This document initially aroused great hopes in the GDR, but then there was enormous frustration: the German-German agreement of 1972 was a very bold decision for the then Chancellor, Willy Brandt. For the leader of the East German SED party, Erich Honecker, he was a reason for triumph. But only temporarily.

On December 21, 1972, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic signed the so-called Basic Treaty. In practice, this was done by East German diplomat Michael Kohl and Western negotiator Egon Bahr, who said after signing this document: “So far we have had no relationship, now we will have one. bad – and that’s progress”.

The agreement was not only a milestone in Chancellor Willy Brandt’s previous Eastern policy (“Ostpolitik”), which was based on the formula of “change by rapprochement”, a formula which was again widely debated after the start of the war in Ukraine. Brandt, it was also a diplomatic masterpiece, because the opposition in Bonn vehemently opposed this decision. For East Germany’s new leader at the time, Erich Honecker, the treaty was a triumph, but it was the beginning of a long road of downfall. for the GDR, which ended in 1989.

Showdown in Bonn

In the past, Brandt, as mayor of West Berlin, wanted to relieve the citizens of East and West who had not been able to meet in person since the construction of the wall in 1961. From 1966 as Minister of Foreign Affairs and from 1969 as Chancellor he began to implement his “new Ostpolitik”.

In 1970, the so-called Moscow Treaty with the Soviet Union and the Treaty with Poland. Thus, Germany recognized the realities that prevailed after World War II, including the Polish western border on the Oder rivers and Nysa. In the spring of 1972, ratification was the subject of a confrontation with the CDU/CSU opposition, which rejected the treaties and attempted to overthrow Brandt with a constructive vote of no confidence. The SPD chancellor survived the vote and won the snap election in November 1972 with his coalition partner, the FDP. It was this government dinner that paved the way for an agreement with East Germany.

The “Treaty on the basis of the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR” aimed to establish “good neighborly relations” on the basis of equal partnership. Today it seems trivial, but at the time it was a big step for Germany. Until 1969, the Hallstein doctrine was still officially in force. According to her, West Germany saw itself as the sole representative of all Germans and was hostile to countries that recognized East Germany.

East-West network

“The treaty changed the GDR,” says left-wing politician Gregor Gysi. – It was the process of opening up the country. Suddenly, not only diplomats from West Germany arrived in the GDR, but also journalists. GDR coverage returned to the East via Western television.

“Knowing the correspondents was also very beneficial,” says Lutz Rathenow, a former GDR dissident and writer. “Otherwise, almost all manuscripts and letters sent to the West and those with responses from the West would never have been transported safely. Without this system and some of its unforeseen side effects, my life would be very different.

Perhaps even more important were the travels and the exchange of ideas, the everyday life which was Brandt’s real focus. “After the agreement was signed, not only pensioners were allowed to leave, but also young people from the GDR, several thousand of whom traveled to Germany every year for “urgent family business”, as the official put it. historian Sascha-Ilko Kowalczuk, on the other hand, there were between five and eight million such trips from West to East per year, according to his records.

Lots of West to East

“The West was very ubiquitous in the East,” Kovalchuk explained. It’s about Western media, Western products, Western brands. Almost anything that smelled, looked, or tasted like the Federal Republic seemed desirable. The West Mark unofficially became East Germany’s second currency. Anyone with Western money had unlimited possibilities.

So this arrangement fundamentally changed everyday life, brought change, perhaps even rapprochement – ​​but did it pave the way for German unity? The hope in the GDR for fundamental reforms disappeared quite quickly. Later it was even worse.

The longer the Provisional Dual State lasted, the less likely it seemed to end. Until the East German opponents became active in 1989 and everything turned out completely differently.

(PAD/group)