Clay: Germany 1945–1949, vol. 2, ed. Jean Edward Smith (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), p. 690. 77. Quoted in Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 154.

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78. Verhandlungen des deutschen Bundestages, September 21, 1949, pp. 40–41. 79. Protokoll Gründungskongress des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, pp. 198–202. 80. Gerechtigkeit schafft Frieden. Der 73 Deutsche Katholikentag vom 31 August bis 4 September 1948 in Bochum, ed. Deutscher Katholikentag (Paderborn: Verlag Bonifacius-Druckerei, 1949), p. 114. 81. Erich Potthoff, Der Kampf um die Mitbestimmung (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1957), pp. 74–75; Horst Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie. Der Mythos vom Sieg der Gewerkschaften (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), pp. 43–46. 82. Joseph Oelinger, “Schwerpunkte der innerkatholischen Mitbestimmungsdiskussion 1945–1963,” in Katholizismus, Wirtschaftsordnung und Sozialpolitik 1945–1963, ed. Albrecht Langner (Paderborn: Munich, 1980), pp. 159–60. 83. Potthoff, Der Kampf um die Mitbestimmung, 76. 84. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 186. 85. Gabriele Müller-List,“Zwischen Konfrontation und Interessenausgleich. Zur Entwicklung und gesetzlichen Regelung der Mitbestimmung in der Frühzeit der Bundesrepublik,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 45, no.18 (1985): 20. 86. Potthoff, Der Kampf um Mitbestimmung, 72.

Chapter 2 1. Konrad Adenauer, Erinnerungen 1945–1953 (Frankfurt: Fischer Bücherei, 1967), pp. 237–38. See also Horst Lademacher, “Zur Bedeutung des Petersberger Abkommen vom 22. November 1949,” in Kalter Krieg und die Deutsche Frage, ed. Josef Foschepoth (Göttingen:Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1985), p. 257. 2. A simple majority of the IAR Council determined forced export quotas for German coal. See Werner Abelshauser,“Korea, die Ruhr und Erhards Marktwirtschaft. Die Energiekrise von 1950/51,” Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 45 (1981): 298. Alan S. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–1951 (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1984), p. 412. Waldemar Besson, Die Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik (Frankfurt: Verlag Ullstein GmbH, 1973), p. 81. See also Kurt Schumacher, “Europa oder Europa-AG,” (Hannover: Neuer Vorwärts-Verlag, 1949). 3. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, November 24–25, 1949, p. 501. 4. Arnulf Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1971), p. 330. 5. William Paterson, The SPD and European Integration (Westmead, England: Saxon House, 1974), p. 31. 6. Theo Pirker, Die SPD nach Hitler (Munich: Rütten & Loening Verlag, 1965), p. 122.

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7. John Gillingham, “Solving the Ruhr Problem: German Heavy Industry and the Schuman Plan,” in Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans 1950/1951, ed. Klaus Schwabe (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1988), p. 432. Klaus Schwabe, “‘Ein Akt konstruktiver Staatskunst’—die USA und die Anfänge des SchumanPlans,” in Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans 1950/1951, ed. Schwabe, 236–38. 8. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–1951, 411. 9. See Gerhard Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung in Deutschland. Internationale Auseinandersetzungen um die Rolle der Deutschen in Europa (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1967), pp. 402–15; Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, pp. 173–5; David Large, Germans to the Front (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 119. 10. Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung in Deutschland, 415–25. See also Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 175–78. 11. Dietrich Thränhardt,“Wahlen und Wiedervereinigung. Die Absicherung des Weststaats,” in Adenauer und die Deutsche Frage, ed. Josef Foschepoth (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), pp. 250–51. 12. For public opinion see Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, “Zur Rolle der öffentlichen Meinung bei der Debatte um die Wiederbewaffnung 1950–1955,” in Aspekte der deutschen Wiederbewaffnung 1950–1955, ed. Hans Buchheim et al. (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1975), pp. 63–67. Hans-Erich Volkmann,“Die Innenpolitische Dimension Adenauerscher Sicherheitspolitik in der EVG-Phase,” in Anfänge Westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik, 1945–1956, vol. 2, ed. Das Militärgeschichtliche Forschungsamt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1982), p. 480. 13. See Martin Martiny, “Die Durchsetzung der Mitbestimmung im deutschen Bergbau,” in Glück auf Kameraden! Die Bergarbeiter und ihre Organisationen, ed. Hans Mommsen and Ulrich Borsdorf (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1979), pp. 403–4. Horst Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie. Der Mythos vom Sieg der Gewerkschaften (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), pp. 66–67. 14. Volkmann,“Die Innenpolitische Dimension Adenauerscher Sicherheitspolitik in der EVG-Phase,” in Anfänge Westdeutscher Sicherheitspolitik, 1945–1956, vol. 2, 560–61. 15. Wolfgang Hirsch-Weber, Gewerkschaften in der Politik (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1959), p. 91. Erich Potthoff, Der Kampf um die Mitbestimmung (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1957), p. 78. 16. Although no protocol of this meeting exists, a detailed account is found in Paul Weymar, Konrad Adenauer. Die autorisierte Biographie (Munich: Kindler Verlag. 1955), pp. 579–84. 17. In addition, Adenauer advised the hard-line industry representatives not to attend talks with the unions. See Berg’s letter of January 18 to Adenauer in Montanmitbestimmung. Das Gesetz über die Mitbestimmung der Arbeitnehmer in den Aufsichtsräten und Vorständen der Unternehmen des Bergbaus und der Eisen und

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18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany Stahl erzeugenden Industrie vom 21. Mai 1951, ed. Gabriele Müller-List (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1984), p. 236. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 84. Hirsch-Weber, Gewerkschaften in der Politik, 94. Protocol of the second part of the sixth session of the DGB Bundesausschuss, April 16, 1951, in Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 474–76. In his meeting with the unions on January 18, Adenauer declared “I stand by the Ahlen Program.” Issued in 1947, this CDU program had called into question the capitalist order in Germany. Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 233. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, February 14, 1951, p. 4442. See also resolution of the FDP parliamentary faction on February 2 in Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 117. Rolf Wenzel,“Konrad Adenauer, die Neuordnung der Grundstoffindustrien und die Mitbestimmung als gesellschaftspolitische Frage,” in Katholizismus, Wirtschaftsordnung und Sozialpolitik 1945–1963, ed. Albrecht Langner (Paderborn: Munich, 1980), p. 137. Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 478. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, p. 94. See Henle’s letter to Pferdmenge’s on January 31 (document 108a), his file notes (document 108b), his February 1 theses on Allied Law 27 (document 112) and his letter to Jarres on February 16 in Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, pp. 384–85. Special cabinet session, January 25, 1951, in Die Kabinettsprotokolle der Bundesregierung, 1951, vol. 4, ed. Ullrich Enders and Konrad Reiser (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1988), p. 115. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 94–95. See protocol of the twelth session of the DGB Bundesvorstand, March 11, 12 (document 151) and the protocol of the sixth session of the DGB Bundesausschuss (document 172a) in Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 421–24, 471–73.Also Horst Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie. Der Mythos vom Sieg der Gewerkschaften (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), pp. 95–97. Die Kabinettsprotokolle der Bundesregierung, 1951, March 16, 1951, 247. Justice Minister Thomas Dehler (FDP) even went so far to declare that the unions were “worthy of the jailhouse.” Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 342. Böckler died on February 16, 1951. Theo Pirker, Die blinde Macht, vol. 1 (Munich: Mercator Verlag, 1960), p. 205. Protocol of the second part of the sixth session of the DGB Bundesausschuss, April 16, 1951, in Montanmitbestimmung, ed. Müller-List, 474–76. Quoted in Protokoll Ausserordentlicher Bundeskongress des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, June 22–23, 1951 (Cologne: Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 1951), p. 41. For a further example of union optimism, see Erich Bührig’s address at the congress, 102. Werner Bührer, Ruhrstahl und Europa. Die Wirtschaftsvereiningung Eisen- und Stahlindustrie und die Anfänge der europäischen Integration 1945–51 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Press, 1986), pp. 206–7.

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35. Schuman’s letter of April 18 to Adenauer is reprinted in Adenauer, Erinnerungen, 421–22. 36. Die Neuordnung der Eisen- und Stahlindustrie im Gebiet der Bundesrepublik (Munich: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1954), p. 103; see also Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 113–14. 37. Ibid., 117. 38. Ibid., 117–18. 39. Heiner R. Adamsen, Investitionshilfe für die Ruhr. Wiederaufbau, Verbände und Soziale Marktwirtschaft 1928–1951 (Wuppertal: Hammer Verlag, 1981), pp. 248–49. 40. Quoted in Adenauer. Es musste alles neu gemacht werden. Die Protokolle des CDU 1950–1953, ed. Günter Buchstab (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986), p. 34. 41. Gerard Braunthal, The Federation of German Industry in Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965), pp. 318–19. 42. Bührer, Ruhrstahl und Europa, 209–14. 43. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 205–7, 217–18. 44. Protokoll Ausserordentlicher Bundeskongress des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, Essen, June 22–24, 1951 (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1951), especially pp. 56, 143. 45. Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 119–28. For a less sympathetic account of the union position, see Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 214–15. 46. Quoted in Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 123 and 128, respectively. 47. Kurt Schumacher, “Die Entscheidung über Kohle und Stahl,” in Reden und Schriften, volume 2 of Turmwächter der Demokratie. Ein Lebensbild von Kurt Schumacher, ed. Arno Scholz and Walther G. Oschilewski (Berlin: arani Verlags, 1954), p.382. 48. Schumacher quoted in Wilhelm Cornides and Hermann Volle,“Atlantikpakt und Europäische Verteidigungsgemeinschaft,” Europa-Archiv 7, no. 13/14 (July 20, 1952): 5023. 49. Fritz Rene Allemann, Bonn ist nicht Weimar (Cologne: Kiepenhauer & Witsch, 1956), p. 182. 50. Reden und Schriften, ed. Scholz and Oschilewski, 386. See also, Rudolf Hrbek, Die SPD, Deutschland und Europa (Bonn: Europa Union Verlag, 1972), especially pp. 104–16. 51. “Koalitionsbasis ziemlich erschüttert,” Industriekurier, April 21, 1951. 52. Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung, especially 429–43; Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 182–90. 53. Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung, 439–42. See also Edward Fursdon, “The Role of the European Defense Community in European Integration,” in NATO:The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe, ed. Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 226. 54. Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffung, 450–67; Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 190–94.

168


55. Wilhelm Cornides and Hermann Volle, “Atlantikpakt und Europäische Verteidigungsgemeinschaft,” Europa Archiv 7, no. 13/14 (July 20, 1952): 5030. Also Wettig, Entmilitisierung und Wiederbewaffnung, 443–5. 56. Adenauer, Erinnerungen, 458–65. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die Ära Adenauer. Gründerjahre der Republik 1949–1957 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), p. 144. Ludolf Herbst, Option für den Westen (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989), pp. 114–15. 57. Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1950, ed. Joachim Beckmann (Gütersloh, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1951), p. 224. See also Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 368–69. 58. Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 246. 59. See Theo Pirker, Warum sind wir gegen die Remilitarisierung? (Munich: Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 1952). 60. Institut für Staatslehre und Politik, Der deutsche Soldat in der Armee von Morgen (Munich: Isar Verlag, 1954), p. 175. Pirker, Warum sind wir gegen die Remilitarisierung? 61. Institut für Staatslehre und Politik, Der deutsche Soldat in der Armee von Morgen, 176–77. 62. Köpper, Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik, 293. 63. Wettig, Entmilitarisierung und Wiederbewaffnung, 444. 64. Sein Weg durch dzie Zeit, volume 1 of Turmwächter der Demokratie. Ein Lebensbild von Kurt Schumacher, ed. Arno Scholz and Walther G. Oschilewski (Berlin: arani Verlags, 1954), pp. 426–28. 65. Ibid., 446. 66. Arnulf Baring, Sehr verehrter Herr Bundeskanzler. Heinrich von Brentano im Briefwechsel mit Konrad Adenauer 1949–1964 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1974), pp. 89–90. 67. The FDP’s vocal criticism marked a conscious effort by the conservative wing of the party to make the party more “national.” For Adenauer, this initiative inauspiciously coincided with the approaching ratification debates over the European Defense Community treaty and the General Treaty. Dietrich Wagner, FDP und Wiederbewaffnung (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1978), pp. 18, 92. 68. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, February 7, 1952, pp. 8132–33. See also Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, pp. 8232–44, 8242–43, especially resolutions 3077 and 3079. 69. See Hans-Erich Volkmann, “Adenauer und die deutschlandpolitischen Opponenten in CDU und CSU,” in Adenauer und die Deutsche Frage, ed. Foschepoth, 190–95. 70. Baring, Sehr verehrter Herr Bundeskanzeler!, 93. 71. Ibid., 96. 72. Ibid., 100.

