Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972

150. Memorandum From Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, December 19, 1970.

SUBJECT

• The Malaise in German-US Relations and the Ehmke Visit

In my memorandum of December 16, 1970 (Log 24424–Tab A),² I commented on various aspects of the current situation and also forwarded a CIA report on Bahr’s views (Tab B).³

Following are additional comments which you should bear in mind in your forthcoming conversation, of which State incidentally is fully aware down to the working level. Moreover, you should be aware that Ehmke asked to see Helms and on learning that he was away asked to see Ray Cline instead. There is also some reason to believe that David Binder, New York Times correspondent in Bonn is aware of the visit. He has written an article concerning German perceptions of US attitudes which was to have appeared in today’s Times but did not. It may appear in the Times on Sunday. The Chancellor’s office has denied any responsibility for the article. For Bahr’s and Ehmke’s suggestion regarding treatment of the Binder article, should it appear, see Tab C).⁴

Comments on the Situation

1. The first question, as a starting point, is: To what extent does the CIA report reflect the personal views of Bahr himself or does he reflect the views of the Chancellor and of the government as a whole? The answer is complex. Bahr’s power position is neither to be overestimated nor underestimated. In a word, the bitter attitudes reflected in the CIA report are in fact, albeit in somewhat exaggerated form, those of the center of the Brandt government and must be taken very seriously into account in our future relations with the German government.

2. Bahr is certainly the Chancellor’s closest adviser, and the very intensity of his personality gives him enhanced influence. His single-minded obsession with the Ostpolitik gives him a driving force within the German government. Ehmke pretty much across the board follows his lead on Ostpolitik, although there is a certain amount of jockeying between them in the effort to get close to Brandt.

3. There are, however, many factors at work within the government which tend to moderate Bahr’s all-out drive on the OstpolitiK:

A. First, within the SPD itself, there is strong opposition. There are emerging two major camps. On the one side are Wehner, Ehmke, Bahr, and Eppler.⁵ On the other are many powerful figures: Schmidt, Leber,⁶ Schiller, Wienand,⁷ Arendt,⁸ and Schmitt-Vockenhausen.⁹ There is going on right now a major fight between these two groups over how to handle the bitter issue of the young socialists, which came to a head at the recent Juso¹⁰ Conference in Bremen. But behind the Juso issue are basic differences between the two groups on the Ostpolitik, with the second group being for a more conservative line and a slower pace. Behind the dispute over the Ostpolitik, in turn, is the even bigger issue of a personal power struggle over the future leadership of the SPD. Schmidt and his followers, I judge, are beginning to throw their weight around more aggressively in recent weeks.

B. A second important drag is the FDP and more specifically, Genscher, the real strong man of the Party. It is he who bulled through the Berlin Junktim for both the Moscow and Warsaw treaties. Recently Genscher went out of his way to tell one of the Embassy people “Don’t let anybody in the government press you for precipitate haste or too much compromise on the Berlin negotiations.”¹¹ Genscher does this out of FDP political survival reasons: he wants to keep the traditional more conservative-minded FDP voters in the Party fold. He regards the FDP election successes in Hesse and Bavaria as vindication of his policy.

C. A third brake on the Ostpolitik within the government, curiously enough, is Schuetz and the Berlin SPD. He has now made it very clear that he does not want haste or softness in the Berlin negotiations. Obviously, he has the March elections in Berlin very much in mind.

D. To digress somewhat, I should point out that the internal SPD struggle over the Jusos will be intensified by the fact that the Juso is driving middleclass voters away from the SPD. Most dramatically, the solidly SPD election district number 39 in Frankfurt which was held by Voigt, head of the Jusos, was lost by him to a totally unknown CDU housewife. This is the first time since 1946 that the district was not carried by the SPD in a Landtag election. Election statistics generally, in Hesse and Bavaria, reflect a drift from the SPD to both the FDP and the CDU of middle class voters, largely because of the disaffection over the extremism of the Jusos though also for economic reasons. In a national election this drift could well redound to the advantage of the CDU rather than the FDP. This situation adds to the pressures on the SPD to use nationalism as an offsetting appeal to middle class voters and thus adds a further driving factor to Ostpolitik. As you are aware, Ostpolitik for many SPD leaders, is not merely a policy of normalization and reconciliation but a route to achieve the moral equivalent of reunification together with increased German influence in Eastern Europe.

E. All of this is now further compounded by the events in Poland. Without going into detail and making this excessively long, it is clear that, assuming an “optimal outcome,” i.e., that Gomulka and Co. or, at any rate, the Poles themselves will get things under control, the Soviets are bound to be even more cautious about letting the Germans have the dividends they expect from the treaties. Ulbricht’s position in Eastern councils is bound to have been strengthened. (Other outcomes have even more far-reaching and potentially dangerous implications.) As a result, opposition to Ostpolitik in Germany is bound to rise, though with what effect on Brandt and the SPD is a complex question. One positive effect, to which we should be extremely alert, is that the SPD leaders will be driven westward despite themselves. Needless to say, this would be a development that we should welcome (as will the West Europeans) although it is one that the Germans themselves should bring about. Of course, the SPD may tear itself apart in the process and the coalition may be even less capable of governing than it already is. We must therefore also anticipate a further embitterment of German politics. (Beyond all this the Polish events may well have the beneficial effect of slowing the “race to Moscow” in Western Europe generally.)

