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Research Question: How did Willy Brandt’s policy of “OstpolitikOstpolitik Full Description:The foreign policy of “Change through Rapprochement,” normalizing relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the nations of the Eastern Bloc. It marked a shift from the hardline refusal to recognize the communist East to a strategy of engagement and trade. Ostpolitik represented a pragmatic acceptance of the geopolitical status quo. Rather than insisting on the immediate collapse of the East German state, the West German government sought to build bridges through diplomacy, travel agreements, and economic cooperation, hoping that contact would gradually erode the authoritarian nature of the Eastern…
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How did the West German student movement of 1968, primarily defined by a generational conflict over the Nazi past (“the revolt against the fathers”), fundamentally democratize and liberalize the sociocultural landscape of the Federal Republic, despite failing to achieve its revolutionary political goals? This article examines the seismic cultural shifts of the late 1960s in West Germany, centering on the “68er” generation. It analyzes the movement’s dual origins: the global anti-Vietnam War protests and the specifically German confrontation with the “Auschwitz generation.” The article explores the formation of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) in response to the Grand Coalition and the…