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Volume 25
Contemporary European History
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Reconciliation Road
Willy Brandt, Ostpolitik and the Quest for European Peace
Benedikt Schoenborn
246 pages, 10 illus., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78920-700-2 $120.00/£89.00 Hb Published (September 2020)
eISBN 978-1-78920-701-9 eBook
Reviews
“This is a valuable addition to the literature on Willy Brandt and Ostpolitik. Schoenborn demonstrates that the spectre of the Nazi past was always present, and that reconciliation was a much more ambitious aim than détente.” • Gottfried Niedhart, University of Mannheim
“Schoenborn draws on insights from political science and sociology to convincingly demonstrate how important a conceptual tool reconciliation is for understanding Brandt’s Ostpolitik. At the same time, he illuminates the fascinating ways that human interactions and cultural forces played out in the realm of diplomacy.” • Christian Bailey, Purchase College
Description
Among postwar political leaders, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt played one of the most significant roles in reconciling Germans with other Europeans and in creating the international framework that enabled peaceful reunification in 1990. Based on extensive archival research, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of Brandt’s Ostpolitik from its inception until the end of the Cold War through the lens of reconciliation. Here, Benedikt Schoenborn gives us a Brandt who passionately insisted on a gradual reduction of Cold War hostility and a lasting European peace, while remaining strategically and intellectually adaptable in a way that exemplified the ‘imaginativeness of history’.
Benedikt Schoenborn is an Associate Professor at Tampere University in Finland. His publications include the award-winning book La mésentente apprivoisée: de Gaulle et les Allemands, 1963-1969 (Paris 2007), and, with J.M. Hanhimäki and B. Zanchetta, Transatlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction (London 2012).
Subject: History (General) History: 20th Century to Present Peace and Conflict Studies
Area: Germany
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Roads to Reconciliation
Chapter 2. The First Step: Coexistence (1955–1966)
Chapter 3. Projecting East-West Reconciliation (1966–1969)
Chapter 4. Summit Meetings as Icebreakers (1969–1971)
Chapter 5. Developing New Frameworks (1971–1974)
Chapter 6. Maintaining Contacts with the East (1974–1992)
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index