V.

Social Democrats in Power

When Adenauer retired in 1963 at the age of 87, he was succeeded as chancellor by Erhard (1963-1966) and Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966-1969), fellow Christian Democrats who headed coalition governments. In 1969 a Social Democratic victory brought Willy Brandt, former mayor of West Berlin, to the chancellorship. With the approval of big business, he initiated the Ostpolitik (German for “eastern policy”) to improve political and trade relations with the Soviet bloc. In 1970 he signed nonaggression treaties with the USSR and Poland that confirmed existing boundaries. Reversing Adenauer's policy on East Germany, he reached an accord with East Germany in 1972 that facilitated West German access to West Berlin. In 1973 the two countries granted each other full diplomatic recognition and were admitted to the United Nations. The following year, Brandt resigned when it was discovered that a member of his personal staff was an East German spy. He was succeeded by Helmut Schmidt.

Schmidt faced domestic problems that had been simmering since the late 1960s. The economy suffered under rising unemployment and rapid inflation, exacerbated by the presence of 4 million guest workers and their families. The country was also troubled by student unrest and by a wave of bombings, kidnappings, and murders by such terrorists as the Baader-Meinhof group. In foreign affairs Schmidt applied Brandt's Ostpolitik to relations with East Germany. Schmidt's Social Democratic-Free Democratic coalition government won the elections in 1976 and 1980, but in 1982 the Free Democratic party ended the Schmidt coalition government by withdrawing and forming a new coalition headed by Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democrats.