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East Germany Relations with West Germany
Shifts in superpower relations in the late 1960s helped bring
about a rapprochement between the two German states in the 1970s.
Despite the decline in superpower détente, this rapprochement has
continued in the 1980s. The normalization process took place on
two levels. On one level, outside powers negotiated a treaty
dealing with Berlin; on another, the two Germanies dealt with
each other. The Western powers (the United States, France, and
Britain) joined with the Soviet Union in negotiating the Four
Power Agreement on Berlin (Berlin Agreement). Signed on September
3, 1971, the agreement served to normalize the political status
of the divided city and provided for a specific number of
guarantees safeguarding Western rights. As a result, the
perennial crises over the future of West Berlin and its
inhabitants have come to an end. Both German governments were
kept informed over the course of the negotiations and during the
intervening years have strongly backed the validity of the
agreement.
Normalized relations between the two German states have also
concerned their respective political leaders. Two major
agreements--the Transit Agreement and the Basic Treaty--were
negotiated between Bonn and East Berlin in 1971-72, subsequently
serving to expand and improve bilateral relations. The Transit
Agreement carried through that portion of the Berlin Agreement
applicable to the regulation of civilian passenger and goods
transit between West Germany and West Berlin. Signed on December
17, 1971, the Transit Agreement between the two German states
ensures that agreed-upon transportation links (road, rail, and
water) will be maintained by the respective parties. In the past,
East German authorities had occasionally disrupted traffic as a
means of communicating dissatisfaction with one or another aspect
of Bonn's activities in West Berlin. During the 1970s and 1980s
(most recently in May 1986), the two countries have disagreed
occasionally, but both sides have, for the most part, observed
the inviolability of the Transit Agreement.
The Basic Treaty provided the two German states with a long-
term framework for the conduct of their diplomatic, economic, and
political relations. Signed on December 21, 1972, the treaty
covers a broad range of common problems, ranging from
environmental issues, trade and commercial relations, rights of
citizens while visiting the other country, and an agreement
jointly to negotiate minor rectifications of the common border.
The treaty enjoyed the full support of both governments in the
1970s, and major changes in their relationship subsequently
occurred. From 1970 to 1985, trade between the two countries more
than doubled. Travel between East Germany and West Germany has
also grown substantially. From January to April 1984,
approximately 897,000 West Germans visited East Germany and East
Berlin, an 18.4 percent increase over the same period in 1983.
Visits in the other direction also increased; in 1986
approximately 500,000 East Germans of working age traveled to
West Germany, reflecting a substantial change in East German
policy on this matter. In 1986 the East German government allowed
approximately 20,000 Germans to resettle in West Germany, which
was larger than the number allowed to leave in any one year in
the 1970s, but lower than in 1984, when over 30,000 East Germans
left the country to settle in West Germany.
The normalization of relations between the two Germanies
manifests several inconsistencies. On the one hand, under
Honecker East Germany has agreed to extensive economic and
cultural contacts with West Germany. On the other hand, the
Honecker regime has pursued a policy of Abgrenzung,
designed to encourage a feeling of separate national identity on
the part of the East German population
(see
The German Question Today: One Nation or Two
, ch. 2). In the mid-1980s, with the
revival of official interest in the Germany past and fewer
references to Abgrenzung, it appeared that the regime had
relaxed this policy. Another set of contradictory ideas is also
applied to inter-German relations. On the one hand, as a price
for closer relations, the Honecker regime has insisted that West
Germany recognize East German citizenship and that East Germany's
sovereignty be recognized through an exchange of ambassadors. On
the other hand, as long as West Germany insists on acknowledging
two German states in one German nation, an exchange of
ambassadors is unlikely.
Before Honecker came to power in 1971, the SED was formally
committed to the goal of reunification of the two Germanies.
Article 8 of the 1968 Constitution states that "The establishment
and cultivation of normal relations and cooperation between the
two German states on the bases of equality are national concerns
of the GDR. The GDR and its citizens strive in addition to
overcome the division of Germany imposed on the German nation by
imperialism and support step-by-step rapprochement between the
two German states until the time of their unification on the
basis of democracy and socialism." The regime deleted that
portion of Article 8 in the 1974 amendments to the Constitution.