4. This is a tense time in Bonn, with knives flashing all over and a constant danger that we will be sucked into the middle. Brandt has to reconcile these conflicting forces within his own government—to say nothing of the additional brake imposed by the CDU–CSU opposition. It might seem that the “go-slow” forces on the Ostpolitik within the government now strengthened by Polish developments would be so powerful that they would carry the day completely. But this is to underestimate the strength of Bahr and Ehmke, unless they too are disheartened or thwarted by Poland. They both sit right next to Brandt in the Chancellor’s office and spend long evenings with him. Their influence is very important and will continue to be so. The fact is that unless we can improve our relations with these two men, our relations with the Brandt government as a whole are bound to be plagued with mistrust and trouble.

5. The problem we face is to overcome [a] whole series of prejudices to which Bahr, Ehmke, and Wehner are prone. Most are all too accurately reflected in the CIA report. They include the following:

A. The US favors the CDU over the SPD through years of contact with the former. The steady stream of CDU visitors to Washington over recent months is cited as proof of this.

B. Republicans are constitutionally incapable of understanding Social Democrats.

C. There are differences within the Administration on the Ostpolitik and Berlin, with State (Secretary Rogers and Marty [Hillenbrand]) being much more understanding, and with the White House, including particularly you, being much more negative. Secretary Laird and Shakespeare are also identified in their minds as enemies of the Ostpolitik and the Brandt government. (Laird was until recently singled out as being particularly unsympathetic. Schmidt, who is a conservative on Ostpolitik, complained bitterly about Laird’s position on Ostpolitik at the Ottawa NPG meeting. However, Schmidt indicated subsequently that Laird was much more “understanding” at the Brussels NATO Ministerial.)

D. Another belief in the Chancellor’s office is that the US is over-obsessed with the Soviet worldwide threat, reading more into this than the facts call for. It is claimed that we take a rigid position in the Berlin talks because of spillover from our tough and pessimistic approach to Middle East, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Bahr has obviously in his talks with Falin been taken in by the Soviet line in this respect.

Ehmke Visit

At Tab D is a CIA report on the Ehmke visit. [2 lines not declassified]

Ehmke has meanwhile told Fessenden that the German Government press office has the following contingency guidance should the Ehmke visit evoke public notice. He has asked that we follow the same line

“Ehmke had planned to meet with Kissinger during Ehmke’s visit to Washington in early October. However, this meeting could not take place because Kissinger had to go to the Mediterranean with the President. At the time they missed each other in October, Ehmke and Kissinger had agreed to get together in the near future. Ehmke’s present trip to see Kissinger is for that purpose.”

Ehmke told Fessenden that the press would be very skeptical about this but he nevertheless hoped both governments would rigidly stick to this line.

I presume you know what you want to say to Ehmke. I would merely note that, like it or not, as long as Brandt is in power Bahr and Ehmke will be powerful figures and we have no alternative to working with them. While my foregoing comments on the German situation suggest the possibility of a government crisis next year that will result in the end of SPD rule, this is wholly speculative. The CDU has yet to resolve its leadership crisis; and the Basic Law makes new elections, before 1973, an extremely difficult thing to pull off. The reasonable expectation therefore is that Brandt will stay in power for three more years.

1. Among particular points to make with Ehmke would be

• —The CDU visitors to Washington were all self-invited guests, or at any rate not invited by us.
• —Acheson’s statements to Chalmers Roberts were his own (witness the things he said on matters other than Ostpolitik!); the President has made his own views known directly to Chancellor Brandt both orally and in writing and our basic philosophy was laid out in the Report to Congress last February 18.
• —The Germans would make a terrible mistake if they tried to go around the US Government to take their case on Ostpolitik to the US people via TV, the press and opposition Senators (Muskie); the American people at large are not too much interested in the subject and to the extent they are, the Germans can expect little sympathy. (Ehmke himself has been a prime user of the American press in Bonn and, as you know, put on quite an act when he was here during the President’s Mediterranean trip.)
• —Our attitude on Ostpolitik is not a matter of “opposition” or “support.” Our concern has been that the implications are fully analyzed and understood and that potential adverse effects are recognized in advance and steps taken to deal with them.

2. Ehmke may well elicit your reaction to Brandt’s proposal to give a “conference-like character” to the Berlin talks. You should say that

• —we are studying this carefully;
• —the issue is not form but substance; if a new format could really produce progress on substance we will certainly not stand in the way;
• —we will be consulting further with the French, British and Germans on the Chancellor’s suggestion;
• —the President will of course reply to the Chancellor’s letter.

