Usually, only experts take much note when another volume of "Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany" is released by the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History. They tend to be thick tomes full of documents from the Foreign Ministry – and it is rare that they promise much in the way of reading pleasure.

This time around, though, interest promises to be significant. The new volume with papers from 1991 includes memos, minutes and letters containing previously unknown details about NATO’s eastward expansion, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine. And already, it seems that the documents may fuel the ongoing debate surrounding Germany’s policies toward the Soviet Union and Russia over the years and up to the present day.

Critics will find plenty of evidence that the Germans have long paid undue heed to Moscow’s interests. But defenders of the country’s lenient approach toward the Kremlin – which looks naïve from today’s perspective – will also find support in the documents for their position.

At the heart of Germany’s policy toward Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union – known collectively as "Ostpolitik" – at that time were two giants of Germany’s postwar history: Helmut Kohl, from the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), who served for 16 years as German chancellor; and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, from the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), Kohl’s foreign minister and vice chancellor. Both of them were in their early 60s and had a nose for power. And following German reunification, both were at the peak of their reputations.

In 1991, the Soviet Union was still in existence, though many of the nationalities that formed the union had begun standing up to Moscow. Kohl, though, felt that a dissolution of the Soviet Union would be a "catastrophe" and anyone pushing for such a result was an "ass." In consequence, he repeatedly sought to drum up momentum in the West against independence for Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been annexed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1940, with West Germany later never recognizing the annexation. But now that Kohl found himself faced with the three Baltic republics pushing for independence and seeking to leave the Soviet Union, Kohl felt they were on the "wrong path," as he told French President François Mitterrand during a meeting in Paris in early 1991. Kohl, of course, had rapidly moved ahead with Germany’s reunification. But he felt that Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania should be more patient about their freedom – and should wait around another 10 years, the chancellor seemed to think at the time. And even then, Kohl felt the three countries should be neutral ("Finnish status"), and not become members of NATO or the European Community (EC).

https://www.spiegel.de/interna...

Eestlased Saksamaal

TRENDING