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73. Georg Vogel, Diplomat unter Hitler und Adenauer (Düsseldorf: Econ Verlag, 1969), pp. 205–8. 74. Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer. Der Aufstieg (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1986), pp. 939–41. 75. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 263. 76. Baring, Sehr verehrter Herr Bundeskanzler! See Brentano’s letter of May 25. 77. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 264. 78. Im Zentrum der Macht. Das Tagesbuch von Staatssekretär Lenz 1951–1953, ed. Klaus Gotto, Hans Günter Hockerts, Rudolf Morsey and Hans-Peter Schwarz (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1989), p. 340. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 269–71. 79. Adenauer, Erinnerungen, 521. 80. Baring, Im Anfang war Adenauer, 303. 81. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 219–20. 82. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 124–26. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 220–22. 83. Dorothee Buchhaas, Gesetzgebung im Wiederaufbau: Schulgesetz in NordrheinWestfalen und Betriebsverfassungsgesetz. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung zum Einfluss von Parteien, Kirchen und Verbänden in Land und Bund 1945–1952 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1985), pp. 278–80. Adenauer,Teegespräche 1950–54, ed. Hanns Jürgen Küsters (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1984), p. 123. 84. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 223. 85. Quoted in Adenauer, Es musste alles neu gemacht werden. Die Protokolle des CDU 1950–1953, ed. Günter Buchstab (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986), p. 57. 86. Quoted in a letter from August 13, 1951. Konrad Adenauer, Briefe 1951–1953, ed. Hans Peter Mensing (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1987), p. 108. 87. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 130. Adenauer, Teegespräche 1950–54, 164–65. 88. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 231–32. 89. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 131–32. 90. The most detailed review of the committee work is found in Michael Arnold, Die Entstehung des Betriebsverfassungsgesetzes 1952, dissertation at the University of Freiburg, 1978, pp. 124–92. 91. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 240–43. 92. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, p. 10279. 93. Hirsch-Weber, Gewerkschaften in der Politik, 104–6. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 247–70. 94. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 136. 95. Pirker, Die blinde Macht, 262. 96. Thum, Mitbestimmung in der Montanindustrie, 138. 97. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, July 19, 1952, 10241. 98. Eberhard Schmidt, Die verhinderte Neuordnung 1945–52 (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1970), p. 220.

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99. “Glauben Sie an Gott?,” Der Spiegel 7, no. 40 (October 28, 1953): 13. 100. Pirker, Die SPD nach Hitler, 148–49. 101. The party therefore opposed NATO membership in 1955, rejected the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Federal Republic, and only reluctantly assented to the Treaty of Rome.

Chapter 3 1. John Lewis Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States:An Interpretative History (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1978), p. 232. 2. Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States, 234. 3. Ibid., 240. 4. Drawn from William E. Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978), pp. 163–69. 5. Helga Haftendorn, Security and Détente: Conflicting Priorities in German Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), pp. 173, 296. 6. Arnulf Baring, Machtwechsel (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), p. 231. 7. By today’s standards, this recession of 1966–67 was modest. Unemployment climbed to 3.1 percent in February 1967; growth declined to –0.1 percent in 1967. 8. For clear statements of the Grand Coalition’s initial Ostpolitik initiative, as well as the common positions of Kiesinger and Brandt, see Kiesinger’s inaugural address of December 13, 1966, and Brandt’s speech of December 14. Both are excerpted in Boris Meissner, Die deutsche Ostpolitik 1961–1970. Kontinuität und Wandel (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1970), pp. 161–64. 9. Wolfram F. Hanrieder, Germany,America, Europe (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1989), p. 193. 10. Bahr as quoted in Peter Pulzer, German Politics: 1945–1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 77–78. 11. “Beitrag der SPD zu aktuellen Problemen der deutschen Politik,” as issued at the Nuremberg Party Congress of 1968, Jahrbuch der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands 1968–1969 (Bonn: SPD, 1969), esp. pp. 338–40. 12. Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten. Die Jahre 1960–1975 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1976), p. 285. 13. Geoffrey Pridham, Christian Democracy in Western Germany: the CDU/CSU in government and opposition, 1945–1976 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977), p. 176. Christian Hacke, Weltmacht wider Willen. Die Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1988), p. 153. 14. Peter Bender, Die Ostpolitik Willy Brandts oder Die Kunst des Selbstverständlichen (Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1972), p. 47

Notes

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15. These groups formed the core of the CDU’s opposition to Brandt’s détente in the early 1970s. Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists:The Christian Democrats and West German Ostpolitik (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989), pp. 62–64. 16. Franz-Josef Strauss, “Deutsche Ostpolitik für den Frieden in Europa,” Deutschland Archiv 1, no. 8 (August 1968): 804–06. Detlef Bischoff, Franz Josef Strauss, die CSU und die Aussenpolitik. Konzeption und Realität am Beispiel der Grossen Koalition (Meisenham Am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1973), pp. 276–78. 17. Nationally, an estimated 28 percent of the NPD vote came from expellees. See Hans W. Schoenberg, Germans from the East:A Study of their Migration, Resettlement, and subsequent Group History since 1945 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 43, 297. See also Alf Mintzel, Geschichte der CSU: Ein Überblick (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1977), pp. 294–96. 18. For a review of the FDP’s shift on foreign policy, see Clemens Heitmann, FDP und neue Ostpolitik. Zur Bedeutung der deutschlandpolitischen Vorstellungen der FDP von 1966 bis 1972 (Sankt Augustin: COMDOK-Verlagsabteilung, 1989). See also Baring, Machtwechsel, 223–29. 19. See the FDP’s 1969 electoral platform,“Praktische Politik für Deutschland,” in Peter Juling, Programmatische Entwicklung der FDP 1946–1969: Einführung und Dokumente (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1977), esp. pp. 207–9. 20. Haftendorn, Security and Détente, 67. 21. In his memoirs, the former party leader Erich Mende was critical of the FDP’s electoral platform of 1969 since it contained “passages concerning inter-German policy that let recognize too great an accommodation toward the Communist dictatorship.” Erich Mende, Von Wende zu Wende 1962–1982 (Munich: Herbig, 1986), p. 302. 22. Horst W. Schmollinger, “Die Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands,” in Parteien-Handbuch. Die Parteien der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1980, vol. 2, ed. Richard Stöss (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984), p. 1954. 23. Ibid., 1932. 24. Otto Brenner, “Die Politik der Gewerkschaften nach dem 8. ordentlichen Bundeskongress des DGB,” Neue Gesellschaft 16, no. 4 (July/August 1969): 298–302, esp. p. 299. Thomas Paul Koppel,“Sources of Change in West German Ostpolitik: The Grand Coalition, 1966–1969,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1972), pp. 339–40. Peter Lieser, “Gewerkschaften und Aussenpolitik” in Handbuch der deutschen Aussenpolitik, ed. Hans-Peter Schwarz (Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1975), p. 216. 25. In the early 1960s, industry had opposed the Adenauer government’s pipe embargo of the Soviet Union. See Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1950–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 106–12.

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26. Hans-Jobst Krautheim,“Ostpolitik und Osthandel: Das Problem von auswärtiger Politik und Aussenhandel in den Publikationen der Wirtschaftspresse und des BDI (1963–1972),” in Die Ostpolitik der BRD, ed. Egbert Jahn and Volker Rittberger (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1974), pp. 108–9. 27. Michael Kreile, Osthandel und Ostpolitik (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1978), p. 118. 28. For accounts of the refugee stance on Ostpolitik, see Koppel, “Sources of Change in West German Ostpolitik, 321–29; Peter Reichel,“Die Vertriebenenverbände als aussenpolitische ‘pressure group,’” in Handbuch der deutschen Aussenpolitik, ed. Schwarz, 233–38. Günther Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn. Die Entstehung der Ost-und Deutschlandpolitik 1969/1979 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1979), pp. 243–48. Schoenberg, Germans from the East. 29. Koppel, Sources of Change in West German Ostpolitik, 323. 30. Ulrich Scheuner, “Die Evangelische Kirche,” in Handbuch der deutschen Aussenpolitik, ed. Schwarz, 227–28. Parts of the document are reprinted in Europa Archiv 21, no. 1 (January 10, 1966): 1–10. See also Ludwig Raiser. “Deutsche Ostpolitik im Lichte der Denkschrift der evanglischen Kirche,” Europa Archiv 21, no. 6 (March 25, 1966): 195–208. 31. Schoenberg, Germans from the East, 152. 32. For instance, a Catholic lay organization, the Bensberger Group, released a paper in March 1968 that recognized Polish claims on former German territory. Koppel, Sources of Change in West German Ostpolitik, 342. 33. Gotto, “Die Katholische Kirche,” in Handbuch der deutschen Aussenpolitik, ed. Schwarz, 232. 34. Lawrence L. Whetten, Germany’s Ostpolitik: Relations between the Federal Republic and the Warsaw Pact Countries (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 94. 35. The 1951 model would apply to all firms that satisfied at least two of three conditions: more than two thousand employees, at least 150 million DM in turnover, and more than a 75 million DM balance sum. “Mitbestimmung: Tür zur Macht,” Der Spiegel 22, no. 44 (October 28, 1968): 46–65, esp. p. 57. For an overview of union demands at this time, see Gerhard Leminsky and Bernd Otto, Politik und Programmatik des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes (Cologne: Bund Verlag, 1974). 36. Volker Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 309–11. Between 1952 and 1968, the number of primarily steel- and coal-producing firms had dropped from 110 to 70. “Mitbestimmung: Tür zur Macht,” 54. See Christian Deubner, “Change and internationalization in industry: toward a sectoral interpretation of West German politics” International Organization 38, no. 3 (summer 1984): 501–35. 37. Cited in “Mitbestimmung: Tür zur Macht,” 57.

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38. Workers consistently ranked better wages, job security, and social benefits as higher priorities than codetermination. And, according to a governmentsponsored poll in 1969, although 65 percent of a pool of four thousand West Germans were favorably inclined toward codetermination, well under half had a clear understanding of what was meant by the term. Hans Werner Kettenbach, Der lange Marsch der Bundesrepublik:Aufgaben und Chancen der inneren Reformen (Düsseldorf: Econ Verlag, 1971), pp. 51–52. 39. For discussions of the Social Committees, see Gertrud and Johannes Kramer, “Der Einfluss der Sozialausschüsse der Christlich Demokratischen Arbeitnehmerschaft auf die CDU,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 26, no. 46–7 (November 13, 1976): 33–34. 40. Jahrbuch der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands: 1968/1969 (Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Neuer Vorwärts-Verlag, 1969), pp. 400–1. “Mitbestimming: Tür zur Macht,” 62–63. 41. Kettenbach, Der Lange Marsch, 59. 42. Willy Brandt, “Die Alternative,” Die Neue Gesellschaft 16, Special Issue (May 1, 1969): 4. 43. Brandt, “Die Alternative,” 4. For more detail on proposed SPD reforms, see “Sozialdemokratische Perspektiven im Übergang zu den siebziger Jahren,” as approved by the SPD Party Congress in Nuremberg in 1968, in Jahrbuch der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands 1968/1969, esp. 375–95. 44. Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen, expanded ed. (Frankfurt: Verlag Ullstein, 1993), p. 186. 45. Brandt had informed the SPD parliamentary grouping on October 3, 1969, that he hoped to be the “chancellor of domestic reforms.” He restated this intention in his address to the parliament on January 14. Baring, Machtwechsel, 183, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 14, 1970, p. 839. 46. Brandt’s address is reprinted in Hans Ulrich Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen der Bundesrepublik Deuschland (Munich: Günter Olzog Verlag, 1971), pp. 205–35. 47. Karlheinz Niclauss, Kanzlerdemokratie: Bonner Regierungspraxis von Konrad Adenauer bis Helmut Kohl (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1988), pp. 128–29. For a highly critical assessment of the SPD’s absorption of the APO activists, see Diane L. Parness, The SPD and the Challenge of Mass Politics:The Dilemma of the German Volkspartei (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991). 48. Organizations, such as the Young Socialists (Jusos), did want economic democracy. They tended to see codetermination, however, not as a means of promoting interclass cooperation, but rather as an instrument to overcome capitalism. Peter Arend, Die innerparteiliche Entwicklung der SPD 1966–1977 (Bonn: Eichholz Verlag, 1975), p. 120. 49. Citation in Christoph Klessmann, Zwei Staaten, eine Nation. Deutsche Geschichte 1955–1970 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), p. 269.

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50. Georg Picht, “Moderne Gesellschaft und die Demokratisierung der Bildung,” Neue Gesellschaft 16, no. 2 (March/April 1969): 90. 51. Both the 1967 program and the 1969 election platform are reprinted in Juling, Programmatische Entwicklung der FDP 1946–1969, 180–209. See Heino Kaack, Die F.D.P. Grundriss und Materialien zu Geschichte, Struktur und Programmatik, (Meisenhem am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1978), esp. pp. 33–40. Baring, Machtwechsel, 95–102. Dirk Bavendamm, Bonn unter Brandt: Machtwechsel oder Zeitenwende (Vienna: Verlag Fritz Molden, 1971), pp. 257–62. “FDP: Orange statt Gelb,” Der Spiegel 22, no. 22 (May 27, 1968): 42. 52. Christian Fenner, “Das Parteiensystem seit 1969—Normalisieung und Polarisierung,” in Das Parteiensystem der Bundesrepublik. Geschichte-EntstehungEntwicklung, ed. Dietrich Staritz (Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1976): 194–214, esp. 195. 53. Michael Schneider, “Unternehmer und Sozialdemokratie: Zur unternehmerischen Argumentation in der Mitbestimmungsdebatte der sechziger Jahre,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 13 (1973): 243–88, quotation on 275. See also the interview with the vice president of the BdA and board member of Mercedes Benz, Hanns Martin Schleyer.“Mitbestimmung—Angriff auf das Eigentum,” Der Spiegel 22, no. 44 (October 28, 1968): 67–70. 54. Juling, Programmatische Entwicklung der FDP 1946–1969, 203. For an overview of industry’s propaganda efforts in 1968 against codetermination, see “Mitbestimmung: Tür zur Macht.” 55. Dorothee Buchhaas, Die Volkspartei: Programmatische Entwicklung der CDU 1950–1973 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1981), pp. 310–13. Pridham, Christian Democracy in Western Germany, 180. 56. Quoted in Bodo Zeuner, “Das Parteiensystem in der Grossen Koalition (1966–1969),” in Das Parteiensystem der Bundesrepublik, ed. Staritz, 192. 57. Quoted in John David Nagle, The National Democratic Party: Right Radicalism in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 101. 58. See Ossipp K. Flechtheim, “Dauerkoalition und Tendenzwende,” in Der SPD-Staat, ed. Frank Gruber et al. (Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1977). 59. Arnulf Baring, “The Institutions of German Foreign Policy,” in Britain and West Germany: Changing Societies and the Future of Foreign Policy, ed. Karl Kaiser and Roger Morgan (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 170.

