Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XV, Germany and Berlin

236. Paper Prepared by the Policy Planning Council¹

Washington, November 6, 1967.

THE DIVISION OF GERMANY

This memorandum tries to develop a broad perspective on the problem posed by the division of Germany. It does not prescribe specific policies but does draw some general longer-term guidelines.

The following factors make timely another look at the division of Germany:

a) significant changes are occurring in the German outlook; this includes the Coalition’s new Eastern policy, some disillusionment with the US and the Atlantic Alliance, and growing ambivalence about de Gaulle’s concepts;

b) de Gaulle’s policy—including the growing speculation that he may leave NATO—is pushing the Germans towards a re-examination of the relationship between Western unity and their national position;

c) the Soviet Union is currently pursuing a policy designed to isolate Bonn; however, this could be a preliminary to an eventual initiative designed to exploit German frustrations by direct Moscow-Bonn approaches.

1. Bonn’s New German Policy in Historical Perspective

FRG policy on the German question is, for the first time, in a state of flux. The possible implications of this condition emerge more clearly when viewed in a historical perspective.

Since 1250, except for a few years under Hitler, all Germans have never lived together in one unified state. On the contrary, they have always been divided by religion, traditions, and outlooks.

Bismarck’s Reich, a relatively recent historical phenomenon, became so powerful and expansionist that international politics until 1945 were largely dominated by its neighbors’ struggles to prevent Germany from dominating Europe, if not the world. Twice this proved possible only through the involvement of non-European powers, the United States and (in World War II) the Soviet Union. 1919 brought amputation from Germany of what is now Central Poland. Moreover, Germany was forbidden the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland (i.e., the unity of all Germans). 1945 brought the loss of what is now Western Poland and (after 1947) the present division of the remaining German-settled territory. In short, all-German unity was brief, and unacceptable to its neighbors.

Moscow never intended, at least after 1955, to permit the unification of Germany under any but its own terms—if then. Rather, Soviet policy has remained determined to consolidate and perpetuate an East German state under Communist rule and Soviet hegemony. German hopes die slowly; but the 1961 Berlin Wall and President Johnson’s speech of October 7, 1966, have helped to convince West Germans that reunification in the foreseeable future is just not in the cards.

While it is difficult to gauge the depth of German national sentiment, the experience of having had a national state, as well as the obvious fact that most other nations live in nation-states, makes the Germans feel that their partition is unjust and should be undone. Their current pessimism about reunification does not mean acceptance of permanent division; rather, it focuses national attention on what seems to be more realizable, given present international realities: improving the lot of their countrymen in the East. The Kiesinger-Wehner Grand Coalition translated this changed mood into the new official West German policy of active engagement toward the East, including East Germany.

The underlying factors which led to this adjustment have been:

(1) Rising German nationalism: the desire to translate rising German economic and financial power into a more independent foreign policy;

(2) German youth’s lack of guilt for Nazi Germany;

(3) Germans’ disillusionment with the standstill on European unity, and their consequent search for other inspiring goals;

(4) their belief, arising from the post-Cuba US–USSR détente and rising differentiation in Eastern Europe, that now something could also be accomplished on the German question; and, above all,

(5) their frustration with the post-Berlin Wall cut-back in contacts with East Germany and from the lack of liberalization there, in the context of growing disillusionment with the likelihood of reunification;

(6) the increasing feeling that East Germany, with the passage of time, is becoming more viable.

Thus greater West German pressure for movement on the German question has confronted Soviet determination to be rigid. The result has been the deflection of the rising West German pressures for reunification toward a different strategy: a policy of active engagement with the East European states, the Soviet Union, and East Germany itself. This policy seeks the only goal now viewed by most West Germans as a realistic one for the near future: humanization of conditions in East Germany and gradual re-establishment of West German contacts with it.

