William Glenn Gray. Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949-1969. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. xiii + 351 pp. $ 49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-2758-1.

Reviewed by Mathilde von Buelow (Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge)
Published on H-German (December, 2003)

A West German Take on Containment, Deterrence, and Flexible Response

A West German Take on Containment, Deterrence, and Flexible Response

Specialists of twentieth-century German history take it for granted that from their foundation in 1949, the lives of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were fundamentally and inextricably intertwined not only with each other but also with the Cold War. Consequently, the story of the protracted German-German rivalry within the context of the East-West divide, related in William Glenn Gray's recently published Germany's Cold War, is hardly a new one. It concerns one of the fundamental tenets underlying West German foreign policy, the Alleinvertretungsanspruch, namely Bonn's claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the German people. German specialists will immediately think of the so-called Hallstein doctrine, the epitome of the Federal Republic's campaign to ostracize and isolate the GDR internationally by requiring states to retain diplomatic relations only with Bonn. After all, international recognition would have conferred upon East Berlin what it craved most and what Bonn strove to prevent: legitimacy, credibility, and permanence as a state. The intra-German rivalry has therefore received ample scholarly attention, most recently from the former diplomat Werner Kilian, and Ruediger Booz, but also from doyens of German diplomatic and political history such as Hans-Peter Schwarz and Klaus Hildebrand.[1]

Why then, should historians read Germany's Cold War? For one thing, William Gray's first monograph, based on his doctoral dissertation submitted at Yale University, is an extremely well-researched, clear, and concise account of the German-German competition for international recognition. Furthermore, Germany's Cold War differs considerably from previous renditions of the intra-German rivalry in scope and in approach.

By concentrating on the global reach of this competition, Gray takes the story well beyond the boundaries of Europe and into the developing world. Germany's Cold War explores how it was that leaders of the non-aligned movement, such as Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser, Indonesia's Ahmed Sukarno, and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, could retain such great attention in Bonn and East Berlin. Gray further explains why even the leaders of geopolitically less significant states, such as Guinea's Ahmed Sekou Toure, Ceylon's Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk, at times wielded considerable power over the Federal Republic, simply by announcing their intention to establish diplomatic or consular relations with the GDR. Thus, the author demonstrates just how global the German question was between 1949 and 1969, and how events in even the remotest place, for instance the "spice island" Zanzibar, could influence affairs in both German states.

Germany's Cold War unfolds as a chronological narrative divided into eight compact chapters in which Gray examines "the ever changing nature of East and West German strategy against the shifting context of the Cold War" (p. 5). Four layers of analysis run through these chapters. First, Gray looks at the relationships between the two German states and the countries of the developing world. Strategic and tactical considerations dominate this level of analysis. Second, Gray considers the domestic politics of Bonn's isolation campaign against the GDR. How did West German political parties and public opinion react to and influence the federal government's strategies? Third, the author analyzes how relations between the two German states themselves influenced the evolution of the isolation campaign abroad, particularly during the 1960s. Finally, Gray considers the roles played by the four occupying powers in the German-German competition (the United States, France, Britain and the Soviet Union), since these powers not only initiated the struggle over representation when both states lacked all vestiges of sovereignty, but also retained formal responsibility over reunification.

Such deep and layered analysis can only work if the author tackles his subject as a "multiarchival, truly cosmopolitan history" (p. iv), even if the principal focus of this book rests on the Federal Republic. On this front, William Gray clearly deserves praise. His endnotes and bibliography testify to the fact that he researched his subject thoroughly in all of the most important national and political archives of the Federal Republic and the GDR, as well as in American, British, and French archives. Germany's Cold War is thus the first study to analyze the "international dimensions of an intra-German conflict" based on such multi-archival and multi-national research (p. 9).

Gray's basic argument challenges conventional wisdom, which depicts the so-called Hallstein doctrine as a failed strategy. Most historians argue that the policy of non-recognition vis-a-vis the GDR was too rigid, thus limiting the Federal Republic's foreign policy maneuvering room and leading increasingly to Bonn's own isolation.[2] Indeed, Bonn's isolation campaign was always extremely controversial. Many circles within West Germany, particularly the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Social Democrats (SPD), perceived the Hallstein doctrine as one of the chief obstacles to reunification and to reconciliation with Israel and Eastern Europe (along with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Westpolitik). Gray, however, maintains that the isolation campaign was highly successful at staving off official recognition of the GDR. Moreover, he argues that Bonn's strategy adjusted constantly to changing circumstances and to shifts in the Cold War.

