With the forming of a Grand Coalition, headed by Kurt Kiesinger (CDU/CSU) as chancellor and Willy Brandt (SPD) as foreign minister, West Germany sought equidistance between France and the United States and pursued a new Ostpolitik in parallel with de Gaulle. As Chapter 5 explains, the project proved highly unstable; de Gaulle could do little to aid Bonn vis-à-vis Poland, and Brandt wound up preferring direct contacts with the Soviets. Disputes over Britain’s accession to the EEC further soured Franco-German relations, and Paris was hardly pleased at Bonn’s renewal of its offset promises toward London and Washington. But the U.S.–German relationship also came under strain as the United States and USSR negotiated a non-proliferation treaty (NPT) that would force West Germany to accept a permanently inferior status. Kiesinger and Brandt used their leverage with Washington to force significant changes to the NPT in the areas of nuclear research and commerce; but they also consulted with other nuclear have-nots, such as India and Iran, and contemplated Germany’s future as a middle-sized power. Increasingly, West Germans identified technology exports as a significant source of prestige.

Chapter 7 depicts a severe cleft in German politics as the Grand Coalition headed toward Bundestag elections in September 1969. Chancellor Kiesinger tried to coax the USSR into softening its enmity toward West Germany, but his hard-line stances on Berlin and the NPT stalled progress. Egon Bahr, Willy Brandt’s controversial aide, urged the SPD to cast aside old ballast: Bonn should sign the NPT, stop isolating the GDR, and renounce territorial claims in Poland. Economy minister Karl Schiller, the SPD’s central figure in the 1969 campaign, insisted that the German mark should be revalued. Kiesinger’s CDU/CSU rejected all of these proposals, and the coalition cabinet proved incapable of decisive action for most of the year – causing economic havoc across Western Europe. The SPD–FDP coalition won the election only narrowly, but as Chancellor Willy Brandt acted decisively to revalue the mark and pledge German support for “deepening” and “widening” Europe at an EC summit in The Hague. On Ostpolitik, Brandt signed the NPT and authorized soundings with the USSR and Poland; but Bahr grew impatient and angled to open a back channel to the Kremlin.

The year 1968 brought a powerful affirmation of West Germany’s uniquely stable economy and society, with ripple effects across Western and Eastern Europe. Chapter 6 opens by explaining how the Grand Coalition pursued reforms that reinforced West Germany’s commitment to price stability and economic growth. When youth protests escalated in 1967–68, driven in large part by anger over U.S. and West German policies toward Greece, Iran, and the war in Vietnam, German workers declined to join in – a stark contrast to the turmoil in neighboring France. Speculators rushed to sell French francs and buy up German marks, touching off a currency crisis. Western finance ministers converged in Bonn demanding that West Germany raise the mark’s parity value – yet Bonn refused, an unprecedented display of independence. Meanwhile, the “Prague Spring” raised hopes of West German credits for Czechoslovakia, perhaps via the Bundesbank; and German visitors poured in. When the Soviet bloc invaded, de Gaulle blamed the Bonn government for provoking it. Yet the main takeaway in Moscow was that West Germany, clearly Europe’s strongest economy, could become a significant economic partner.