Not that most West Germans have given up reunification as the eventual goal. Many Germans continue to hope that at some unforseen point the Soviet Union may find itself in disarray or unable to control developments in Eastern Europe. At that stage, the two Germanys could come together through a fait accompli, and this is why keeping German national sentiment alive is so vital. But this hope apart, most Germans have, reluctantly, recognized that reunification is not an attainable goal in the near future.

2. Alternative Futures

The change in the German attitude is a realistic one. German reunification, in the sense of recreating a Bismarckian Reich, is not in the cards. It is not likely to be achieved either through Western unity or through dissolution of alliances. In the rather unlikely event that it could be achieved through the latter method, it would not be in the West’s interest.

a. Reunification Through Western Unity

This involves essentially two variants:

i) Reunification Through Cold War

The first—the cold war approach—requires relatively little discussion. To the extent that anyone ever seriously believed that Germany could be reunited in the context of a hostile East-West confrontation, the events of the last fifteen years have clearly proven this approach to be unrealistic. German reunification is no closer—indeed, it is even less likely—today than it was when Stalin died or when NATO decided to permit West Germany’s rearmament. No Western government today subscribes to the notion that there can be no détente unless there is first progress on the question of German reunification—not even the Government of FRG. Unless suddenly and unexpectedly the Soviet Union collapses, this approach is dead.

ii) Reunification Through Western Integration

This brings us to an alternative approach, involving the absorption of East as well as West Germany into, and their containment by, an integrated Western European community.

Since Moscow would hardly ever accept both a continuation of the present bilateral political and defense arrangements between Bonn and Washington and absorption of East Germany into an integrated Western European community with close defense ties to the US, and since, conversely, most of Western Europe, including West Germany, will probably increasingly wish to adopt a less dependent stance vis-à-vis the United States, it is possible that a Western Europe so integrated, and visibly less dependent on us, would satisfy European (including German) and Soviet security needs. This could be so, even though the Soviet Union has strongly opposed Germany’s integration into Western Europe and would still like to minimize it.

There can be little doubt that an integrated Western Europe is bound to cause an important evolution in Communist perspectives. Eastern European trade with West Europe is the primary source of hard currency for Communist economies, and thus the development of established, normal commercial relations with a prosperous European Economic Community will become an increasingly important factor in the further economic development of the Communist states. In time, such a changed economic perspective could lead to a changed perspective in politics. Eventually, the Communist elites may come to see an integrated Western Europe, one which absorbs German energies and ambitions, as something in their interest as well.

The development of greater appreciation in the East for the common European stake in West European integration would be furthered if such a more integrated West were consciously to strive, bilaterally and multilaterally, to develop cooperative East-West relationships. Participation of the Communist states especially in a wider multilateral framework of East-West cooperation, pointing towards the economic reunification of Europe, would be bound to have a Europeanizing impact on the Communist elites themselves. It would help to develop in the East a European-minded technical and economic elite, and eventually to encourage also the appearance of a more broadminded, less parochial attitude within the political elite itself.

Moreover, since multilateral cooperation is incompatible with a high degree of internal state-controlled and centralized planning, pressures for domestic liberalization would be intensified. Thus greater involvement of the East European states in institutional and multilateral forms of cooperation with an integrated Western community would help the internal processes of evolution in the East, all of which cumulatively would promote the emergence of a new political attitude.

Eventually, the Communist elites could become less inclined to see their security as dependent on the maintenance of the present European status quo. With the political evolution slowly reducing the doctrinal Communist stake in a Communist East Germany, the division of Europe could become more susceptible to peaceful change.