Chapter 4 1. See Brandt’s address,“the State of the Nation in a Divided Germany,” which was presented to the Bundestag on January 14, 1970. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 14, 1970, 839–47.

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2. Hans Ulrich Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen der Bundesrepublik (Munich: Günter Olzog Verlag, 1971), p. 232. 3. Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen der Bundesrepublik, 207. 4. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 14, 1970, 842. 5. Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten. Die Jahre 1960–1975 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1976), p. 316. 6. Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen der Bundesrepublik, 227. 7. See Barzel’s Bundestag address of October 29, 1969, entitled “Die Union in der Opposition,” reprinted in Rainer Barzel, Bundestagsreden (Bonn: AZ Studio, 1971), pp. 192–210. 8. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 15, 1970, 857, 858. 9. Wolfgang Jäger, “Die Innenpolitik der sozial-liberalen Koalition,” in Republik im Wandel 1969–1974. Die Ära Brandt, ed. Karl Dietrich Bracher (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1986), p. 55; see also Christian Hacke, Die Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik der CDU/CSU.Wege und Irrwege der Opposition seit 1969 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1975), 63–64. 10. “‘Kanzler des Ausverkaufs’: Zitate aus dem Strauss-Organ Bayernkurier,” Der Spiegel 23, no. 45 (November 3, 1969): 31. 11. Arnulf Baring, Machtwechsel: Die Ära Brandt-Scheel (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), p. 247. 12. See Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists:The Christian Democrats and West German Ostpolitik (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989), p. 59–66. 13. For detailed accounts of the negotiations, see Honoré M. Catudal, Jr., The Diplomacy of the Quadripartite:A New Era in East-West Politics (Berlin: BerlinVerlag, 1977). See also, David M. Keithly, Breakthrough in the Ostpolitik: The 1971 Quadripartite Agreement (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 119–38. 14. Barzel, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, September 18, 1970, 3634. For the CDU/CSU position on Berlin and its criticism of the government, see Rainer Barzel, Auf dem Drahtseil (Munich: Droemer-Knauer, 1978), pp. 117–29. 15. Hacke, Die Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik der CDU/CSU, 40. 16. Clemens, Reluctant Realists, 92–93. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, “Urteile über Bonn,” Die Zeit, March 26, 1971, p. 3. 17. In a speech on January 16, he noted in parliament that both the government and the opposition favored negotiations with East Berlin, supported nonuse-of-force talks, and backed the objective of national unity within a European, pro-Western context. See Brandt’s speech in Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 16, 1970, pp. 948, 951. 18. This impression lent weight to his diplomacy. Bonn’s negotiating partners would take the talks more seriously if they anticipated eventual treaty ratification. Reinhold Roth, Aussenpolitische Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung. Eine Analyse von Struktur und Systemfunktion des aussenpolitischen Entscheidungsprozesses am Beispiel der sozialliberalen Koalition 1969 bis 1973 (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1976), p. 74.

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19. See Brandt’s speech in Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 16, 1970, 947. 20. “Es gibt kein Scheitern,” Der Spiegel 24, no. 5 (January 26, 1970): 24, 27. 21. Roth, Aussenpolitische Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung, pp. 74, 77. Heinrich End, Zweimal deutsche Aussenpolitik. Internationale Dimensionen des innerdeutschen konflikts 1949–1972 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1973), p. 71. 22. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, February 25, 1970, 1553. 23. These exploratory talks lasted from January 30 until May 22, 1970. The 14 meetings between Bahr and Gromyko formed the heart of these initial negotiations. In all, the talks were concluded after approximately 50 hours. Werner Link, “Aussen- und Deutschlandpolitik in der Ära Brandt 1969–1974,” in Republik im Wandel 1969–1974. Die Ära Brandt, ed. Bracher, 182. 24. Günther Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn. Die Entstehung der Ost-und Deutschlandpolitik 1969/1979 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1979), pp. 18–19. 25. Theodor Eschenburg, “Das grosse und das kleine Auswärtige Amt,” in Zur politischen Praxis in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vol. 3 (Munich: Piper, 1972). 26. Roth, Aussenpolitische Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung, 60. 27. Baring, Der Machtwechsel, 279–80. There is, however, some disagreement over the extent to which Bahr relied on instructions from the foreign ministry. Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 37. 28. Ibid., 43. 29. To the West German foreign-policy expert Richard Löwenthal, Bahr “had in Moscow made clear from the very beginning . . . that there could be no treaty without a satisfactory Berlin solution.” Cited in Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 58. See also, William E. Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), 190. 30. See Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 97–120. See also W.W. Kulski, Germany and Poland: From War to Peaceful Relations (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1976), esp. pp. 187–90. 31. Baring, Der Machtwechsel, 305–6. Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 186, 219. 32. For a discussion of the breakthrough in negotiations, see Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 110–11. 33. Ibid., 129. 34. Ibid., 334. 35. Roth notes that real consultation between the government and opposition occurred in the period leading up to the Erfurt summit. Roth, Aussenpolitische Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung, 76. Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 148–149. Barzel, Auf dem Drahtseil, 100. 36. Roth, Aussenpolitische Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung, 94.

Notes

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37. Ibid., 98–99; Schmid, Entscheidung in Bonn, 112–3. See also Baring, Machtwechsel, 285–87. 38. Baring, Machtwechsel, 295–301. 39. Ibid., 312–13. 40. Barzel, Auf dem Drahtseil, 106. 41. Hacke, Die Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik der CDU/CSU, 63–64. See also Rolf Zundel, “Altkanzlers Irrtum,” Die Zeit, May 5, 1971. 42. Roth, Aussenpolitsche Innovation und politische Herrschaftssicherung, 97. 43. Ibid., 90–95. 44. Baring, Machtwechsel, 304–6. 45. These included the attachment of a letter from the chancellor that reaffirmed the compatibility between the treaty and the FRG’s commitment to a unified Germany. See Baring, Machtwechsel, 341–49. 46. Cited in John Herz, “Ostpolitik—Road to Détente?,” in Cases in Comparative Politics, 3d ed., ed. Bernard James Christoph and Bernard E. Brown (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 258. 47. See Horst Ehmke, Mittendrin.Von der Grossen Koalition zur Deutschen Einheit (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1994), p. 168. 48. See Manfred G. Schmidt,“Die ‘Politik der Inneren Reformen’ in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1969–1976,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 19 (1978): 206–11. For an overview of Schmidt’s analysis in English, see Manfred G. Schmidt, “The Politics of Domestic Reform in the Federal Republic of Germany” Politics and Society 8, no. 2 (1978). See also Gerard Braunthal, The West German Social Democrats, 1969–1982 (Boulder: Westview, 1983), pp. 240–67. 49. Hartmut H. Brauswetter, Kanzlerprinzip, Ressortprinzip und Kabinettsprinzip in der ersten Regierung Brandt 1969–1972 (Bonn: Eichholz-Verlag, 1976), pp. 163–64. 50. Peter Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany:The Growth of a Semisovereign State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987). 51. See Dieter Piel,“Das geplunderte Reformpaket,” Die Zeit, May 5, 1972. See also, Diether Stolze, “Muss Brandt nach Canossa gehen?” Die Zeit, June 2, 1972. 52. For an account of this ongoing conflict over finances, see Baring, Machtwechsel, esp. 650–76. See also Norbert Kloten,“Erfolg und Misserfolg der Stabilisierungspolitik (1969–1974),” in Währung und Wirtschaft in Deutschland, 1876–1975, ed. Deutsche Bundesbank (Frankfurt: Fritz Knapp, 1976), pp. 643–90. 53. Horst Schmollinger and Peter Müller, Zwischenbilanz. Zehn Jahre sozial-liberale Politik, 1969–1979. Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (Hannover: Fackeltraeger, 1980), pp. 96–98. 54. Schmidt, “Die ‘Politik der Inneren Reformen’ in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1969–1976.” See also Klaus Lompe, Sozialstaat und Krise.

178

55.

56. 57.

58.

59. 60.

61.

62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany Bundesrepublikanische Politikmuster der 70er und 80er Jahre (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1987), esp. pp. 17–72. In his memoirs, Brandt notes that he spent a far larger share of his time addressing domestic issues. Willy Brandt, Über der Tag hinaus. Eine Zwischenbilanz (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1974), p. 7. Ehmke, Mittendrin, 173. The new administration expanded pensions for the elderly, introduced early retirement plans, developed a financial aid system for needy students, improved and broadened health care coverage, raised federal child support and increased public housing subsidies. Schmidt, “The Politics of Domestic Reform in the Federal Republic of Germany,” esp. pp. 182–84. Republik im Wandel 1969–1974, ed. Bracher, 137–39. Peter Massing argues that they also responded to pressure arising from the growing new middle classes. See Peter Massing,“Die Bildungspolitik” in Die Bundesrepublik in den siebziger Jahren. Versuch einer Bilanz, ed. Gert-Joachim Glaessner, Jürgen Holz, Thomas Schlüter (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1984), esp. pp. 199–202. See also, Katzenstein, Politics and Policies in West Germany, 303–4. Behn, Die Regierungserklärungen in der Bundesrepublik, 219–20. See. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany, 330–36. See Arnold J. Heidenheimer, “The Politics of Educational Reform in Sweden and West Germany” in The Dynamics of Public Policy: A Comparative Analysis, ed. Richard Rose (London and Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1976), esp. pp. 92–93. The government introduced a proposal of a University Framework law (Hochschulrahmengesetz) to the Bundesrat in 1970 that proposed little in the way of codetermination. The bill stalled in parliament. In regard to comprehensive schools, there were only 120 in the Federal Republic by late 1972. Heidenheimer, “The Politics of Educational Reform in Sweden and West Germany,” 93–94. See also, Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany, 296–325. See Nina Grunenberg,“Das Dilemma der Bildungspolitik,” Die Zeit, February 4, 1972, p. 4. Klaus von Dohnanyi, “Der konservative Gegenangriff,” Neue Gesellschaft 19, no. 3 (March 1972): 168. Heidenheimer, “The Politics of Educational Reform in Sweden and West Germany,” 103. Ibid., 94–95. Martin Peltzer, The German Labour Management Relations Act (London: Macdonald & Evans Ltd., 1972). Klaus Lompe,“Gewerkschaftliche Politik in der Phase gesellschaftlicher Reformen und der aussenpolitischen Neuorientierung der Bundesrepublik

Notes

69.

70.

71.

72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83.

179

1969–1974,” in Geschichte der Gewerkschaften in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ed. Hans-Otto Hemmer et al. (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1990), 317–19. For a discussion of government compromises to the opposition, see Ernst Schellenberg, “Ein grosses Reformwerk: Das neue Betriebsverfassungsgesetz,” Neue Gesellschaft 18, no. 12 (December 1971): esp. 857–58. FDP chairman Walter Scheel noted that social questions were at the center of the coalition negotiations. On October 1, 1969, FDP and SPD negotiating commissions announced their agreement on the issue of codetermination. Wolfgang F. Dexheimer, Koalitionsverhandlungen in Bonn. 1961. 1965. 1969. Zur Willensbildung in Parteien und Fraktionen (Bonn: Eichholz Verlag, 1973), p. 107. For an examination of DGB and BdA positions, see Irene Raehlmann, Der Interessenstreit zwischen DGB und BdA um die Ausweitung der qualifizierten Mitbestimmung. Eine ideologiekritische Untersuchung (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1975), pp. 93–94, 103–4. Also Mitbestimmung. 35 Modelle und Meinungen zu einem Gesellschaftspolitischen Problem, ed. Siegfried Hergt, (Opladen: HeggenVerlag, 1974), pp. 122–68. Uwe Andersen and Hildegard Pieper, “Innere Reformen im Entscheidungsprozess. Zum Meinungsstreit um den Koalitionskompromiss über Mitbestimmung und Vermögensbildung,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 24, no. 28 (1974): 7–11. Lompe,“Gewerkschaftliche Politik in der Phase gesellschaftlicher Reformen und der aussenpolitischen Neuorientierung der Bundesrepublik 1969–1974,” 330. Schmollinger and Müller, Zwischenbilanz, 145–46. See Gerard Braunthal, Political Loyalty and Public Service in West Germany (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1990). Baring, Der Machtwechsel, 389–90. Gerhard Schröder,“‘Nein zu den Ostverträgen,” Die Zeit, February 4, 1972, p. 3. Peter Pulzer, German Politics, 1945–1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 125–26. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 301. The treaty is reprinted and reviewed in: Honoré M. Catudal, Jr., A Balance Sheet of the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin: evaluation and documentation (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1978). Barzel, Auf dem Drahtseil, 138. David Binder, The Other German: Willy Brandt’s Life & Times (Washington DC: The New Republic Book Company, Inc. 1975), 291. Baring, Machtwechsel, 506. The CDU/CSU’s relationship to the new Ostpolitik is carefully explored in Clemens, Reluctant Realists. See also, Hacke, Die Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik der CDU/CSU.

