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

(Hardback)

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West German Ostpolitik, the Soviet Union, and East-West Dtente in Europe explores how the dtente 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 dtente 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 dtente 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 dtente 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 dtente in Europe, while offering the argument that Eastern policies and dtente only came to fruition after the climax of the Cold War.

Author Bio

Michael Borchard is Head of the Department of Scientific Services and Archive for Christian Democratic Politics at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Stefan Karner is Director of the Institute for Economic, Social and Business History at the University of Graz.

Hanns Jrgen Ksters is Professor of political science and contemporary history at the University of Bonn.

Peter Ruggenthaler is Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on Consequences of War.