In the 1980s, in part as a function of alternate conflict and
cooperation between the two states' superpower allies and in part
as a function of the peculiar concerns of the two German states,
relations between East Germany and West Germany fluctuated
between conflict and cooperation. Upon coming to power in 1982,
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl emphasized
Deutschlandpolitik (German policy), which had emerged
under Kohl's predecessor, Helmut Schmidt, and was distinguished
from the previous policy of
Ostpolitik (eastern policy-- see Glossary).
Deutschlandpolitik involves the pursuit of
three related policy aims: improving the lot of East Germans,
alleviating the personal hardships on both sides of the border
caused by the division of the German nation into two separate
states, and fostering the unity of the German people. To pursue
these policies requires the continuation and strengthening of
détente between the two Germanies and, in a larger sense, between
the United States and the Soviet Union.
In the 1980s, the Honecker regime has also evinced an
interest in détente between the two Germanies for both economic
and political reasons. The Honecker regime needs West German
economic support to meet the needs of East German consumers, and
West Germany is the path the East Germans take to hard currency
markets. Indeed, as if to show that relations between the two
German states were not going to suffer if new NATO missiles were
deployed in Europe, in 1983 the West German government arranged a
1 billion D-mark banking credit to East Germany by a West German
consortium. In return, the East Germans have removed many of the
SM-70 automatic firing devices along the inter-German border. In
September 1983, the minimum daily currency exchange requirement
was eliminated for children between the ages of six and fourteen;
in July 1984, this requirement was reduced from twenty-five to
fifteen D-marks for pensioners. In the mid-1980s, the East
Germans also demonstrated a willingness to undertake efforts to
protect the environment in areas such as air pollution, acid
rain, water pollution, and damage to forests that affect the two
states.
Political factors were also at work in the Honecker regime's
attempt to continue rapprochement with West Germany in the 1980s.
Honecker has sought full diplomatic recognition from West Germany
and an acknowledgement that East Berlin alone represents the
sovereign interests of the East German state. Continuation of
détente between the two Germanies held open the possibility that
these two political objectives could be attained.
Détente between the two Germanies was dealt a blow in 1984,
however, by Honecker's decision to postpone a visit to West
Germany
(see Relations with the Soviet Union
, this ch.). The
American scholar A. James McAdams has argued that for his own
reasons Honecker himself played an important role in this
decision. Recognizing that the West German public demanded that
its government maintain good inter-German relations, Honecker may
have hoped that by postponing his visit indefinitely, he could
win resolution of outstanding issues between the two governments
on terms more favorable to East Germany. From 1985 to 1987, both
Bonn and East Berlin continued to reiterate that Honecker's visit
had only been postponed. However, in 1985 East Germany took up
Moscow's propaganda line, warning of West German "revanchism" and
criticizing West Germany's celebrations of the fortieth
anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat. After the Eleventh Party
Congress in April 1986, the East Germans again joined the Soviet
Union in attacking West German policies.
In the mid-1980s, several problems continued to divide the
two Germanies. To a large extent, relations between the two
German states are held hostage to relations between the United
States and the Soviet Union. When relations between the two
superpowers worsen, each superpower exerts pressure on its German
ally to refrain from extending relations with the other German
state. There are also other outstanding issues that have
previously been touched upon: the nature of German citizenship,
East Germany's demand for West German recognition of East German
sovereignty, and the need for the resolution of border issues
left ambiguous by the victorious Allies after World War II
(see Boundaries
, ch. 2). Finally, there are other problems that divide
the two German states. East Germany seeks the abandonment of the
monitoring station in Salzgitter used by West Germany to record
human rights violations on the border. In turn, West Germany
seeks a general improvement of conditions along the armed border
and the Berlin Wall and the free movement of people and ideas
between the two Germanies.
Data as of July 1987
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