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84. Friedrich Kassebeer, “Es geschieht impulsiv, es ist unwahrscheinlich,” SZ, April 27, 1972, p. 2. Olaf Thlau, “Streiks und Demonstrationen, Plakate und Parolen,” SZ, April 27, 1972, p. 2. “Proteststreiks gegen das Misstrauensvotum,” FAZ, April 27, 1972, pp. 1, 4. 85. “Mehrere Kundgebungen,” FAZ, April 27, 1972, p. 4. 86. This account is drawn from Baring, Machtwechsel, esp. 441–42. 87. Clemens, Reluctant Realists, 100–06. 88. Hans-Ulrich Spree, “Stabile Preise sind oberstes Ziel der Union,” SZ, October 12, 1972, p. 23.“Die CDU belegt ihre Inflationsvorwürfe,” SZ, October 19, 1972. p. 21. 89. See Franz-Josef Strauss, “Wir brauchen das Leistungsprinzip als Motor sozialer Reformen,” interview in Wirtschaftswoche 26, no. 45 (November 10, 1972): 20–22. 90. Rolf Zundel, “Das Kreuz der Wähler,” Die Zeit, November 24, 1972. 91. See “Osthandel. Die rote Bilanz,” Wirtschaftswoche 26, no. 12 (March 24, 1972): 20–22. 92. Dieter Piel, “Der Kalte Krieg in Bonn,” Die Zeit, March 19, 1971, p. 26. Berghahn, The Americanisation of West German Industry, 322–23. Raehlmann, Der Interessenstreit zwischen DGB und BDA um die Ausweitung der qualifiezierten Mitbestimmung, 110. “Erneut Arbeitgeber-Kritik an Brandt,” SZ, October 26, 1972, p. 9. 93. “Morgen rot,” Der Spiegel 26, no. 23 (May 29, 1972): 72–73. 94. See Brandt’s interview in Wirtschaftswoche 45 (November 10, 1972): 16. 95. “Scharfe Kritik an Wahl-Hirtenbrief,” SZ, November 7, 1972, p. 5. 96. Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany, 217–20. 97. Conducted on November 20, 1972, a survey showed that 79 percent of those polled cited the Basic Treaty as the single most influential factor in the government’s victory. W.E. Paterson, “The Ostpolitik and Regime Stability in West Germany,” in The Ostpolitik and Political Change in Germany, ed. Roger Tilford (Westmead, England: Saxon House, 1975), p. 38. See also Baring, Machtwechsel, 499. 98. See Max Kaase, “Die Bundestagswahl 1972: Problem und Analysen,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 14, no. 2 (May 1973): 145–90. 99. After an EKD council in early 1971 decided to withhold official comment on the treaties, 25 highly visible officials within the EKD issued a declaration that warned against “neglecting the challenge of reconciliation by rejecting the Eastern treaties.” Theodor Strohm, “Christliche und politische Verantwortung gegenüber dem Programm der Inneren Reformen,” Neue Gesellschaft 19, no. 7 (July 1972): 503–04. 100. Two-thirds of the FDP voters held white-collar positions (government officials and salaried employees). Baring, Machtwechsel, 508. 101. “‘Nach der Ratifizierung geht’s erst richtig los,’” interview with Willy Brandt in Der Spiegel 26, no. 17 (April 17, 1972): 25.

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102. Theo Sommer, “Nun die Mehrheit verpflichtet,” Die Zeit, November 24, 1972, p. 1. 103. After the Federal Republic had normalized relations with Prague, it quickly established diplomatic ties to Bulgaria and Hungary. For a discussion of the Prague Treaty, see Griffith, The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic, 220–23. 104. In 1973, 2,270,000 West Germans visited East Germany, an increase of more than a million over the previous year. A. James McAdams, Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 102. 105. McAdams, Germany Divided, 108–11. Ash, In Europe’s Name, 147–48. 106. Brandt, Machtwechsel, 616–21. 107. One-half of those polled admitted that they were very concerned that Bonn was too eager to grant concessions to the East Bloc. Only 20 percent predicted better inter-German relations by the end of the century. Nearly a half (45 percent) voiced great concern about eastern compliance with treaty terms. “Umfrage: Angst und Sorge wählen CDU/CSU,” Der Spiegel 28, no. 16 (April 15, 1974): 41–42. 108. Wolfram Bickerich, “Reformen rückwarts. Die Gesellschaftspolitik der sozialliberalen Koalition,” in Die 13 Jahre. Bilanz der sozialliberalen Koalition, ed. Wolfram Bickerich (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1982), p. 53. 109. Baring, Machtwechsel, 644–45. 110. The following discussion is based on Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany, 312–13. 111. In a 1973 decision, for instance, the court rejected parity codetermination among professors, students, and assistants at the university. It ruled that professors control at least half of the seats within boards that determine instruction and tests. In matters of research, academic recruitment, and firing, the professors maintained majority influence. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany, 314. 112. Manfred Ertel and Manfred Weber, “Von der Reform blieb nur die Expansion. Die Bildungspolitik der sozialliberalen Koalition,” in Die 13 Jahre, ed. Bickerich, 83–102. 113. Heinz O. Vetter, “Mitbestimmung bleibt Mittelpunkt gesellschaftlicher Reformen,” Neue Gesellschaft 20, no. 4 (April 1973): 227, 230. 114. Gerard Braunthal,“Codetermination in West Germany,” in Cases in Comparative Politics, ed. Bernard James Christoph and Bernard E. Brown, 234–36. Andersen and Pieper, “Innere Reformen im Entscheidungsprozess,” 11–18. 115. Horst Thum, Wirtschaftsdemokratie und Mitbestimmung.Von den Anfängen 1916 bis zum Mitbestimmungsgesetz 1976 (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1991), p. 92. 116. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 311–12. 117. Eighty thousand workers in 107 firms struck in August alone. By the end of 1974, more than 275,000 workers had participated in the strike wave.

182

118. 119.

120.

121. 122. 123. 124. 125.

126. 127. 128.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany Walther Müller-Jentsch, “Die spontane Streikbewegung 1973,” Gewerkschaften und Klassenkampf. Kritisches Jahrbuch 1974, ed. Otto Jacobi et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1974), p. 47. Brandt, Erinnerungen, 313. Carl-Christian Kaiser,“Die Basis der SPD muckt auf,” Die Zeit, October 26, 1973. Carl-Christian Kaiser, “Rückzug ins Dogmen-Getto,” Die Zeit, February 1, 1974. For a discussion of the Jusos at this time, see Rolf Zundel, “Die SPD von morgen?,” Die Zeit, March 16, 1973, p. 3; and Carl-Christian Kaiser, “Auf dem Marsch zum Sozialismus,” Die Zeit, March 16, 1973, p. 3. See also Baring, Machtwechsel, 541–66. Rolf Zundel, “Auf dem Marsch in die Spaltung,” Die Zeit, September 14, 1973, p. 1. Rolf Zundel, “Risse im Regierungsbündnis,” Die Zeit, November 9, 1973, p. 6. “Schwungvoll abwärts,” Der Spiegel 28, no. 9 (February 25, 1974): 32. See Achim Zons, Das Denkmal. Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt und die linksliberale Presse (Munich: Günter Olzog Verlag, 1984). Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1950–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Quoted in Braunthal, The West German Social Democrats, 1969–1982, 244. Arnulf Baring, “Die Wende kam schon vor acht Jahren,” Die Zeit, October 8, 1982. Quoted in Klaus Bohnsack, “Die Koalitionskrise 1981/1982 und der Regierungswechsel 1982,” Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 14, no. 1 (February 1983): 12.

Chapter 5 1. Helmut Kohl, Ich wollte die Einheit, arr. Kai Diekmann and Ralf Georg Reuth (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1996), p. 261. 2. Clay Clemens, Reluctant Realists: The Christian Democrats and West German Ostpolitik (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989), 281. See also Timothy Gordon Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random House, 1993), 176–85. 3. Jonathan Steele, World Power: Soviet Foreign Policy under Brezhnev and Andropov (London: Michael Joseph, 1983), 91–92. 4. Valerie Bunce, “Decline of a Regional Hegemon: The Gorbachev Regime and Reform in Eastern Europe,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 3, no. 2 (spring 1989): 242. 5. Martin Walker, The Cold War (London: Vintage, 1993), 215.

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6. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), 498–514. 7. Charles S. Maier, The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 59–107. See also Jeffrey Kopstein, The politics of economic decline in East Germany, 1945–1989 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 8. See Monika Maron, an East German writer, in Der Spiegel 43, no. 33 (August 14, 1989): 22–23. 9. See Thomas Ammer, “Stichwort: Flucht aus der DDR,” Deutschland Archiv 22, no. 11 (November 1989): 1206–08. Hereafter Deutschland Archiv will be abbreviated as DA. See also Richard Hilmer and Anne Koehler,“Der DDR läuft die Zukunft davon. Die Übersiedler-Flüchtlingswelle im Sommer 1989,” DA 22, no. 12 (December 1989): 1384–85. See also Bernard Voigt et al., “Die innerdeutsche Wanderung und der Vereinigungsprozess,” DA 23, no. 5 (May 1990): 732–46. 10. Ewald Frie, “Geschichte der Kirchen in der DDR. Neuerscheinungen im Jahre 1993,” in Neue Politische Literatur 39 (1994): 273. See Detlev Alters, “Wenn Pfarrer Politiker werden, ändert sich nicht nur der Stil,” Die Welt, May 29, 1990. Richard Henkys,“Die Kirchen im Umbruch der DDR,” DA 23, no. 2 (February 1990): 177–80. 11. See Vierzig Jahre DDR-TschuesSED (Bonn: Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1990). The booklet has reprinted both the speeches and the photographs of the banners of November 4, 1989. 12. Quoted in Manfred Görtemacher, Unifying Germany, 1989–1990 (New York: St. Martin’s Press in association with the Institute for EastWest Studies, 1994), p. 92. 13. Elizabeth Pond, Beyond the Wall: Germany’s Road to Unification (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993), p. 138. 14. See Horst Schreitter-Schwarzenfeld,“Föderations-Idee eint den Bundestag,” Frankfurter Rundschau, November 29, 1989, pp. 1–2. 15. See Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage. Innenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Siedler, 1991), p. 52. 16. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, November 28, 1989, p. 13514. 17. Peter Voigt et al., “Die innerdeutsche Wanderung und der Vereinigungsprozess,” 738–39. Numerous benefits awaited the East Germans as they arrived in the Federal Republic. These included lodging, assistance in finding work, and the right to participate in the generous West German social programs. 18. See Monika Zimmermann, “‘War das unsere Revolution?’ fragen die Demonstranten in Leipzig,” FAZ, January 17, 1990, p. 3. 19. In the first quarter of 1990, industrial production was down 4.5 percent from the previous year’s mark. See Wirtschaftliche und Soziale Perspektiven der Deutschen Einheit (Cologne: Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft [IW], 1990), p.

184

20.

21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany 21. See also Wolfgang Stinglwagner, “Schwere Zeiten für die DDRWirtschaft,” DA 23, no. 2 (February 1990): 237–41. Assessments of the Modrow government have varied widely. For a highly complimentary interpretation, see Karl-Heinz Arnold, Die ersten hundert Tage. Hans Modrow (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1990). For a generally favorable assessment, see Walter Süss, “Bilanz einer Gratwanderung—Die kurze Amtszeit des Hans Modrow,” DA 24, no. 6 (June 1991): 596–608. A critical account is found in Uwe Thaysen, Der Runde Tisch. Oder:Wo blieb das Volk? (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990), especially pp. 163–74. Konrad H. Jarausch, The Rush to German Unity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 95–97. Walter Süss,“Bilanz einer Gratwanderung—Die kurze Amtzeit des Hans Modrow,” 601–3. Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1987). See Bill Scheuerman, “A Missed Opportunity? The German Constitutional Debate,” German Politics and Society 31 (spring 1994): 109–19. Deutschen in Europa. Berliner Erklärung der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Bonn: Vorstand der SPD, 1990). “Die Sozialdemokraten in der DDR bekennen sich zur Einheit,” FAZ, January 19, 1990, p. 1. Hans Jürgen Fink, “Die SPD in der DDR,” DA 23, no. 2 (February 1990): 181–85. See Meckel’s interview “Einheit heisst nicht Anschluss,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 4 (January 22, 1990): 84–85. By mid-February 1990, as the election campaign in the GDR progressed, the Eastern SPD was supporting unification by the end of 1990. Walter Süss,“DDR-SPD will deutsche Einheit noch in diesem Jahr,” tageszeitung (hereafter taz), February 13, 1990, p. 6. See Carl Lankowski, “One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward? Between ‘Antifa’ and Machtpolitik: Die Grünen and the German Question,” German Politics and Society 20, no. 2 (summer 1990): 41–56. See speech of Antje Vollmer, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 18, 1990, p. 14521. See “Grüner Aufbruch nicht gegen Einheit,” FAZ, January 18, 1990, p. 4. See speech of Hoss, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, January 18, 1990, p. 14535. Modrow’s plan is reprinted in DA 23, no. 3, (March 1990), 471–72. Zimmerling, Zeno, and Sabine Zimmerling, ed., Chronik DDR, Part 4/5, (East Berlin: Treptower Verlagshaus, 1991), p. 199. Thomas Koch, Die PDS im Vereinigungsprozess,” in Die PDS: Empirische Befunde & kontroverse Analysen, ed. Michael Brie, Martin Herzig and Thomas Koch (Cologne: PappyRossa, 1995), p. 187. Gero Neugebauer and Richard Stöss, Die PDS. Geschichte. Organisation.Wähler. Konkurrenten (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1996), 42–43.