But even then, it is most unlikely that the Communist side could consent to East Germany joining a politically, economically and militarily integrated Western Europe with close Atlantic ties. The Soviet Union could have no conceivable reason for permitting East Germany simply to slide over into a Western community that—from its point of view—could become easily dominated by a powerful and rearmed West Germany. In this connection, one should not underestimate the depth of popular fears in Eastern Europe and Russia of West German access to nuclear weapons. Moreover, the absorption of Eastern Germany would mean a fundamental shift in the balance of power, not to speak of the loss of Soviet control over the industrial resources of East Germany, very important to the economic development of the Soviet Union. Even with ideological erosion, the absorption of East Germany by the West would be tantamount to a major ideological setback for Communism.

b. Dissolution of Alliances

German reunification is also not likely through a dissolution of alliances, although a plausible case can be made that the Soviet Union would be more likely to countenance the reunification of a neutral Germany, either detached from the West or in the setting of an East-West dissolution of alliances. Essentially two variants can be envisaged:

i) Reunification Through Dissolution of Alliances

This approach—the dissolution of alliances school of thought—is quite popular today. It is easy to see why. Many are tired with the cold war. NATO appears old-fashioned—primarily an agency of the cold war. There is a facile simple-minded attraction to the Ceausescu-de Gaulle argument: abolish the cold war by abolishing the blocs, or vice versa.

Yet this argument is not only deceptively attractive; it is dangerously wrong. A politically fragmented Western Europe would be a Europe incapable of steering in a common direction on behalf of commonly shared goals. Détente for the sake of détente could be the only common denominator of a policy that would be tantamount to Western rivalry in seeking to improve relations and to develop advantageous trade with the East.

Accordingly, it is probably true that a loosely organized Europe, primarily as a free trade area, lacking an integrated political and defense structure, not tied closely to the United States, could more easily reach a détente with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. For the East, accommodation with such a Europe would not require any substantial ideological evolution, especially since no special concessions or adjustments in the Eastern position would be required. The Communist elites, not fearing such a Europe, would probably be quite responsive to Western overtures because they could thus have their cake and eat it too: they could savor the tangible benefits of closer economic contacts with the West without any substantial change in the over-all political situation, including that of Germany.

In this connection, it is important to bear in mind that the present Communist elites, especially the East European ones, are still in the early stages of post-peasant political awakening. By and large, their political attitudes are a curious mixture of some Communist formulae and of rather intense nationalism. Their general outlook is basically parochial and conservative. A détente that perpetuates their domestic dictatorships and leaves the European political map unchanged would thus be for them the ideal solution.

Whether a détente of this kind would be stable is another matter. There are strong reasons for skepticism. It would mean a re-creation of a Europe based on the old principle of state supremacy, with a major European nation, the German one, probably condemned to indefinite division. In those circumstances frustration in West Germany would almost certainly ensue. Having attained neither any major progress toward national unity nor fulfillment in a larger European community, the Germans could be expected to seek accommodation with the Soviet Union. Irrespective of original Soviet motives—even if it is assumed that Moscow was sincerely seeking a stable détente in Europe—the temptation to exploit German frustrations could well become too strong for Moscow to resist.

Finally, if Germany was reunited in the setting of a less united Europe—assuming Moscow agreed to it—the result would be to re-create many of the instabilities that have plagued the European order since 1870. That, given present trends, the dissolution of alliances could be the most likely sequence of events does not obviate the point that a stable solution for the German problem is not to be found in the re-creation of the pre World War II European system of nation-states. It is difficult to conceive reasons how this could be in the interest of the West.

ii) Reunification Through a Soviet-German Deal

A variant of this approach involves the reunification of Germany through a Soviet-German deal. Such a deal would require a standstill in European integration, very intense German frustration with the country’s division, and a US divorce from Europe. These are all conditions over which some control can be exercised: the West can, if it wishes, move towards greater unity; German frustration can be diminished both by greater involvement in Europe and by some progress in inter-German relations; a US-European divorce is not inevitable.

Moreover, the fact that the East Europeans, particularly the Poles and the Czechs, would oppose such a Moscow-Bonn (Berlin) deal, cannot be entirely disregarded. In addition, granting the obvious Soviet interest in disrupting Western unity by such a deal, the Soviet leaders would probably think hard before embarking on a policy that would mean the loss of East Germany in exchange for a neutral Germany in the setting of a suddenly destabilized Europe. The Soviet stake in European stability is not insignificant. This does not mean, however, that the Soviet Union will not hold out the prospect of a deal, in the hope of loosening German ties with the West, but without the intention to consummate the deal itself.

