Willy Brandt

For the Oz character, see Willy Brandt (Oz).

Willy Brandt
Chancellor of Germany
In office 21 October 1969 – 7 May 1974
President	Gustav Heinemann
Preceded by	Kurt Georg Kiesinger
Succeeded by	Helmut Schmidt
President of the German Bundesrat
In office 1957–1958
President	Theodor Heuss
Preceded by	Kurt Sieveking
Succeeded by	Wilhelm Kaisen
Vice-Chancellor of Germany
In office 1 December 1966 – 21 October 1969
Preceded by	Hans-Christoph Seebohm
Succeeded by	Walter Scheel
Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 1 December 1966 – 20 October 1969
Preceded by	Gerhard Schröder
Succeeded by	Walter Scheel
Mayor of West Berlin
In office 1957–1966
Preceded by	Otto Suhr
Succeeded by	Heinrich Albertz
Personal details
Born	(1913-12-18)18 December 1913 Lübeck, Free City of Lübeck, (German Empire)
Died	8 October 1992(1992-10-08) (aged 78) Unkel, Germany
Political party	SPD
Occupation	Worker, Journalist, Lecturer, Activist, Politician
Signature

Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992), was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.

Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.

In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.

Early life, the war

Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.

After passing his Abitur in 1932 at Johanneum zu Lübeck, he became an apprentice at the shipbroker and ship's agent F.H. Bertling. He joined the "Socialist Youth" in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1930. He left the SPD to join the more left wing Socialist Workers Party (SAP), which was allied to the POUM in Spain and the Independent Labour Party in Britain. In 1933, using his connections with the port and its ships, he left Germany for Norway to escape Nazi persecution. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Willy Brandt to avoid detection by Nazi agents. In 1934, he took part in the founding of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, and was elected to its Secretariat.

Brandt was in Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland. He was married to Gertrud Meyer from Lübeck in a fictitious marriage to protect her from deportation. Meyer had joined Brandt in Norway in July 1933. In 1937, during the Civil War, Brandt worked in Spain as a journalist. In 1938, the German government revoked his citizenship, so he applied for Norwegian citizenship. In 1940, he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, but was not identified as he wore a Norwegian uniform. On his release, he escaped to neutral Sweden. In August 1940, he became a Norwegian citizen, receiving his passport from the Norwegian embassy in Stockholm, where he lived until the end of the war. Willy Brandt lectured in Sweden on 1 December 1940 at Bommersvik college about problems experienced by the social democrats in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries at the start of World War II. In exile in Norway and Sweden Brandt learned Norwegian and Swedish. Brandt spoke Norwegian fluently, and retained a close relationship with Norway.

In late 1946, Brandt returned to Berlin, working for the Norwegian government. In 1948, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and became a German citizen again, formally adopting the pseudonym, Willy Brandt, as his legal name.

Politician

Brandt meeting John F. Kennedy in 1961

From 3 October 1957, to 1966, Willy Brandt was Mayor of West Berlin, during a period of increasing tension in East-West relations that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall. In Brandt's first year as Mayor, he also served as the President of the Bundesrat in Bonn. Brandt was outspoken against the Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and against Nikita Khrushchev's 1958 proposal that Berlin receive the status of a "free city". He was supported by the influential publisher Axel Springer.

At the start of 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy saw Brandt as the wave of the future in West Germany and was hoping he would replace Konrad Adenauer as chancellor following elections later in the year. Kennedy made this preference clear by inviting Brandt, the West German opposition leader, to an official meeting at the White House a month before meeting with Adenauer, the country’s leader. The diplomatic snub strained relations between Kennedy and Adenauer further during an especially tense time for Berlin. However, following the Berlin border closure in August of 1961, Brandt was disappointed and angry with Kennedy. Speaking in Berlin three days after the closure, Brandt criticized Kennedy’s empty rhetoric, asserting "Berlin expects more than words. It expects political action." He also wrote Kennedy a highly critical public letter in which he called the border closure "a state of accomplished extortion" and warned that "it has tended to arouse doubts as to the determination of the three [allied] powers and their ability to react."

Brandt became the Chairman of the SPD in 1964, a post that he retained until 1987, longer than any other party Chairman since its foundation by August Bebel. Brandt was the SPD candidate for the Chancellorship in 1961, but he lost to Konrad Adenauer's conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). In 1965, Brandt ran again, but lost to the popular Ludwig Erhard. Erhard's government was short-lived, however, and in 1966 a grand coalition between the SPD and CDU was formed, with Brandt as Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor.