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34. Jens Reich, Rückkehr nach Europa. Bericht zur neuen Lage der deutschen Nation, (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1991), 211. 35. Klaus Hartung, “Einheit als Chance. Zur Situation nach dem ModrowVorschlag,” taz, February 3, 1990, p. 10. 36. Wolfgang Templin, “Der Verfassungsentwurf des Runden Tisches,” Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte (hereafter GMH) 41, no. 5/6 (June 6, 1990): 373. 37. Gerhard Lehmbruch, “Die improvisierte Vereinigung,” Leviathan 41 (December 1990): 471. 38. “Wir wollen, dass die beiden deutschen Staaten zusammenwachsen,” FAZ, January 19, 1990, p. 3. 39. Matthias Hartmann, “‘Die Baupläne sind vorgegeban.’ Zur Vereinigung der evangelischen Kirchen in Deutschland,” DA 24, no. 5 (May 1991): 467. See also Thaysen, Der Runde Tisch, 156–63. 40. See Ernst Breit, “Deutsche Einigung—ohne und gegen die Gewerkschaften?,” GMH 41, no. 3 (March 1990): 129–32. Breit was chairman of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB). 41. See Klaus von Beyme, “Aspekte der Gewerkschaftsentwicklung in einem geeinten Deutschland—Historische Chancen oder strukturelle Sackgassen?” GMH 41, no. 5/6 (May-June 1990): 335. 42. The poll was conducted by the Leipziger Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung. “Chronik,” DA 23, no. 3 (March 1990): 486. 43. Manfred Kuechler, “The Road to German Unity: Mass Sentiment in East and West Germany,” Public Opinion Quarterly 56 (spring 1992): 57. 44. Separated by France after World War II, the Saar had successfully applied in 1956 to join the FRG via Article 23. 45. Gerhard Lehmbruch, “Die improvisierte Vereinigung,” 473. 46. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, 15105–6. 47. Hans-Ulrich Kempski, “Stunden, die nicht wiederkommen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 12, 1990, p. 3. 48. “Drei von vier Bundesbürgern für Späth statt Kohl,” Der Spiegel 43, no. 17 (April 24, 1989): 24. Claus Gennrich,“Kohl in Bedrängnis,” FAZ, March 31, 1989, p. 1. See also, “CDU auf der Suche nach einem neuen Kanzler,” Der Spiegel 43, no. 12 (March 20, 1989): 16–26 49. Based in Saxony, the DSU looked to the CSU for recognition and patronage. See “Die Deutsche Soziale Union spürt Rückenwind,” FAZ, February 28, 1990, p. 4. 50. Süss, “Bilanz einer Gratwanderung—Die kurze Amtszeit des Hans Modrows,” 606. 51. Peter Joachim Lapp, “Ehemalige DDR-Blockparteien auf der Suche nach Profil und Glaubwürdigkeit,” DA 23, no. 1 (January 1990): 181–85. 52. “Necker strebt rasche Währungsunion mit der DDR an,” FAZ, January 24, 1990, p. 13. See also “BDI-Präsident Neckar: Übernahme des Grundgesetzes

186

53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58.

59. 60. 61.

62.

63.

64. 65.

Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany nach Artikel 23 erlaubt volles Mitspracherecht der DDR,” BDI: Pressemitteilung, March 11, 1990, pp. 1–3. “Deutschland, einig Unverstand,” Spiegel 44, no. 9 (February 26, 1990): 16–18. Jürgen Voges, “Kanzlerkandidat Lafontaine bleibt auf Kurs,” taz, March 28, 1990. Ivo Frenzel, “Lafontaine gibt sich siegessicher,” SZ, March 28, 1990, p. 2. Reinhard Uhse, “Europäischer Weg zur Einheit: Lafontaines deutschlandpolitisches Konzept,” PPP Korrespondent 41, no. 42 (March 1, 1990): 7. Peter Glotz, “Wer bezahlt die Vereinigung?” Bunte, March 1, 1990. “Lafontaine in Leipzig: Währungsunion nicht zu schnell,” FAZ, February 24, 1990. See also Oskar Lafontaine, “Klartext: Die Eile hat Methode,” Abendzeitung, March 5, 1990. “Soforthilfeprogramm 1990 für die Verbesserung der Lebensverhältnisse in der DDR,” presented to the Bundestag in March 1990, reprinted in Einheit ohne Vereinnahmung. Politische Erklärungen zum Prozess der deutschen Vereinigung (Bonn: Die Grünen/Bündnis 90 im Bundestag, 1990), pp. 24–27. “Einheit? Ja, aber bitte billig!: Die Ergebnisse einer Umfrage des Instituts für Demoskopie Allensbach,” Die Zeit, March 9, 1990, p. 3. See “DGB verlangt 15 Milliarden für DDR-Sofortprogramm,” taz, February 21, 1990. See the policy prescriptions of the “Kronberger circle” in “Den Kurs der DDR-Mark zwischen eins und zwei zu eins fixieren,” FAZ, January 31, 1990, p. 14; the recommendations of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in “Wirtschaftsforscher streiten um die Währungsunion,” FAZ, February 8, 1990, p. 13; and the position of the Institute for World Economy in Kiel in “Erst eine funktionsfähige Marktwirtschaft in der DDR,” FAZ, March 5, 1990, p. 19. See also “Skeptische Banker,” taz, February 8, 1990, p. 1. Pöhl is quoted in “Zeitdruck auf Währungsanschluss wächst,” taz, February 7, 1990; and in Charlotte Wiedemann, “Auch Bundesbank für schnelle Währungsunion,” taz, February 10, 1990. Otto Singer, “The Politics and Economics of German Unification; From Currency Union to Economic Dichotomy,” German Politics 1, no. 1 (April 1992): 84. Jonathan R. Zaitlin,“Hard Marks and Social Revolutionaries,” German Politics and Society 14, no.3 (fall 1994): 73–74. Dismissed by the Kohl government as further evidence of the political immaturity of the East German citizen group leaders, this request was first formulated by the head of the East German Christian Democrats, Lothar de Maizière. Walter Süss, “Mit Unwillen zur Macht: Der Runde Tisch in der DDR der Übergangszeit,” DA 24, no. 5 (May 1991): 470–78, especially pp. 475–76.

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187

66. 67. 68. 69.

Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, February 15, 1990, p. 15130. Ibid., 15131. Ibid., 15132. See “Weder Sonderopfer noch Steuererhöhung Waigel stellt klar,” FAZ, February 20, 1990, p. 13. 70. For IW assessments, see “IW-Modell für eine Währungsunion,” FAZ, February 20, 1990.“Ansichten für die DDR nicht schlecht,” FAZ, February 26, 1990, p. 19.“IW: Wirtschaftswunder auch in der DDR möglich,” FAZ, February 28, 1990, p. 19. “Löhne eins zu eins auf D-Mark umstellen,” FAZ, March 13, 1990. See also Singer, “The Politics and Economics of German Unification,” 84. 71. “Necker strebt rasche Währungsunion mit der DDR an,” FAZ, January 24, 1990, p. 13. “Hoffnungsvolle Konjunkturerwartung für 1990: DIHT,” FAZ, March 1, 1990, p. 4.“BDI-Präsident Neckar: Übernahme des Grundgesetzes nach Artikel 23 erlaubt volles Mitspracherecht der DDR,” BDI: Pressemitteilung, March 11, 1990, pp. 1–3. 72. In 1989, the Federal Republic had become the world’s leading exporter, surpassing the United States and Japan.

Chapter 6 1. For instance, 40 years of faithful government service had tainted the reputation of the East German CDU. The disclosure that Wolfgang Schurr, the chairman of DA, had served as a secret police informant troubled the alliance shortly before the election. Widely perceived as a puppet of the CSU, DSU chief Wilhelm Eberling was also criticized for having shut the doors of a Leipzig church to demonstrators in the fall revolution. 2. For an overview of the election campaign, see Helmut Smith,“Socialism and Nationalism in the East German Revolution, 1989–1990,” East European Politics and Societies 5, no. 2 (spring 1991): 234–46. See also, “Ursula Feist, “Votum für einen konservativen Modernisierungskurs: Analyse der Volkskammerwahl in der DDR,” GMH 41, no. 4 (April 1990): 233–40. 3. Matthias Jung, “Parteiensystem und Wahlen in der DDR,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 40, no. 27 (June 29, 1990): 6. See “Kohl garantiert Kleinsparern Umtausch 1:1,” FAZ, March 14, 1990, p. 1. 4. Hans-Ulrich Kempski,“Stunden, die nicht wiederkommen,” SZ, March 12, 1990, p. 3. 5. “Umfrage sieht Verluste der Ost-SPD,” FAZ, March 8, 1990, p. 4. 6. See Martin E. Süskind,“SPD will Volksentscheid über neue Verfassung,” SZ, March 7, 1990. “Die SPD hält sich den Weg zur Einheit nach Artikel 23 offen,” FAZ, March 8, 1990.

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7. “Lafontaine in Leipzig: Währungsunion nicht zu schnell,” FAZ, February 24, 1990, p. 1. See also Oskar Lafontaine, “Klartext: Die Eile hat Methode,” Abendzeitung, March 5, 1990. 8. Jung, “Parteiensystem und Wahlen in der DDR,” 7–9. In comparison, in the West German federal elections of 1987, the SPD won 52 percent of the working-class vote, while the CDU, a party with a significant Catholic worker wing, won just 36 percent. See also Dieter Roth, “Die Volkskammerwahl in der DDR am 18. März 1990: Rationales Wahlverhalten beim ersten demokratischen Urnengang,” in Die Politik zur deutschen Einheit, ed. Wolfgang Merkel and Ulrike Liebert (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 1991). 9. Eckhard Fuhr, “Lafontaines Rezepte nicht gefragt,” FAZ, March 20, 1990; Michael Böhm, “Wahlsieger: die Deutsche Mark,” Metall, March 1990, p. 8. 10. Smith, “Nationalism and Socialism,” pp. 234–46. 11. Jürgen Habermas, “Der DM-Nationalismus,” Die Zeit, March 30, 1990. 12. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, February 15, 1990, p. 15110. 13. In comparison, the Alliance for Germany fared less well in northern and eastern East Germany. In the agricultural north, socialist land reform and price supports had alleviated economic hardship. In Berlin, the center and administrative hub of the country, numerous residents had worked for the immense East German state bureaucracy. 14. Dieter Schröder, “Deutschland—uneinig Vaterland,” SZ, March 24–25, 1990, p. 4. 15. See Hans-Hermann Hartwich, “Der Weg in die deutsche Währungsunion 1990,” Gegenwartskunde 40, no. 2 (February 1991): 157–69. 16. For a discussion of this early criticism of a one to one exchange rate, see “Pöhl gegen Umtauschkurs von 1:1,” taz, March 26, 1990, “Monetäre Union auf dem Prüfstand der Währungshüter,” SZ, March 27, 1990, p. 27; and Jürgen Forster,“Niedriges Lohnniveau als Starthilfe für DDR-Betriebe,” SZ, March 29, 1990, p. 31. See Gerlinde Sinn and Hans-Werner Sinn, Jumpstart:The Economic Unification of Germany, trans. Juli Irving-Lessmann (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992). 17. Pöhl defended the 2:1 rate of exchange, noting that “the GDR will not become poor because the DM is introduced, rather, she is poor because her economy is rotten.” See “Umtausch 2:1 soll DDR-Wettbewerbsfähigkeit stärken,” SZ, April 2, 1990, p. 23. 18. “Gute Noten für die deutsche Demokratie,” SZ, April 24, 1990, p. 12. 19. In East Germany, the average wage was 1300 East German marks. For discussion of the union reaction, see “Kaufkraft entspricht Produktivität,” taz, March 28, 1990. See “Entrüstung über 1:2 Umtausch,” Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), April 2, 1990, pp. 1–2. See also “Streit über Umtauschkurs eins zu eins hält an,” SZ, April 24, 1990, p. 29.