Nonetheless, obviously the possibility that Moscow and Bonn could decide some day to strike a deal cannot be excluded altogether. At some point, the Soviet Union could decide—rightly or wrongly—that its interests would be best served by a neutralized Germany, arranged by a bilateral agreement. Some Europeans might also favor that solution. Precisely because that possibility exists, it is important to reiterate that such a sudden and basic reversal in the structure of post World War II European political politics could not help but introduce a new phase of European instability, new international rivalries, new tensions.

3. More Palatable Division

It is in the West’s interest that the Germans remain committed to Western unity, even if reunification is not realizable. Hence, if the issue of the division of Germany cannot be solved, it is important to maintain the impression of progress towards a solution of the German problem while at the same time prompting, to the extent possible, an abatement of German interest in the problem of the division of Germany. This points towards a policy that makes progress towards reunification the equivalent of making the division more palatable.

This objective is to be sought in the context of broader East-West conciliation. Such reconciliation will not be achieved by a single act of settlement, nor will a resolution of the German problem be an event isolated in time; a gradual process of growing together of the East and the West and of the existing two German entities will be required. This proc-ess will have economic, cultural, political and security aspects. It is likely to involve gradual expansion in all-German contacts, in a setting of related changes in the West, in the East, and in the nature of East-West relations. All these changes have to be viewed in a dynamic perspective; a rigidly divided Germany can only endure in a divided Europe, while ending the division of Europe requires simultaneously a transformation of divided Germany into something less prone to tensions and more acceptable to the Germans.

How long the East-West process of reconciliation will take is difficult to predict, and conflicts in the Third World could cause major setbacks in Europe. Moreover, the Soviet and East European Communist leaders are likely to obstruct a real reconciliation, fearing its impact on their domestic position. Nonetheless, the process of change in Europe has been moving considerably more rapidly than anyone would have predicted a decade and a half ago.

What follows is a summary of the kind of changes that would have to take place for the process of reconciliation to result in a new relationship between the divided parts of Germany. It is not asserted that these changes will happen; it is asserted that they are desirable, that they are all sufficiently possible to be worth serious attention, and that some of them can be encouraged by the West.

a. Related Changes in the West

As already noted, West European unity is a factor of stability and contributes to positive evolution in the East. More specifically the following points should be reiterated:

(1) An Integrated Context: A more united Western Europe promises to dampen and ultimately submerge German nationalism and reduce the danger that a change in the division of Germany would upset the peace of Europe. Hence it will be important for Western European integration and political unification to move forward, both to enhance the prospects of détente and to discourage the tendency toward fragmentation noted above.

(2) UK Entry: UK entry into Europe would help greatly to offset the Eastern fear of Europe’s domination by a unified Germany, a fear which inhibits even modest progress on the German issue.

(3) German Nuclear Abnegation: Western European defense and security arrangements—including perhaps a European defense force—should not include West German access to nuclear weapons: Hence any defense community should include a special clause providing for self-imposed German abstinence in the nuclear field, relating that abnegation to progress toward the eventual goal of German reunification (perhaps allowing a lapse in, say, ten years, if no acceptable progress towards humanization of conditions in East Germany and closer East-West ties has been made).

Such abnegation is no longer viewed by all Germans as involving discrimination: The SPD is already moving towards such a nuclear abnegation by the FRG; also the cost of deploying Poseidon missiles and ABMs makes it less likely that West Germany or, indeed, Western Europe, will want to deploy credible national or multinational nuclear forces.

In addition, of course, the UK and France remain adamantly opposed to German access to nuclear weapons.

