West German Ostpolitik, the Soviet Union, and East-West Détente in Europe

Michael Borchard, Stefan Karner, Peter Ruggenthaler, Hanns Jürgen Küsters

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798765167694
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

West German Ostpolitik, the Soviet Union, and East-West Détente in Europe explores how the détente policy changed the character of the Cold War.

The Moscow files, now opened for the first time show 50 years later, reveal new insights and implications into the creation and implementation of the détente policy. This collection offers a detailed examination of European security from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s with focus on five areas: 1) the first stirrings of détente in West German-Soviet relations, the framework conditions of domestic and foreign policy on the two sides and the extent to which interests ultimately enshrined in treaties were contradictory and/or compatible; 2) the preconditions of détente in the first half of the Brezhnev era; 3) economic interests as a driving force of political change; 4) the consequences of the Treaty of Moscow for East European states; and 5) the consequences of the Transatlantic partnership. The contributors highlight the complexity of domestic and international considerations that produced Ostpolitik and the subsequent emergence of long-term East-West détente in Europe, while offering the argument that Eastern policies and détente only came to fruition after the climax of the Cold War.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Content
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: East-West Détente: Times of Change in the early Brezhnev Era
• Chapter 1: Is the “Neue Ostpolitik” Really That New?
• Chapter 1: The Establishment of Diplomatic Relations and their Consequences and the Lines of Continuity Leading to Willy Brand ’s Policies
• Chapter 2: Germany’s Legal Status in the Negotiations on the Treaties with Warsaw Pact States, the Basic Treaty, and the CSCE in the Light of Soviet Files
• Chapter 3: The Soviet Economy in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev Years 1964–75: Reforms, Doldrums, and Paths Not Taken
• Chapter 4: The Brezhnev Doctrine and Its Implications for Ostpolitik
• Chapter 5: Brezhnev and Brandt’s Neue Ostpolitik
• Chapter 6: The Road to Helsinki: Defusing Tensions with Bonn as the Last Stage on the Road to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
• Chapter 7: The KGB’s Secret Channel and Its Actors, 1969–81
• Chapter 8: The Soviet Union, China, and Détente
• Part II: Western Allies and the West Germany’s Ostpolitik
• Chapter 9: National Interests and the Common Purpose of the Western Alliance: The North Atlantic Alliance and the Runup to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1964–72
• Chapter 10: Complex Relations: Nixon, Kissinger, and Willy Brandt
• Chapter 11: A Relic of the Cold War?
• Chapter 11: The Nixon Administration, Brandt’s “New Ostpolitik” and Radio Free Europe, 1969–73
• Chapter 12: The Basis of Ostpolitik and Détente: The Heath Government (1970–1974) and the Berlin Question
• Chapter 13: French Détente Policy and “New Ostpolitik”
• Part III: The Impacts of Détente in East Central Europe
• Chapter 14: Anchoring the GDR in the Eastern Bloc as a Collateral Effect of Détente
• Chapter 15: The People’s Republic of Poland and Ostpolitik
• Chapter 16: 1968, Czechoslovakia, US policy, and Détente
• Chapter 17: Uncanny Leagues:
• Chapter 17: Brandt, Ceaușescu, and the Cold War Détente:
• Chapter 18: Hungary in the Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Chapter 19: Bulgaria, CSCE, and West Germany’s Ostpolitik
• Selected Bibliography
• Printed Sources
• Index