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189

20. See speech of Matthäus-Maier, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, March 30, 1990, pp. 16051–53. See also “Entrüstung über 1:2 Umtausch,” FR, April 2, 1990, p. 2. 21. See “Ohne 1:1 werden wir nicht eins,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 15 (April 9, 1990): 16–23. See also, “Entrüstung über 1:2-Umtausch,” FR, April 2, 1990. 22. De Maiziére cited in DA 23, no. 5 (May 1990): 799–800. 23. “Bonn tut zuviel für die DDR,” Der Spiegel, 44, no 22 (May 28, 1990): 42. See “Politischer Kurs mit deutlichen Korrekturen bestätigt,” SZ, May 8, 1990, p. 6. 24. Theodore J. Lowi, “American business, public policy, case-studies and political theory,” World Politics 17 (July 1964): 677–715. 25. Michael Birnbaum,“Oskar Lafontaines Trompete für den Wahlkampfmarsch,” SZ, April 21–22, 1990, p. 12.“Klarheit über Kosten der Einheit gefordert,” SZ, May 3, 1990, p.2. Joachim Poss, “Wo nimmt Waigel 100 Milliarden her?” Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst.Wirtschaft, 45, no. 33 (April 24, 1990), p. 1. 26. Handelsblatt April 4, 1990, p. 5. 27. Polls showed that West Germans preferred Lafontaine to Kohl by a narrow margin.“Gute Noten für die deutsche Demokratie,” SZ, April 24, 1990, p. 12. 28. These subcommittees formulated policy in regard to currency union, economic reform, the adjustment of labor codes, law codes, social policies, state structures and public ordinances, and the security and foreign-policy implications of unification. Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage: Innenansichten der Einigung (Berlin: Siedler, 1991), p. 132. 29. Lehmbruch,“Die improvisierte Vereinigung,” 472. Roland Sturm,“The Chancellor and the Executive,” in Adenauer to Kohl:The Development of the German Chancellorship, ed. Stephen Padgett (London: Hurst & Co., 1994), 97–98. 30. Presseservice der SPD, issue 170 (April 23, 1990): 1. 31. “Vertrauen in FDGB ist unrettbar geworden,” FR, May 7, 1990, p. 4. 32. Dieter Schröder, “Deutschland—uneinig Vaterland,” SZ, March 24–25, 1990, p. 4. 33. See “SPD: Staatsvertrag veröffentlichen,” taz, April 18, 1990, p. 2. Also see “Umtauschkurs 1:1 soll für Löhne und Renten sowie für Sparguthaben und Bargeld bis 4000 Mark gelten,” SZ, April 24, 1990, p. 1. 34. See “Die Mitteilung der Bundesregierung zur Währungsunion,” taz, April 24, 1990, p. 3. For critical assessments of Bonn’s working paper for currency union, see Hans-Peter Schneider, a West German legal scholar,“Ich bin reich, ihr seid arm,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 19 (May 7, 1990): 34–37. See also Brigitte Fehrle,“Staatsvertrag-das Bonner Diktat an Ost-Berlin,” taz, April 20, 1990. 35. Jens Reich, Rückkehr nach Europa: Bericht zur neuen Lage der deutschen Nation (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1991), 221. 36. See “SPD formuliert ihren eigenen Staatsvertrag,” taz, May 10, 1990. 37. See Kurt Biedenkopf “Alle Deutschen beteiligen,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 20 (May 14, 1990): 38.

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38. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, April 27, 1990, 16406–8. 39. “Schwerpunkt: DDR,” Der Gewerkschafter 38, no. 5 (May 1990): 18. Michael Birnbaum,“DGB befürchtet Nachteil für DDR-Bürger,” SZ, May 10, 1990, p. 6. DGB Executive Committee and Consultative Council of the GDR Unions, “Stellungnahme zum Entwurf der Bundesregierung für einen Staatsvertrag mit der DDR,” Informationsdienst des deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, May 16, 1990. 40. Verhandlungen des deutschen Bundestages, April 27, 1990, pp. 16399–403, 16415–18. See Vogel’s address on May 10, 1990, pp. 16478–81. “Ausschuss ‘Deutschen Einheit’: Position und Änderungsverlagen der SPD,” Die SPD im Deutschen Bundestag, May 16, 1990, pp. 1–4. 41. These included the prohibition of the lockout, increased worker job protection, an improved standing for retirees, and some West German assistance in financing the East German government’s budget deficit. To cover the projected 33 billion DM deficit during the second half of 1990, the parties agreed that 10 billion would be acquired through East German borrowing, while the remaining 23 billion would come from the recently created fund “German Unity.” On May 16, Kohl and the state governors had agreed to establish this financial pool for the financing of the costs of unity. The federal and state governments would each contribute half of the 115 billion DM as part of a four-year program. The lion’s share of the money (95 billion) would be funded through borrowing. See “Dann wird der Kampf heiss,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 21 (May 21, 1990): 18–29. “Kosten der Einheit sollen aus einem Sonderfonds in Höhe von 115 Milliarden Mark finanziert werden,” SZ, May 17, 1990, p. 1. 42. The coalition parties had favored a ten-year transitional period to shield East German property from foreign speculators. The coalition agreement of April 12 is reprinted in Dokumente der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands: Quellentext zum Prozess der Wiedervereinigung, Ingo von Münch and Günter Hoog (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1991), pp. 163–90. 43. Both speeches are reprinted in CDU-Informationsdienst in Deutschland 18 (May 31, 1990): 2–8. Once more, Kohl made the assurance that East Germany would soon be a “blossoming landscape,” 4. 44. “Staatsvertrag mit der DDR unterzeichnet,” SZ, May 19–20, 1990, 1. 45. “Dann wird der Kampf heiss,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 21 (May 21, 1990): 19. 46. See “Die Bonner Koalition steht als der Wahlverlierer da,” FR, May 15, 1990, p. 4.“Aufwind für die Sozialdemokraten,” SZ, May 22, 1990, p. 9. For an excellent account of why West Germans were uneasy, see Gebhard Schweigler, “Was deutsch ist, bestimmen wir,” SZ, May 31, 1990. 47. According to polls, the percentage of West Germans expecting short-term disadvantages to result from unification had risen from 49 percent in April to 56 percent in May. Max Kaase, “Electoral Politics in the New Germany: Public Opinion and the Bundestag Election of December 2, 1990,” in The

Notes

48.

49. 50.

51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59.

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Domestic Politics of German Unification, ed. Christopher Anderson, Karl Kaltenthaler and Wolfgang Luthardt (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), p. 45. In April, a mentally insane assailant had attacked Lafontaine during a rally in North-Rhine Westphalia. After this nearly fatal strike to his neck, Lafontaine remained out of the public eye for several weeks. Helmut Lölhöffel, “Lafontaine setzt seinen Willen durch,” FR, May 22, 1990. Presseservice der SPD, issue 205 (May 21, 1990): 1–2. Wolfgang Roth, an expert on economic policy, proclaimed: “We want the state treaty. We also want the currency union. Furthermore, we want the economic and social union.” Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, May 23, 1990, p. 16698. “Eine eminente Fehlentscheidung,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 22 (May 28, 1990): 26–29. The Social Democrats could not convince the government in Bonn to assume East German industry’s debt, nor accept higher trade tariffs to protect East German production. The SPD reported success in securing protection for part-time workers, in restricting the exchange of the SED’s ill-gotten gains, and in improving the environmental component of the treaty. “Lafontaine hält seine Kanzlerkandidatur aufrecht. SPD will Staatsvertrag mit DDR nicht scheitern lassen,” SZ, June 12, 1990, p. 1. Ferdos Forudastan, “SPD feiert Niederlage beim Staatsvertrag,” taz, June 13, 1990, p. 1. See also Presseservice der SPD, issue 253, June 14, 1990, pp. 2–6. The final tally was 445 in favor, 60 opposed, and 1 abstention. Joining the few Social Democrats, 34 Green deputies opposed the treaty. “Eine eminente Fehlentscheidung,” 28. See also “Kohl warnt Sozialdemokraten vor einem Nein,” SZ, June 11, 1990, p. 2. See Gerhard Lehmbruch,“Die deutsche Vereinigung: Strukturen und Strategien,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 32, no. 4 (December 1991): 587. In May, 42 percent of the West Germans polled supported Lafontaine’s proposed course. By June, public support of Kohl’s approach had grown. Kaase, “Electoral Politics in the New Germany: Public Opinion and the Bundestag Election of December 2, 1990” in The Domestic Politics of German Unification, ed. Anderson et al., 44. For the external dimensions of German unification, see Stephen F. Szabo, The Diplomacy of German Unification (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Elizabeth Pond, Beyond the Wall: Germany’s Road to Unification, (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1993); and Karl Kaiser, Deutschlands Vereinigung. Die internationalen Aspekte (Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lübbe Verlag, 1991). Fred Oldenburg,“Sowjetische Europa-Politik und die Lösung der deutschen Frage,” Osteuropa 41, no. 8 (August 1991): 761. Reinhard Uhse, “Europäischer Weg zur Einheit,” PPP Korrespondant, March 1, 1990, p. 7.

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60. Horst Teltschik, 329 Tage, 41. 61. In 1989, the far-right German Republican party (Reps) had won over 7 percent of the vote in the Berlin state elections and in the European parliament elections. 62. Teltschik, 329 Tage, 104, 125, 163–64, 167–68. 63. Ulrich Albrecht, Die Abwicklung der DDR. Die “2 + 4 Verhandlungen.” Ein Insiderbericht (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992). Szabo, The Diplomacy of German Unification. 64. Hannes Adomeit, “Gorbachev and German Unification,” Problems of Communism 39, no. 4 (July-August 1990): 11. 65. Karl Kaiser, “Germany’s Unification,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 1 (1990/1991): 196–200. W.R. Smyser,“U.S.S.R.-Germany: A Link Restored,” Foreign Policy 84 (fall 1991): 125–41. 66. Robert Gerald Livingston,“In Adenauer’s Footsteps, Kohl Might Pass Him,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1991. Bruce W. Nelan, “Kohl wins his way: A united nation within his grasp, the German leader will never be underestimated again,” Time, July 30, 1990, pp. 24–9. 67. In July, Kohl’s popularity increased dramatically. “Nur jeder Vierte glaubt an Wechsel,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 31 (July 30, 1990): 32–37. 68. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, August 23, 1990, p. 17444. 69. “Talfahrt der DDR-Wirtschaft wird immer schneller,” FR, August 14, 1990, p. 6. “Arbeitslosigkeit in der DDR stark angestiegen,” SZ, September 6, 1990, p. 2. In August, unemployment increased by 33 percent, reaching 4.1 percent of the labor force (361,000). In addition, there were 1,440,000 East Germans registered as part-time workers. Many of these were not working, yet were paid until their firm was liquidated. 70. Wolfgang Schäuble, Der Vertrag. Wie ich über die deutsche Einheit verhandelte (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991). 71. In contrast to the pre-signature negotiations over currency union, the negotiations that preceded the August 31 signing of the unification treaty were marked by an active involvement of the opposition. Since the treaty required changes in the Basic Law, the government needed SPD support to achieve the two-thirds Bundestag majority for constitutional changes. This led Kohl to call a top-level meeting of the party leaders. “Kohl gibt Verlangen von SPD und FDP nach,” SZ, August 25–26, 1990. “Einheit Deutschlands jetzt besiegelt,” SZ, September 1–2, 1990. Hans-Peter Schneider, “Alle Staatsgewalt geht dem Volk aus,” Der Spiegel 44, no. 34 (August 20, 1990): 19–20. 72. Property confiscated during the occupation years (1945–49) would not be returned, thereby preserving the Soviet land reform that followed the war. “Gemeinsame Erklärung zur Regelung offener Vermögensfragen,” DA 23, no. 7 (July 1990): 1139–41. The Social Democrats opposed this settlement. Lafontaine believed that the “principle ‘return rather than compensate’ should be reversed. For us,‘compensate rather than return’ stands as first pri-

Notes

73. 74. 75.

76.

77. 78.

79. 80.

81.

82. 83.

84. 85.

86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

193

ority since one cannot amend previous injustice with new injustice.” Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, September 20, 1990, p. 17812. Sinn and Sinn, Jumpstart, 96–97. David Stark, “Path Dependence and Privatisation Strategies in East Central Europe,” East European Politics and Societies 6, no. 1 (winter 1992): 29–32. Letter of March 27, 1991, from Rohwedder to all Treuhand employees. Reprinted in Die Treuhand und die zweite Enteignung der Ostdeutschen, ed. Rüdiger Liedtke (Munich: edition spangenberg, 1993), p. 55. In East Berlin, the citizen groups and the Communists voted against the unification treaty, while in Bonn, Green deputies and a handful of conservative opponents of the Oder-Neisse line did not vote for the treaty. “Geringe Beteiligung und landsmannschaftliche Unterschiede,” FR, October 16, p. 4. Ursula Feist, “Weder postmaterialistisch noch national: Analyse der ersten gesamtdeutschen Bundestagswahl am 2. Dezember 1990.” Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte 42, no. 1 (January 1991): 8–17. “Dynamik im Westen, Abschwung im Osten,” FAZ, February 5, 1991. It is important to note, however, that the CDU-CSU performed no better in the old FRG in the December elections than it had in 1987. In fact, its end result in the West, 44.3 percent of the vote, was its lowest share since 1949. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen e.v., Bundestagswahl 1990: Eine Analyse der ersten gesamtdeutschen Bundestagswahl. (Mannheim: Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 1991), pp. 57, 62–3. Kurt Reumann,“Gescheitert, aber nicht verschwunden,” FAZ, December 5, 1990, p. 5. In the December 2 federal election, the CDU-CSU won the vote of more than 55 percent of those 60 years of age and older. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen e.v., Bundestagswahl 1990, p. 30. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, “Der Optimismus hat gesiegt,” FAZ, December 5, 1990, p. 5. Hartung, “keine Alternative,” taz, May 22, 1990. Kenneth Dyson, “The Economic Order—Still Modell Deutschland” in Developments in German Politics 2, ed. Gordon Smith, William E. Paterson and Stephen Padgett (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 204. Helmar Drost,“The Great Depression in East Germany: The Effects of Unification on East Germany’s Economy,” East European Politics and Societies 7, no. 3 (fall 1993): 455. Sinn and Sinn, Jumpstart, 92. “Treuhand am kritischen Punkt,” Die Zeit, August 6, 1993, p. 9. “Model Vision: A Survey of Germany,” Economist, May 21, 1994, p. 10. Drost, “The Great Depression in East Germany,” 466. Sinn and Sinn, Jumpstart, 117. Brie, “Das politische Projekt PDS,” in Die PDS, ed. Brie et al., 14.