3. You should bear in mind these positive points: (a) Schmidt has been constructive on NATO issues, (b) relations with the Germans with respect to our military presence there have become distinctly easier since the advent of the new Government, and (c) whatever Ostpolitik has done to complicate life and may yet do to bring about disaster, the Germans have exerted much effort to strengthening the EEC and to facilitate British entry. Dahrendorf’s¹² flippant tongue aside, the Germans have not been the most difficult for us on economic issues. We are about to enter offset talks (after the USC gets up a position); all indications are that the Germans will try to be reasonable. Finally, the President’s decision on European force levels provides a solid base from which to operate.

When all is said and done, our basic goal must remain, as NSDM 91¹³ pointed out, to anchor the FRG firmly in the Western camp. This is the goal we must keep in view always and even more now when Ostpolitik, turbulence in Eastern Europe, the obnoxiousness of the [less than 1 line not declassified] Bahrs, the danger of spiraling protectionism and the recrudescence of German romanticism in the guise of the SPD all threaten to bring down what has been constructed in the way of a viable structure in Europe and between Europe and ourselves.

Finally, we need order in our own house. I call to your attention my memorandum of December 18, Log 24418 (Tab E)¹⁴ seeking your approval, and if you choose to seek it, the President’s for a NSSM that would address both the immediate and the longer term issues.

Tab D

Intelligence Report Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency¹⁵

SUBJECT

• Statement of Minister Ehmke on the Purpose of His Forthcoming Visit to Washington

SOURCE

• [3½ lines not declassified] It is judged that these comments by Ehmke to Bahr were intended to reach the United States government. The information was obtained [less than 1 line not declassified] December 1970.

1. [1 paragraph (8 lines) not declassified]

2. [2 lines not declassified] Ehmke confirmed that he would visit Washington and explained that the purpose of his trip is to discuss three general topics with Dr. Kissinger:

A. The advantages of continuous quadripartite meetings in Berlin while talks between Bahr and East German State Secretary Michael Kohl are in progress.

B. A further explanation of why the Federal Republic “is going as far as we are” in pursuit of the Ostpolitik.

C. An explanation of why Bonn believes the U.S. actually has a “weak” position with respect to Berlin, although the U.S. insists and appears to believe that it has a “strong” position.

3. [1 paragraph (6 lines) not declassified]

4. [1 paragraph (8 lines) not declassified]

5. Bahr remarked that he is disturbed and disgusted at the uncooperative attitude shown by U.S. authorities in connection with his request to hold a military flight for a few hours in West Berlin, on 23 December, so that he can return to Bonn that same evening.¹⁶ ([less than 1 line not declassified] Comment: The Air Force has insisted that the military aircraft which will take Chancellor Brandt to Berlin on 23 December should return to Wiesbaden the same day, without delay.)

6. [1 paragraph (6 lines) not declassified]

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 58, Country Files, Europe, Berlin, Vol. 1 [2 of 2]. Secret; Nodis; Sensitive; (Outside System). Sent for action. According to another copy, Sonnenfeldt drafted the memorandum. (Ibid., Box 685, Country Files, Europe, Germany, Vol. VIII)
2. Document 146.
3. Tab B is printed as an attachment to Document 146.
4. Document 149.
5. Erhard Eppler, Minister of Economic Cooperation; member of the Bundestag and of the SPD party executive.
6. Georg Leber, Minister for Transportation and for Posts and Telecommunications; member of the Bundestag and of the SPD party executive.
7. Karl Wienand, SPD parliamentary secretary; member of the Bundestag and of the SPD party executive.
8. Walter Arendt, Minister of Labor; member of the Bundestag.
9. Hermann Schmitt-Vockenhausen, Vice-President of the Bundestag.
10. Jungsozialisten or Young Socialists.
11. Reference is presumably to a meeting between Genscher and Jonathan Dean on December 5. A memorandum of conversation is in Department of State, EUR/CE Files: Lot 85 D 330, JDean—Memos of Conversation, 1970.
12. Ralf Dahrendorf (FDP), a noted sociologist, had been the parliamentary secretary in the Foreign Office before becoming in July 1970 a member of the Commission of the European Economic Community.
13. Document 136.
14. Attached but not printed; see footnote 1, Document 153.
15. Secret; No Foreign Dissem; Controlled Dissem; Background Use Only. The intelligence report was attached to a memorandum from Cord Meyer, Jr. to Kissinger, December 19. Meyer wrote that Fessenden had asked that Kissinger, Hillenbrand, and Sutterlin receive copies of the report. Meyer further noted: “State Secretary Bahr asked for the Washington response to his statements as conveyed in the previous report.”
16. In an undated telegram to Sonnenfeldt and Sutterlin, Fessenden requested approval of a “onetime liberal interpretation” of the policy governing the use of USAF transport to Berlin for German officials other than the President or Chancellor. In a memorandum to Richard T. Kennedy of the NSC staff, December 18, Sonnenfeldt requested approval for the flight: “In view of our rather tense relations with the Germans at this time, we could do Bahr a small favor. I think we should, because we are beginning to look a little petty.” Kennedy approved the flight on December 21. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 685, Country Files, Europe, Germany, Vol. VIII)