(4) Somewhat Looser Atlantic Ties: Declining US military presence in Western Europe, matching both greater West European efforts to assure their security and gradual reduction in Soviet presence in Central Europe, would be in keeping with the trend away from the post-1945 two blocs-confrontation, provided that the general US-Soviet strategic balance does not become unfavorable to the US.

b. Related Changes in the East

(1) Ideological Evolution: The erosion of the more militant aspects of Marxism-Leninism would permit the Communist leaders to view greater unity in the West not as a threat to themselves but as a logical and even positive development, inherent in modern economic and social organization. The Sino-Soviet dispute and domestic pressures in the Soviet Union both conspire to bring on such a changed perspective, although it will not happen rapidly.

(2) Political Moderation: Although for a long time to come the Soviet Union and most of the East European states will remain single-party dictatorships, their systems could gradually become more tolerant of political and intellectual dissent, thereby also weakening the role of ideology. Yugoslavia is a pioneer in this respect. Czechoslovakia may be the next to follow. The evolution of single-party dictatorships in Mexico and Spain—mutatis mutandis—may serve as an example.

(3) Internal Economic Reforms: Progressive decentralization of the Communist economies would facilitate international economic cooperation, hitherto handicapped by centralized national planning. It would also facilitate the emergence of a more independent, technologically oriented economic elite, likely to have a strong interest in economic cooperation with Western Europe and the United States. This would be the more true since the technological gap between the West and the East may be expected to widen rather than narrow.

(4) Regional Economic Cooperation: CEMA would abandon its efforts at economic integration of Eastern Europe and even Mongolia with the Soviet Union. Rather, it would concentrate on the promotion of trade and exchange of technological know-how. Clearing and convertibility would be arranged. More important would be the proliferation of more specialized subregional arrangements among the East European states, such as Intermetal. Closer industrial and energy cooperation is to be expected among East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, thereby stimulating greater recognition of the merits of regional cooperation.

(5) Alliance: The Warsaw Pact would not be formally disbanded, but Soviet combat troops would be withdrawn from Poland and Hungary. The Alliance would serve as a symbol of political interdependence: for the Soviet Union as a guarantee of minimal political loyalty, for the East European Communist elites as a safeguard against the eruption of domestic pressures into revolution and, in the case of Poland and Czechoslovakia, as an assurance of Soviet support for their territorial integrity. Otherwise, the East European regimes would be quite independent, and their own estimate of their interest would be determining in their foreign relations—i.e., they would move toward the present foreign policy of Romania.

c. East-West Relations

The process of growing together in part will be a spontaneous one: in part, it will have to be stimulated by deliberate initiatives designed to undo gradually the partition of Europe. It is to be expected that the Soviet Union will try to exploit these to its ends. Nonetheless, the broad trend, it may be anticipated, favors an improvement in East-West relations.

Extensive development of East-West bilateral ties began in the late fifties and early sixties. It is to be expected that during the next generation there might be an expansion not only in these bilateral relationships but a significant development in East-West multilateral economic cooperation.

During this period the ECE might become more active in developing East-West economic and technical cooperation. OECD might also become involved in assisting East-West scientific and technological collaboration.

Some kind of special East-West economic assembly, perhaps sponsored by OECD, ECE and CEMA, or the Council of Europe, eventually could be created. It would foster joint East-West ventures and communications, technological cooperation, etc. It could make special studies of the difficult problem of arranging multilateral cooperation between free market and state-controlled economies.

Surplus labor force might be permitted to flow Westward from the East, with considerable social-cultural impact on its return home. (This is already the case with Yugoslavia.)

Most of the East European states and the Soviet Union would become associated with GATT and IMF, in addition to perhaps negotiating special agreements with EEC. (Yugoslavia may well become an associate member of the EEC within the next five to ten years.)

The next decade might see some movement towards the creation of an East-West Political Assembly, for the purpose of discussing directly, and on a continuing basis, East-West issues. It could also become a forum for the development of a common US, European and Soviet attitude towards the problems of the Third World. Even more rapid might be the gradual involvement of the Communist states in the specialized functions of the Council of Europe.