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92. In the Hesse election in January, the SPD replaced the CDU as the largest party. It now formed a governing coalition with the Greens. More dramatically, the CDU in the April 1991 election in the Rhineland-Palatinate won just 38.7 percent of the vote, its worst showing in Kohl’s home state since the early 1950s. Continuing its downward spiral, Kohl’s party registered just 35 percent of the vote in the June 1991 election in Hamburg. 93. The Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI) undertook this study.“Bei der Lastenverteilung der deutschen Einheit gibt es eine ‘Gerechtigkeitslücke,’” Handelsblatt, October 14, 1992, p. 5. 94. Ferdinand Protzman,“Public Employees Strike in Germany,” New York Times, April 26, 1992, p. 3. 95. Rolf Dietrich Schwartz, “Einheitsbrei dort, wo Streit fällig wäre,” FR, October 13, 1993. See also,“Der Staat wird’s schon richten,” Der Spiegel 46, no. 51 (December 14, 1992): 18–22. 96. Peter Christ and Ralf Neubauer, Kolonie im eigenen Land: Die Treuhand, Bonn und die Wirtschaftskatastrophe der fünf neuen Länder, (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1991), pp. 110–11. See also Andreas Hamann,“Aufschwung Ost: Hilfreiche Brücke schlagen,” Die Quelle 42, no. 5 (May 1991): 12. Andreas Hamann,“Keine Zauberformel,” Die Quelle 42, no. 5 (May 1991): 9–10. At the request of the DGB, Bonn also agreed to union participation in regional coordinating centers for the job-creation projects. The unions envisioned the staffs as contributing to a coherent industrial policy in the East. Rose-Marie Christ, “Keine Nebenverwaltungen,” Die Quelle 42, no. 7–8 (June/July 1991): 11. 97. Wolfgang Seibel,“Strategische Fehler oder erfolgreiches Scheitern? Zur Entwicklungslogik der Treuhandanstalt 1990–1993,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 35, no. 1 (March 1994): 14–15. Roland Czada, “Das Unmögliche Unternehmen: Die Treuhand zwischen Politik und Wirtschaft (Teil II),” Gegenwartskunde 43, no. 2 (1994): 185–86. 98. Seibel, “Strategische Fehler oder erfolgreiches Scheitern?,” 29–33. See Richard Deeg, “Reviving the German State? Institutional Transfer and Social Learning Examined in the Case of Saxony.” Paper presented at the Ninth International Conference of Europeanists, Chicago, March 31 - April 1, 1994. 99. Rainer Nahrendorf, “Wahlverwandtschaften,” Handelsblatt, September 9, 1992. 100. For an excellent analysis of the talks, see Razeen Sally and Douglas Webber, “The German Solidarity Pact: A Case Study in the Politics of the Unified Germany,” German Politics 3, no. 1 (April 1994): 18–46 101. “Assessing the Unification Process in Retrospect: Interview with Helmut Kohl,” August 13, 1992, in Statements & Speeches 15, no. 2 (New York: German Information Center, 1992), p. i. 102. N. Piper, “Gerecht sparen-wie geht das?” Die Zeit, overseas edition, July 19, 1996.

Notes

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103. For a discussion of the clash of cultures that has followed unification, see Laurence H. McFalls, Communism’s Collapse, Democracy’s Demise? (New York: New York University Press, 1995). 104. Heidrun Abromeit, “Die ‘Vetretungslücke.’ Problem im neuen deutschen Bundesstaat,” Gegenwartskunde 42:3 (1993): 281–92. 105. Helmut Wiesenthal, “Die neuen Bundesländer also Sonderfall der Transformation in den Ländern Ostmitteleuropas, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 46, no. 40 (September 20, 1996): 52–53. 106. “Eine Eminente Fehlentscheidung,” Der Spiegel, 27.

Conclusion 1. In Japan, the end of the Cold War raised the prospects of a Japanese recovery of the Kurile Islands that had been taken by the Soviet Union after World War II. Like Germany, Korea and Vietnam were also nations divided by the Cold War. 2. Stephen Padgett, “Introduction: Chancellors and the Chancellorship,” in Adenauer to Kohl: The Development of the German Chancellorship, ed. Stephen Padgett (London: Hurst & Co., 1994), 18. 3. See for instance Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der Ära Adenauer (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983), p. 24. 4. For an overview of recent literature on this question, see A. James McAdams, “Germany after Unification: Normal at Last?” World Politics 49, no. 2 (January 1997): 282–308. 5. John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15, no. 1 (summer 1990): 5–56. Walter Russell Mead, “The Once and Future Reich,” World Policy Journal 7, no. 4 (fall 1990): 593–638. 6. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future,” 6–7. 7. Timothy Garton Ash, “Germany’s Choice,” Foreign Affairs 73 (July-August 1994): 81. See the discussion of Garton Ash in McAdams, “Germany After Unification: Normal at Last?” 8. Tamed Power: Germany in Europe, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). 9. William E. Paterson, “Beyond Bipolarity; German Foreign Policy in a PostCold-War World,” Developments in German Politics 2, ed. Gordon Smith, William E. Paterson and Stephen Padgett (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 134. See also Manfred G. Schmidt, “Political Consequences of German Unification,” West European Politics 15, no. 4 (October 1992): 1–15. 10. Andrei Markovits and Simon Reich have critiqued this dichotomy on other grounds. Andrei S. Markovits and Simon Reich, The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

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11. See Peter Pulzer, “Model or Exception—Germany as a Normal State?” in Developments in German Politics 2, ed. Smith et al., 303–16. 12. According to Jane Kramer, unresolved questions of German national identity nonetheless remain at the core of German politics. See Jane Kramer, The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany (New York: Random House, 1996). See also Markovits and Reich, The German Predicament.

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Index

Abromeit, Hedrun, 145 Acheson, Dean, 19, 52 Adenauer, Konrad and Catholic Church, 27–8 and CDU/CSU, 22, 41–2, 50–2, 75 chancellor leadership of in comparative perspective, 3, 7–8, 10, 11, 79, 89, 151–3 domestic-policy preferences of, 32 diplomacy of, 2,35–6, 38, 43–4, 48, 52, 57–8 defining the policy-making debate, 37, 81, 89, 152 and FDP, 17, 24, 29, 41–2, 47, 53–4. 168 n.67 foreign-policy preferences of, 8, 21–2 and industry, 27, 40, 43–44, 53, 57, 165 n.17 linking domestic and foreign policies, 11, 26, 33–4, 36–8, 39–46, 51–2, 52–6, 58, 89, 103, 152 and policy of strength, 22, 64 and Protestants, 28–9, 34, 48, 163 n.72 regulating participation in policymaking, 11, 37, 40, 41, 50, 56, 89, 130, 144, 152–3 and Schumacher, 36–7, 49–50, 58 and the social coalitions of the early 1950s, 44, 45–6, 56–8, 150–1

and trade unions, 25–6, 36–7, 39–43, 44, 45–6, 48–9, 53–6, 57, 58, 166 n.21 Alliance for Germany, 118–9, 125–6, 188 n.13 Allied High Commission (AHC), 17, 20, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 47–8, 52, 152 anti-Communism, 20, 22, 24, 27, 62, 67, 93 APO (extra-parliamentary opposition), 71, 72 Arnold, Karl, 43 Atlantic Alliance, see NATO Austria, 6, 18, 108, 109 Bahr, Egon, 66, 84–5, 99, 153 Bahr Paper, 86, 87–8 Balkans, 16 Baring, Arnulf, 100, 104 Barzel, Rainer, 80–1, 83, 84, 87, 94–6, 97, 140 Basic Law (Grundgesetz), 17, 56, 111, 116 Article 23 of, 117, 118, 126, 127, 134, 139, 144, 185 n.44 Article 65 (Richtlinienkompetenz) of, 7 Article 146 of, 113–4, 117 Basic Treaty, 97 Bavaria Party (BP), 39, 42 BdA (Federation of German Employers’ Associations), 26, 32–3, 40, 92, 119

214


BdV (Federation of German Expellees), 69 BDI (Federation of German Industry), 70 domestic-policy positions of, 32, 33, 40, 44, 92, 96 foreign-policy positions of, 26–7, 29, 45, 69 unification-policy positions of, 119, 122 Berg, Fritz, 26–7, 29, 33, 44, 45, 57, 70 Berlin Wall, 11, 62, 64, 65, 94, 109, 110, 111, 125 BHE (Bloc of Expellees and Dispossessed), 39, 51, 57 Bild newspaper, 87 Bismarck, Otto von, 6–7, 118, 126, 155 BKA (federal chancellor’s office), 11, 76, 85, 86, 88, 90, 103, 153 Blank, Theodor, 38 Blücher, Franz, 41, 51, 53–4 Böckler, Hans, 25–6, 29, 31, 37, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 56, 57, 70 Brandt, Willy and Catholic Church, 96–7 and CDU/CSU, 76, 80–1, 82, 83, 84, 86, 91, 93, 94–6, 98, 99 chancellor leadership of in comparative perspective, 3, 7–8, 11, 83, 102, 103, 104, 151–3 defining the domestic political debate, 11, 81–2, 89, 97, 98 domestic-policy preferences of, 72 and FDP, 76, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 102 foreign policy of, 77, 79–80, 82–3, 84–6, 87, 88, 97, 98–9 foreign-policy preferences of, 8, 65–6 and industry, 76, 96 and Jusos, 95, 101–2

linking domestic and foreign policies, 11, 89–93, 94 and opposition within the SPD, 76, 86, 99, 102 and Protestants, 97, 98, 180 n.99 regulating the policy-making debate, 11, 83–5, 86–7, 88, 89, 98 and the social coalition of 1972, 98, 150–1 and trade unions, 76, 92–3, 95, 100, 101–2 Breit, Ernst, 121, 130 Brentano, Heinrich von, 50, 52 Britain, 3, 154, 155 European policy of, 23, 80 and German unification, 134 occupation policy of, 16, 17, 31, 39 Bulgaria, 64, 99 Bülow, Berhard Prince von, 7 Bundesbank, 42, 47, 52, 75, 76, 96, 100, 121, 128–29, 130, 131, 134, 141, 144, 152 Bundesrat, 123, 132, 133–4, 139 Catholic Church, 9–10, 27–8, 32, 69–70, 75, 96–7, 150, 172 n.32 Caucasus, 136–7 CDU (Christian Democratic Union), domestic policy preferences of, 32, 41, 72, 74, 75–6 election results of, 17, 29, 38–9, 65, 97, 127, 129, 132, 139–40, 142, 146, 193 nn.80 and 83 foreign policy preferences of, 21–2, 66–7, 75–6 unification policy preferences of, 117, 122, 123 unification policy preferences of East CDU, 118, 123, 129 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 109 Center Party, 10

Index chancellor democracy, 2, 3, 7, 8,10–11, 44–5, 56, 79, 102, 103, 104, 139, 143, 151–3, 155 China, 63, 109 citizen groups of the GDR, 109–10, 115–6, 118, 119, 121, 127, 131, 140, 151 Clay, General Lucius, 31, 163 n.76 coal sales agency (DKV), 19, 25, 38, 46 codetermination, debate of the 1940s and 1950s, 15, 16, 30–4, 39–43, 52–6, 58, 150, 151, 152 debate of the 1960s and 1970s, 71–4, 91–3, 100–01, 152 Codetermination Law of 1951, 35, 38, 42, 152 Cold War changes in, 4, 5–6, 8, 11, 143, 147–8, 150 development of détente in, 4, 62–4, end of, 4, 107–11, 122, 144, 148, 150 front line of, 3, 4, 5, 11, 148, 154, 155 rise of, 3, 15–18, 33, 56 Communism, 4, 26, 98 and Communist Party of Germany (KPD), 10, 17, 18, 20, 24, 83 and Eastern Europe, 4, 10, 15–17, 70, 82, 90 and eastern Germany, 119, 125, 127, 141 and German Communist Party (DKP), 93 coordination democracy, 1, 2, 3, 103, 151, see also corporatism corporatism, 1, 2, 3, 5–6, 75, 123, 130, 143, 144, 154 Council of Europe, 18, 36, 47 CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), 99, 111, 136