Chancellor

At the 1969 elections, again with Brandt as the leading candidate, the SPD became stronger, and after three weeks of negotiations, the SPD formed a coalition government with the smaller Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP). Brandt was elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Foreign policy

Willy Brandt with French president Georges Pompidou in Cologne, 3 July 1972.

As Chancellor, Brandt developed his Neue Ostpolitik (New Eastern Policy). Brandt was active in creating a degree of rapprochement with East Germany, and also in improving relations with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern Bloc (communist) countries. A seminal moment came in December 1970 with the famous Warschauer Kniefall in which Brandt, apparently spontaneously, knelt down at the monument to victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The uprising occurred during the Nazi German military occupation of Poland, and the monument is to those killed by the German troops who suppressed the uprising and deported remaining ghetto residents to the concentration camps for extermination.

Time magazine in the U.S.A. named Brandt as its Man of the Year for 1970, stating, "Willy Brandt is in effect seeking to end World War II by bringing about a fresh relationship between East and West. He is trying to accept the real situation in Europe, which has lasted for 25 years, but he is also trying to bring about a new reality in his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc."

In 1971, Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union.

Brandt negotiated a peace treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland, and agreements on the boundaries between the two countries, signifying the official and long-delayed end of World War II. Brandt negotiated parallel treaties and agreements between the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia.

In West Germany, Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik was extremely controversial, dividing the populace into two camps: one camp, embracing all of the conservative parties and most notably the victims i.e. those German-speaking, West German residents and their subsequent families who were driven west ("die Heimatvertriebenen") by Stalinist ethnic cleansing from Historical Eastern Germany, especially the part that was arbitrarily given to Poland by the Stalinists; western Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland); and the rest of Eastern Europe, such as in Romania. These groups of displaced Germans and their descendants loudly voiced their opposition to Brandt's policy, calling it "illegal" and "high treason".

A different camp supported and encouraged Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik as aiming at "Wandel durch Annäherung" ("change through rapprochement"), encouraging change through a policy of engagement with the (communist) Eastern Bloc, rather than trying to isolate those countries diplomatically and commercially. Brandt's supporters claim that the policy did help to break down the Eastern Bloc's "siege mentality", and also helped to increase its awareness of the contradictions in its brand of Socialism/Communism, which – together with other events – eventually led to the downfall of Eastern European Communism and Stalinism.

Domestic policies

Political and social changes

West Germany in the late 1960s was shaken by student disturbances and a general "change of the times" that not all Germans were willing to accept or approve. What had seemed a stable, peaceful nation, happy with its outcome of the "Wirtschaftswunder" ("economic miracle") faced economic turbulence. The German baby-boom generation wanted to come to terms with the deeply conservative, bourgeois, and demanding parent generation. The baby-boomer students were the most outspoken, and they accused their "parental generation" of being outdated and old-fashioned and even of having a Nazi past. Compared to their forebears, the "skeptical generation" was much more capricious, willing to embrace more extreme socialist ideology (such as Maoism), and public heroes (such as Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara), while living a looser and more promiscuous lifestyle. Students and young apprentices could afford to move out of their parents' homes, and left-wing politics was considered to be chic, as well as taking part in American-style political demonstrations against having American military forces in South Vietnam.

Brandt's popularity

Brandt's predecessor as Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a member of the Nazi party, and was an old-fashioned German bourgeois and conservative intellectual. Brandt, having fought the Nazis and having faced down communist Eastern Germany during several crises while he was the Mayor of Berlin, became a controversial, but credible, figure in several different factions. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kiesinger's grand coalition cabinet, Brandt helped to gain further international approval for Western Germany, and he laid the foundation stones for his future Neue Ostpolitik. There was a wide public-opinion gap between Kiesinger and Brandt in the West German polls.

Willy Brandt as the Chancellor talking to the parliament, 1971

Both men had come to their own terms with the new baby boomer lifestyles. Kiesinger considered them to be "a shameful crowd of long-haired drop-outs who needed a bath and someone to discipline them". On the other hand, Brandt needed a while to get into contact with, and to earn credibility among, the "Ausserparlamentarische Opposition" (APO) ("the extra-parliamentary opposition"). The students questioned West German society in general, seeking social, legal, and political reforms. Also, the unrest led to a renaissance of right-wing parties in some of the Bundeslands' (German states under the Bundesrepublik) Parliaments.