Acting in parallel to the goal of containing Soviet expansion pursued by the West, the Federal Republic aimed to isolate the GDR, which only gradually managed to extend its official and unofficial ties beyond the communist bloc. Thus, in 1957, in the spirit of Washington's strategy of "massive retaliation," the Federal Republic severed relations with Yugoslavia after Tito declared his intention to establish diplomatic ties with East Berlin. At the time, Bonn's uncompromising stance served to deter other non-aligned states from following Tito's lead. Indeed, of the sixteen African states to gain independence in 1960, not one opted to recognize the GDR (p. 227).

In the 1960s, however, as the superpowers embarked on a policy of detente, Bonn's strategy had to adjust to accommodate a more "flexible response." Through a carrot-and-stick approach using development aid and economic sanctions, Bonn still managed to contain the expansion of East Berlin's foreign ties. Yet, the Hallstein doctrine increasingly fell into disrepute, as Third World leaders began to question Bonn's Alleinvertretungsanspruch, arguing instead that the existence of two German states had become an unalterable reality. Bonn's strategy had to adapt to the world's increasing willingness to deal with East Berlin. Thus, recognition of the GDR could no longer lead to an automatic break of relations with Bonn, as the cases of Ceylon or Cambodia demonstrated.

Gray argues that East Berlin's true breakthrough on the international scene was ultimately possible only because Bonn itself had opted for "peaceful coexistence." In light of global shifts in the Cold War, Willy Brandt and the SPD began to promote the notion of "two states within one nation" (p. 218). Thus, East Berlin's international breakthrough was qualified. For one thing, Bonn withheld a de jure recognition of the GDR. Moreover, international recognition, including membership in the United Nations, only followed after the signature of the German-German Basic Treaty in December 1972. The author interprets this as a testament to the longevity of the Hallstein doctrine.

Considering that Gray does indeed take this story up until the German-German Basic Treaty of 1972, which represents the natural breaking point of Bonn's isolation campaign, it is unclear exactly why the author chooses the year 1969 as the official chronological boundary for his study. One reason is methodological, as every contemporary historian will understand. The author chooses to exclude an intricate discussion on the revision of Bonn's non-recognition policy in light of the SPD's take-over of power in 1969 and Chancellor Willy Brandt's championship of a neue Ostpolitik because at the time he prepared this manuscript, he did not yet have access to archival documentation for this period.

Gray ignores a further aspect of the intra-German rivalry, albeit a minor one. A recently published study has demonstrated that the German-German competition for the favor of the Third World sometimes began well before developing states even won their independence.[3] Gray, however, focuses only on Bonn's diplomatic relations with independent states. Indeed, given the broad scope of Germany's Cold War, it is impossible for the author to focus on all of the complexities underlying Bonn's and East Berlin's relations with the various states of the non-aligned world between 1949 and 1969, let alone with movements of national liberation. Nor is this his intent, for the purpose of this monograph is to delineate the broad strokes of and key influences on the Federal Republic's global isolation campaign against the GDR.

Fundamentally, Germany's Cold War is an excellent treatment of a very complex topic. Weighing the German-German competition against the backdrop of the Cold War while keeping in mind such vital matters as German domestic politics, inter-allied relations, reunification, Ostpolitik, and German-Israeli relations, is no easy feat. Gray manages to balance these matters, and reveals how each factored into Bonn's isolation campaign and East Berlin's counter-offensive respectively. At the same time, Gray keeps his story relatively short and succinct. This ensures that Germany's Cold War is extremely lucid. The reader is not overwhelmed by a morass of details. All in all, Germany's Cold War therefore makes a fine contribution to contemporary German and Cold War historiography. By exposing the truly global character of this competition, William Glenn Gray does shed a new light on the German-German rivalry from 1949 to 1969.

Notes:

[1]. Werner Kilian, Die Hallstein-Doktrin. Der diplomatische Krieg zwischen der BRD und der DDR 1955-1973 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001); Ruediger M. Booz, "Hallsteinzeit". Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1955-1972 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1995); Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die Aera Adenauer. Gruenderjahre der Republik, 1949-1957 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981); Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die Aera Adenauer. Epochenwechsel, 1957-1963 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983); Klaus Hildebrand, Von Erhard zur grossen Koalition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1984).

[2]. Waldemar Besson, Die Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik. Erfahrungen und Massstaebe (Munich: Piper, 1970), 199; Heinrich End, Zweimal deutsche Aussenpolitik. Internationale Dimensionen des innnerdeutschen Konflikts 1949-1972 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1973), 43; Wolfram Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 170-209.

[3]. Jean-Paul Cahn et Klaus-Juergen Mueller, La Republique federale d'Allemagne et la guerre d'Algerie (1954-1962) (Paris: Le Felin, 2003).

Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-german.

Citation: Mathilde von Buelow. Review of Gray, William Glenn, Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949-1969. H-German, H-Net Reviews. December, 2003.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8480

Copyright © 2003 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.