Irrespective of what the West Germans say, the historic summit meeting between Mr. Brandt and Mr. Stoph has set in motion a chain of events which will eventually lead to the recognition of East Germany as a sovereign State by the Federal Republic. The process will not be smooth or quick but it is not possible to reverse it. As Mr. Wehner, Parliamentary Leader of the Social Democratic Party, has pointed out, recognition is inevitable. There is little doubt that Mr. Brandt himself shares this view.
The West German Government has for all practical purposes, already extended de facto recognition to the East German regime. This is the plain meaning of Mr. Brandt’s remark about two German States within one German nation. This is a far cry from Dr. Adenauer’s contemptuous treatment of all communications from East Berlin. He used to leave them unopened or throw them into the waste paper basket. In future, as up to now, the Federal Republic will have to make most of the concessions. Mr. Ulbricht will just keep reiterating his demand for full recognition.
Left Pressure
Mr. Brandt is under pressure from the Left-wing in the ruling Social Democratic Party to recognise East Germany and thus remove a major obstacle in the path of the normalisation of relations with East European countries. The Free Democratic Party to which the West German Foreign Minister, Dr. Scheel, belongs has strongly favoured such a course for some years. And even the Christian Democrats are beginning to be reconciled to the view that the division of Germany is a fact of life which cannot be wished away.
This does not mean that there is no opposition to the recognition of the GDR in the Federal Republic or that Mr. Brandt is not taking some political risk. No nation with a well-defined cultural, historic and ethnic identity ever accepts partition easily. But on present showing the process of adjustment to reality is now fairly advanced in West Germany. If further progress is not rapid, it will be mainly because of the complexities of the West Berlin problem. West Germany cannot accept the Soviet solution of a special status for this city of two and a half million people and the East German regime will not recognise it as part of the Federal Republic.
The division of Germany became permanent for all practical purposes in 1955 with the rearmament of the Western part and its incorporation into NATO. Earlier the Soviet Union could possibly be interested in its reunification in the vague hope that it might be able to bring the whole of disarmed Germany within its sphere of influence. But after 1955 it knew that the country could be reunited only through a major war, a contingency which no one in the West or in Russia could contemplate with equanimity.
But the hollowness of Bonn’s claim to be the sole representative of the German people and the untenability of the Hallstein doctrine were not fully exposed till 1962 for two reasons. First, the GDR’s economy remained dangerously weak because of the reparations it had to pay to the Soviet Union, the highly inequitous trade agreements imposed on it by Moscow and the enormous drain of educated and trained manpower to the Federal Republic till the construction of the Berlin Wall towards the end of 1961. This and the unpopularity of the Communist regime kept alive the hope in Bonn that the partition could be undone somehow some day. Secondly, the United States remained committed in word, if not in deed, to reunification till the confrontation with the Soviet Union over Cuba in 1962 when the two super Powers grasped the inescapable need for a measure of detente between them.
The year 1963 witnessed the beginning of the process of change which has made the Brandt-Stoph meeting possible. First, the GDR achieved a remarkable economic recovery. Secondly, the German problem was downgraded in the list of US priorities. The detente with Russia became America’s first concern and the management of the divisive tendencies in the NATO alliance produced by the detente the second. The search for a solution of the German problem was quietly relegated to the third place.
Dr. Adenauer was quick to anticipate the danger and sought to meet it by forging special relations with France and by sabotaging President Kennedy’s plan for an international access authority for Berlin. But he knew that his policy of not treating with the GDR and other East European countries which recognised it had been seriously undermined and that it would need to be drastically revised. But another four years were to elapse before Bonn undertook the task of shaping a new policy in right earnest. This became possible only when the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats formed a coalition and Mr. Brandt became the West German Foreign Minister towards the end of 1966.
Compromise
As is unavoidable in a coalition of this nature the new policy of “opening to the East” was based on a compromise. The result was that Bonn committed itself to the absurd idea of trying to isolate the GDR from other members of the Soviet bloc, principally Czechoslovakia and Poland, which were to be offered sizable credits on attractive terms and access to the West German market which they needed desperately. This policy proved counter-productive. Instead of being isolated, East Germany secured a veto on the relations of other Soviet bloc countries with the Federal Republic at the Karlovy Vary meeting of European communist parties in 1967 which decided that no East European nation would follow the example of Rumania and establish diplomatic relations with Bonn without the prior consent of the GDR and the Soviet Union. Mr. Ulbricht’s role in the Czech crisis showed that he enjoyed considerable influence in the councils of the Soviet bloc.
Thus when Mr. Brandt was elected Chancellor last year he came to office without any illusion. He knew that the boundaries of detente would have to be extended to include East Germany. He has been shaping the new version of Ostpolitik accordingly. The length to which he is prepared to go is evident from the fact that he agreed to accommodate Mr. Stoph on the question of not visiting West Berlin on his way to or from the summit and therefore to shift the venue from East Berlin to Erfurt. He has done so at some risk to his position because the people in West Berlin resent any gesture which can be interpreted as a change in West German attitude on the status of the city.
No Stooge
There is, however, still a possibility that Bonn may not find it obligatory to accord formal recognition to East Germany in the near future. The Soviet Union may, in its own interest, exert pressure on the latter to be content with something less than that for the time being. Whether it will succeed in this is a different question.
Contrary to the popular view which is a hangover from the period of the cold war, Russian and East German interests are not wholly identical. Moscow could take East Germany’s compliance for granted so long as it was economically weak and politically shaky and was treated as a pariah by the international community. But since its economy is booming and its polity has become relatively stable in view of the much greater acceptability of the regime to the East German people, the Soviet Union has to be somewhat wary lest Prussian nationalism, which is once again beginning to raise its head, comes to pose a problem to it. In other words, it has to devise a policy which can at once contain the influence of the GDR and prevent the two German States from reinforcing each other.
The point regarding the divergence of Russian and East German interests should become obvious if it is recognised that Mr. Ulbricht is by no means a Soviet stooge. He has repeatedly stood up to Moscow whenever the latter has acted in a manner which he thought was prejudicial to the interests of his regime. He stoutly opposed Mr Khrushchev’s plan to visit West Germany in 1964 and even moved closer to the Chinese position in the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute. Mr. Ulbricht’s alienation was at least a contributory factor in Mr. Khrushchev’s overthrow.
After 1963 the pressure on West Berlin has largely been the handiwork of the GDR and not that of the Soviet Union. In January 1969 Moscow did not endorse East Germany’s opposition to the West German Presidential election being held in the city and in fact played a mediatory role. During the West German elections last year, Mr. Ulbricht launched a propaganda campaign against the Social Democrats though the Kremlin was clearly interested in their victory and was prepared to make some gestures to facilitate it. If Mr. Ulbricht took the lead in advocating military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was not so much in defence of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe as in opposition to Mr. Dubcek’s liberalisation measures.
It is not an accident that the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic have moved so fast and so far in improving their relations. West Germany has become Russia’s biggest trading partner in West Europe. Bonn agreed earlier this year to sell to Moscow 1,200,000 tons of steel pipes, the biggest deal of the kind ever concluded by German steel makers. Mr. Bahr, Mr. Brandt’s personal representative, has had longer discussions with Mr. Gromyko in the last few months than Mr. Dean Rusk in the eight years he was America’s Secretary of State. The talks are highly confidential and not one word has been leaked about them. What is more, both sides appear satisfied with the progress.
All in all the ice between the two blocs in Europe is finally melting and a new pattern of relationship is being evolved. The progress towards an accord between the two Germanys is just one facet of the complex developments.
The Times of India, 25 March 1970