215

CSU (Christian Social Union), 17, 39, 67, 74, 75, 81, 82, 87–8, 97, 118 Cuban Missile Crisis, 62, 63 currency union, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128–134, 137, 139, 141, 144, 152, 153 Czechoslovakia, 18, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 99 DA (Democratic Uprising), 118, 126, 187 n.1 Davis, Undersecretary, 39 decartelization, 17, 19, 27, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44 de Maizière, Lothar, 119, 128, 129, 132 Democratic Bloc, 112, 118 democratization debate of the late 1960s, 70–4 DGB (German Trade Union Federation) domestic-policy positions, 1, 30–2, 39–42, 53–6, 58, 71–2, 92, 95, 100–1 foreign-policy positions of, 25–6, 33–4, 36–7, 39, 42–6, 48–9, 68, 117, 119, 130 DIHT (Diet of German Industry and Commerce), 26, 32 dismantling, 36–8 Dohnanyi, Klaus von, 91 domestic alignment, see social coalition DP (German Party), 17, 24, 32, 39, 41, 51 DSU (German Social Union), 118, 126, 185 n.49, 187 n.1 Duckwitz, Georg Ferdinand, 85, 87, 88, 153 ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community), 2, 8, 9, 10, 15, 18–19, 21–3, 25–7, 29, 33, 34,

216


35, 38, 39, 40, 42–3, 44, 45–7, 54, 57–8, 148, 149, 150 EDC (European Defense Community), 35, 47–52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 132, 148, 149, see also European army, Pleven Plan, rearmament East German revolution of Fall 1989, 109–11, 187 n.1 Eastern treaties, 79, 93, 94–5, 96, 97, 99, 132, 148, 150, 155 educational reforms, 71, 72–3,74, 75, 89, 90–1, 98, 99, 100 Ehmke, Horst, 76, 89, 104, 153 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 20 EKD (Protestant Church of Germany), 9–10, 28–9, 48, 49,69, 97, 117, 163 n.72, 180 n.99 Equalization of Burdens Act (Lastenausgleich), 51–2, 56, 57 Erhard, Ludwig, 32, 64, 93, 127 European army, 2, 19, 23, 25, 38, 47, see also EDC, Pleven Plan expellees, see refugees FDP (Free Democratic Party) domestic-policy preferences of, 32, 41, 53–4, 73, 75–7, 92 election results of, 17, 65, 87, 88, 139, 142 foreign-policy preferences of, 24, 50–1, 67–8, 75–7 unification-policy preferences of, 123, 135, 138 federal chancellery, see BKA federal constitutional court, 24, 49, 52, 100 Fette, Christian, 42, 45, 49, 55 France, 3, 8, 154, 155 European policy of, 8, 18–9, 23, 24, 46, 47, 52, 63, 151 occupation policy of, 16, 17 unification policy of, 134, 136

Frings, Joseph, 27,40 Gaddis, John Lewis, 62 Garton Ash, Timothy, 8, 154 GDR (German Democratic Republic), elections in, 40, 109, 113, 123, 125–7, 129, 138, 139, 144, 145 founding of, 18 hard-line policy toward, 61–2, 64, 70, 87–8 normalizing relations with, 2, 66, 67, 69–70, 80, 86, 94, 97, 99, 107–8 repression in, 108–9 territory of, 23, 29, 136 unrest in, 109–110, 112 Western policy of, 86, 99, 97 General Treaty, 48, 49–51, 52, 55, 56 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, 76, 103, 135–7, 138 Gomulka, Wadyslaw, 87 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 108, 118, 123, 136 Gourevitch, Peter, 8 Grand Coalition of 1966–1969, 64, 66, 68, 71, 75, 84, 92 Greens, 114–15, 119, 120, 122, 123, 131, 132, 135 Gromyko, Andrei, 84, 85, 87, 88 Gueffroy, Chris, 109 Gysi, Gregor, 115 Habermas, Jürgen, 127 Hallstein Doctrine, 62, 64, 66, 67, 79 Hallstein, Walter, 47 Handelsblatt, 130 Hanrieder, Wolfram, 5, 64 Harris-Burland, W., 31 Hartung, Klaus, 140 Haussmann, Helmut, 128 Heidenheimer, Arnold, 91 Heinemann, Gustav, 28 Henle, Günther, 41

Index Hitler, Adolf, 16, 19, 22, 68, 72 Hoff, Hans vom, 45–6, 48–9 Honecker, Erich, 99, 108, 110 Hungary, 64, 99, 108, 109 Hupka, Herbert, 94 IAR (International Authority of the Ruhr), 16, 17, 36, 37, 43, 44, 164 n.2 IG Druck und Papier, (newspaper workers’ industrial union), 55 IG Metall (metal workers’ industrial union), 117, 119, 142 Industriekurier, 74 interest coalitions, see social coalitions Invesment Assistance Act of 1952 (Investionshilfegesetz), 43–4 Iran, 16 Italy, 4, 21, 47, 52, 150 IW (Institute of German Economy), 122 Japan, 4, 150, 157 n.5, 195 n.1 Johnson, Lyndon, 63 Jusos (Young Socialists), 73, 76, 95, 97, 101–2, 104, 173 n.48 Kaiser, Jakob, 20 Kather, Linus, 51, 56, 57 Katzenstein, Peter, 5 Kennedy, Paul, 108 Kennedy administration, 63 Khrushchev, Nikita, 62–3 Kiesinger, Kurt-Georg, 66–7, 81, 87, 95 Kohl, Helmut and the Bundesbank, 139–40, 152 chancellor leadership of in comparative perspective, 3, 7–8, 11, 130, 144, 151–3 defining the domestic political debate, 11, 127, 139, 143 and Lafontaine, 120, 133, 140, 145 linking domestic and foreign policies, 11, 134–7, 139, 152

217

post-fall 1989 unification policy of, 111, 118, 129, 131, 134–9, 142–3, 144–6 pre-1989 Deutschlandpolitik of, 107–08, 125 regulating participation in policymaking, 11, 130–1, 134, 139, 143–4, 152–3 and the social coalition of 1990, 139–40, 141, 150–1 unification policy preferences of, 2, 118, 122, 123 and the Wende of 1982, 104, 152 Korea, 18, 19, 25, 33, 195 n.1 Korean War, 18, 19, 25, 33, 148 Krenz, Egon, 110 Labour Party, 16, 23 Lafontaine, Oskar, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127, 130, 133–34, 135, 137, 140, 145–6, 150, 191 n.48 Lambsdorff, Otto Graf, 129 Lehmbruch, Gerhard, 130 Leussink, Hans Maier, Charles, 2 Marshall, George, 16 Marshall Plan, 16, 20, 26, 29, 30, 36 Matthäus-Maier, Ingrid, 126 Mearsheimer, John J., 153 Meckel, Markus, 114 Mende, Erich, 87 Mitterrand, François, 134 Modrow, Hans, 112, 113, 115, 117, 121 Monnet, Jean, 19 MSB (Military Security Board), 17 Munich Treaty, 99 national dimension of unification, 113–19 national profile analysis, 8–10, 15, 21, 29–30, 57, 61, 65, 70, 107, 119, 149–50

218


National Socialism, 27, 155 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 17, 18, 19, 20, 47, 50, 52, 80, 123, 134, 136, 154 Necker, Tyll, 119 New Forum, 110, 115, 117 (checked) Niemöller, Martin, 28–9, 163 n.72 Nixon administration, 63 NPD (National Democratic Party), 65, 67, 68, 71, 74, 81, 171 Nobel Peace Prize, 94, 98 Nolte, Ernst, 2 obligations clause of the General Treaty, 50, 51, 52 Occupation Statute, 17, 47, 48 Oder-Neisse line, 9, 61, 66, 69, 70, 81, 83, 85, 86, 135, 137, 149, 193 n.76 OEEC (Organization of European Economic Cooperation), 16, see also Marshall Plan parity codetermination, see codetermination Petersberg, 17, 20, 38 Petersberg Protocol, 35–7, 44, 81, 152 Picht, Georg, 73 Piper, Nikolaus, 145 Pirker, Theo, 57 Pius XII, 27, 32 Pleven Plan, 19, 24, 46, see also EDC, European army Pöhl, Karl-Otto, 121, 128, 141, 144, 188 n.17 Poland, 15, 18, 64, 85–6, 94, 98, 103, 108, 110, 135, 137 Potsdam Agreement, 83 Protestant churches in the GDR, 109, 117, 119, 121 PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), 113, 115, 117, 121, 125, 127, 142, 145, 146, see also SED

public opinion, 39, 56, 69, 70, 71–2, 83, 99, 102, 104, 114, 117, 120–1, 123, 126, 128, 129, 130, 134, 140, 190 n.47, 191 n.56 Radical Decree of 1972, 90, 93 Rapallo, 80 rearmament debate, 9, 10, 19–20, 21–4, 25–6, 27–9, 34, 35, 38, 39, 43, 46, 47–52, 55, 56, 57, 70, 150, 155, see also EDC (European Defense Community), European army, Pleven Plan Red Army Faction, 139 Reich, Jens, 115, 131 refugees, from Eastern Europe, 39, 51–2, 56, 57, 69, 70, 75, 85, 86, 94, 149 from the GDR, 109–11, 112, 118, 147 Republican party (Reps), 135, 192 n.61 return of confiscated property in the GDR, 138 (check) return of industry shares in the FRG, 43, 44, 53, 58 Reuter, Ernst, 34, 65 Richtlinienkompetenz (the right to determine the direction of policy), 11, 56, 144, 152 Rohwedder, Detlev, 139 Romania, 64, 109 Romberg, Walter, 132 Rosenberg, Ludwig, 25, 71 Roth, Wolfgang, 126, 191 n.49 Round Table of the GDR, 116, 117 Ruhr region, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 53, 58 SACeur (Supreme Allied Commander in Europe), 19, 20 Scheel, Walter, 65, 67, 76, 84, 86–7, 88, 99

Index Schmidt, August, Schmidt, Helmut, 7, 76, 103–4, 126 Schröder, Gerhard, 93, 95 Schumacher, Kurt, 83, 84, 87, 140 foreign-policy opposition to Adenauer, 36–7, 39, 46–7, 49–50, 83, 84, 87, 140, 149 foreign-policy preferences of, 10, 22–4, 29, 30, 31, 58 magnet theory of, 22, 30, 31 and Niemöller, 28 and unions, 36–7, 44, 46 Schuman, Robert, 18, 27 Schuman Plan, see ECSC Second Trusteeship Law, 138 SED (Socialist Unity Party), 18, 24, 110, 111–12, 113, 116, 118, 119, 133, 142 social coalition, formation of, 4, 5–8, 147–50 of early 1950s, 2, 44, 45–6, 56–8, 150–1 of 1972, 3, 98, 150–1 of 1990, 3, 139–40, 141, 150–1 social dimension of unification, 119–22 Solidarity, 108, 110 Solidarity Pact, 143 Soviet Union, 22, 27, 61, 67, 99, 153 Cold War policy of, 15–17, 20, 21, 48 and détente, 62–5, 84–5, 88, 94, 98, 148 and German unification, 108–9, 110, 134, 136–7 Späth, Lothar, 117 SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) domestic policy preferences of, 31, 72–3 election results of, 17, 39, 65, 97, 102, 127, 129, 132, 139, 142, 146 foreign policy preferences of, 22–24, 29, 65–66

219

internal divisions of, 72–3, 76, 86, 89, 102 unification policy preferences of, 114, 119, 120–1, 122–3, unification policy preferences of East SPD, 18, 114, 126, 127 Spiegel, 133, 145 Spofford Compromise, 20 Sputnik magazine, SRP, 39 Stalin, Josef, 48, 49, 62 Stasi (state security of the GDR), 112 Stoltenberg, Gerhard, 84 Strauss, Franz-Josef, 103, 104 détente policy of, 104, 108 foreign-policy preferences of, 67 opposition to Brandt government of, 67, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 95, 149 Stresemann, Gustav, 94 Sweden, 6, 65, 83 Teltschik, Horst, 135 Templin, Wolfgang, 116 Ten Point Plan, 111, 130 Thatcher, Margaret, 134 Third Reich, 22, 71 Tirpitz, Alfred von, 7 Treuhand agency, 138–9, 141–2, 143 Turkey, 16 2 plus 4 treaty, 134, 136–7 unemployment, 1 in eastern Germany, 122, 133, 137, 141, 142, 145 in western Germany, 36, 39, 100, unification treaty, 138–9 United Kingdom, see Britain United States, 21, 154 Cold War policy of, 15–17, 19–20, 148 and détente, 62–3, 64–5 and German unification, 134 occupation policy of, 16, 17, 20, 38, 47

220


Ussuri river, 63 Verbundwirtschaft, 19, 27, 38, 47 Vertragsgemeinschaft, 114 Vetter, Heinz, 100, 101 Vietnam, 195 n.1 Vogel, Hans-Jochen, 111, 119, 120, 126 Vogel, Otto, 33 Voigt, Karsten, 111 Volkskammer, 125, 129, 138, 139 Waigel, Theo, 121, 128, 132, 145

Warsaw Pact, 136 Wehner, Herbert, 83–4, 95, 99 Western Allies, 4, 15, 27, 28, 29, 35–7, 38, 47–8, 52, 53, 57, 62–3, 64, 136, 147 Work Council Law of 1920, 54 Works Constitution Act of 1952, 57, 58, 71, 92 Young Socialists, see Jusos Yugoslavia, 62 Zoglmann, Siegfried, 87

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