Although the security issue remains the hardest nut to crack, gradual progress in this field would probably also develop. Given sufficient Western initiative, a European Security Commission based on the two alliances (hence including both the US and the Soviet Union) might be established, for the purpose of monitoring troop movements in Central Europe and for making periodic inspections of troop postures. Reciprocal troop withdrawals from Germany might take place even earlier, as well as some discussions concerning the definition of mutually acceptable limits on military development in Central Europe, compatible with German non-nuclear defense commitments to Western Europe or NATO.

d. Closer Relations Between the Two German Entities

The basic ingredients of a new relationship between the two Germanys can be only sketched out in a tentative way:

(1) Its principal feature would be the joint administration of utilities and services such as waterways, railroads, electric grids, posts, telegraph, etc. From such a base economic and technical cooperation might gradually spread to other economic sectors, with both German entities surrendering some of their economic sovereignty to each other. Starting as literally joint bodies, representing the two sides, mixed administrative commissions could be transformed gradually into more independent all-German regulatory agencies.

(2) Eventually, East Germany might acquire association status with EEC, especially if internal economic reforms bring it to at least the stage already reached by Yugoslavia. At the same time, since withdrawal of the GDR from CEMA would make a shambles out of Eastern European cooperation, continued GDR participation in some forms of Eastern European economic cooperation and CEMA would be expected. For example, there would be no inherent incompatibility between a GDR relationship with the EEC, and GDR participation in Intermetal. This is shown by current Yugoslav efforts to develop a working relationship both with the EEC and CEMA. Moreover, Austria at some point may also have such multiple links.

(3) An internationally more secure East German Government would be more likely to tolerate a wider margin of internal freedom, thereby alleviating the lot of the East German population and eliminating one of West German objections to two states. Moreover, the Soviet Union, having thus made progress toward one of its major European objectives, the stabilization of East Germany, would be more inclined to put pressure on East Berlin for liberalization, inter alia to bring East Germany more in line with the (by then) more liberalized East European states.

(4) The intractable problem of Berlin and the Wall would be perhaps the most difficult and sensitive aspect of the whole problem. Either the Wall would have to stay until improved East German economic conditions make flight unattractive, or the FRG would have to agree to regulate the entry and residence of persons from the GDR in a manner acceptable to the latter. Hence this might have to involve a mutually regulated though more liberal flow of people between both parts of Germany, especially in view of closer economic ties.

(5) Formal commitment by both FRG and GDR that a reunified Germany will not seek to alter existing external German frontiers would be especially important in overcoming Polish and Czechoslovak fears of any move towards closer all-German ties.

We should recognize that both sides would participate in the proc-ess with conflicting objectives: FRG hoping to erode the division and GDR to perpetuate it. Whether the process of change would lead to confederation and later go beyond it is dependent on unpredictable changes in the external environment and in the German psyche.

4. US Policy Implications

Taking our lead from West German policy on the German issue, the United States should place increasing stress on the process of German reassociation, in the context of broader East-West peaceful engagement. This would be in keeping with the increasingly widespread German feeling that closer East-West German ties are a necessary stage on the way towards self-determination. A greater sense of shared allied purpose would thus be stimulated.

At the same time, East German, or Soviet obstructions to the development of such closer ties would have the effect of reducing the effectiveness of Communist efforts to portray both the USA and the FRG as the principal obstacles to a European “détente”.

The overall effect would be to re-emphasize to the European public an important political point: for the East, an improvement in East-West relations is merely a device for freezing the status quo, in spite of all its inadequacies; for the West, it is a means for creating gradually and peacefully a more stable and secure order, acceptable to both West and East Europeans.

1. Source: Department of State, Policy Planning Council Files: Lot 71 D 273, Division of Europe and Germany. Secret. Drafted by Brzezinski. A note on the source text reads: “This paper was prepared by a member of the Policy Planning Council as background for discussion of the German problem. It was discussed within the Council and in the Interagency Planning Group. It is now being distributed to a limited number of interested officials in Washington and in several embassies abroad.”