Brandt, however, represented a figure of change, and he followed a course of social, legal, and political reforms. In 1969, Brandt gained a small majority by forming a coalition with the FDP. In his first speech before the Bundestag as the Chancellor, Brandt set forth his political course of reforms ending the speech with his famous words, "Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen" (literally: "We want to take a chance on more Democracy", or more figuratively, "Let's dare more democracy"). This speech made Brandt, as well as the Social Democratic Party, popular among most of the students and other young West German baby-boomers who dreamed of a country that would be more open and more colorful than the frugal and still somewhat-authoritarian Bundesrepublik that had been built after World War II. However, Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik lost for him a large part of the German refugee (from the East) voters who had been significantly pro-SPD in the postwar years.

Chancellor of domestic reform

Although Brandt is perhaps best known for his achievements in foreign policy, his government oversaw the implementation of a broad range of social reforms, and was known as a "Kanzler der inneren Reformen" ('Chancellor of domestic reform'). As noted by the historian David Childs, “Brandt was anxious that his government should be a reforming administration and a number of reforms were embarked upon”.

According to Helmut Schmidt, Willy Brandt's domestic reform programme had accomplished more than any previous programme for a comparable period. A number of liberal social reforms were instituted whilst the welfare state was significantly expanded (with total public spending on social programs nearly doubling between 1969 and 1975), with health, housing, and social welfare legislation bringing about welcome improvements, and by the end of the Brandt chancellorship West Germany had one of the most advanced systems of welfare in the world.

Amongst his achievements as chancellor were:

• Substantial increases in social security benefits such as injury and sickness benefits, pensions, unemployment benefits, housing allowances, basic subsistence aid allowances, and family allowances and living allowances. In the government’s first budget, sickness benefits were increased by 9.3%, pensions for war widows by 25%, pensions for the war wounded by 16%, and recruitment pensions by 5%. Between 1972 and 1974, the purchasing power of pensioners increased by 19%.
• Improvements in sick pay provision.
• Improvements in the coverage of health provision, as characterised by the introduction of an expanded sickness insurance scheme, with the inclusion of preventative treatment.
• The allocation of more funds towards housing, transportation, schools, and communication.
• The index-linking of the income limit for compulsory sickness insurance to changes in the wage level (1970).
• The incorporation of pupils, students and children in kindergartens into the accident insurance scheme (1971).
• The introduction of generous public stipends for students to cover their living costs.
• The conversion of West German universities from elite schools into mass institutions.
• The Farmers’ Sickness Insurance Law (1972), which introduced compulsory sickness insurance for independent farmers, family workers in agriculture, and pensioners under the farmers’ pension scheme, medical benefits for all covered groups, and cash benefits for family workers under compulsory coverage for pension insurance.
• The introduction of voluntary retirement at 63 with no deductions in the level of benefits.
• The index-linking of war victim’s pensions to wage increases.
• An increase in spending on research and education by nearly 300% between 1970 and 1974.
• The raising of the school leaving age to 16.
• The abolition of fees for higher or further education.
• A considerable increase in the number of higher education institutions.
• The introduction of grants for pupils from lower income groups to stay on at school.
• The introduction of grants for those going into any kind of higher or further education.
• Increases in educational allowances.
• Greater spending on science.
• The introduction of "Vergleichmieten" ('comparable rents'), a loose form of rent regulation.
• A significant rise in the income limit for social housing (1971).
• Support for low-income tenants and householders.
• Increases in public housing subsidies, as characterised by a 36% increase in the social housing budget in 1970 and by the introduction of a programme for the construction of 200,000 public housing units (1971).
• The establishment of a federal environmental programme (1971).
• The establishment of a women’s policy machinery at the national level (1972).
• The establishment of a Federal Environment Agency (1974) to conduct research into environmental issues and prevent pollution.
• The introduction of redundancy allowances in cases of bankruptcies (1974).
• Improvements in income and work conditions for home workers.
• The introduction of new provisions for the rehabilitation of severely disabled people ("Schwerbehinderte") and accident victims.
• The introduction of guaranteed minimum pension benefits for all West Germans.
• The introduction of fixed minimum rates for women in receipt of very low pensions, and equal treatment for war widows.
• An amendment to the Labour Management Act (1971) which granted workers co-determination on the shop floor.
• The Factory Constitution Law (1971), which strengthened the rights of individual employees “to be informed and to be heard on matters concerning their place of work.” The Works’ Council was provided with greater authority while trade unions were given the right of entry into the factory “provided they informed the employer of their intention to do so”.
• The passage of a law to encourage wider share ownership by workers and other rank-and-file employees.
• An increase in federal aid to sports’ organisations.
• Efforts to improve the railways and motorways.
• A new Factory Management Law (1972) which extended co-determination at the factory level.
• The passing of a law in 1974 to allow for worker representation on the boards of large firms (although this change was not enacted until 1976, after alterations were made).
• The extension of accident insurance to non-working adults.
• The introduction of greater legal rights for women, as exemplified by the standardisation of pensions, divorce laws, regulations governing use of surnames, and the introduction of measures to bring more women into politics.
• The Town Planning Act (1971), which encouraged the preservation of historical heritage and helped open up the way to the future of many German cities.
• An addition to the Basic Law which gave the Federal Government some responsibility for educational planning.
• A big increase in spending on education, with educational expenses per head of the population multiplied by five.
• The passing of the Severely Disabled Persons Act (1974), which obliged all employers with more than fifteen employees to ensure that 6% of their workforce was persons officially recognised as being severely disabled. Employers who failed to do so were assessed 100 DM per month for every job falling before the required quota. These compensatory payments were used to subsidise the adaptation of workplaces to the requirements of those who were severely disabled.
• Amendments to the Federal Social Assistance Act (1974). “Help for the vulnerable” was renamed “help for overcoming particular social difficulties,” and the numbers of people eligible for assistance was greatly extended to include all those “whose own capabilities cannot meet the increasing demands of modern industrial society.” The intention of these amendments was to include especially such groups as discharged prisoners, drug and narcotic addicts, alcoholics, and the homeless. As a result of these changes, people who formerly had to be supported by their relatives were now entitled to social assistance.
• The passing of a Foreign Tax Act, which limited the possibility of tax evasion.
• The Urban Renewal Act (1971), which helped the states to restore their inner cities and to develop new neighbourhoods.
• The lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18.
• Improvements in pension provision for women and the self-employed.
• The introduction of a new minimum pension for workers with at least twenty-five years’ insurance.
• The Second Sickness Insurance Modification Law (1972), which linked the indexation of the income-limit for compulsory employee coverage to the development of the pension insurance contribution ceiling (75% of the ceiling), obliged employers to pay half of the contributions in the case of voluntary membership, extended the criteria for voluntary membership of employees, and introduced preventive medical check-ups for certain groups.
• The Pension Reform Law (1972), which institutionalized the norm that the standard pension (of average earners with forty years of contributions) should not fall below 50% of current gross earnings. The 1972 pension reforms improved eligibility conditions and benefits for nearly every subgroup of the West German population.
• The introduction of a pension reform package, which incorporated an additional year of insurance for mothers.
• The liberalisation of the penal code.
• An increase in tax-free allowances for children, which enabled 1,000,000 families to claim an allowance for the second child, compared to 300,000 families previously.
• The exemption of pensioners from paying a 2% health insurance contribution.
• The Hospital Financing Law (1972), which secured the supply of hospitals and reduced the cost of hospital care, “defined the financing of hospital investment as a public responsibility, single states to issue plans for hospital development, and the federal government to bear the cost of hospital investment covered in the plans, rates for hospital care thus based on running costs alone, hospitals to ensure that public subsidies together with insurance fund payments for patients cover total costs”.
• A new fund of 100 million marks for disabled children.
• The granting of equal rights to illegitimate children (1970).
• A law for the creation of property for workers, under which a married worker would normally keep up to 95% of his pay, and graded tax remission for married wage-earners applied up to a wage of 48,000 marks, which indicated the economic prosperity of West Germany at that time.
• The Benefit Improvement Law (1973), which made entitlement to hospital care legally binding (entitlements already enjoyed in practice), abolished time limits for hospital care, introduced entitlement to household assistance under specific conditions, and also introduced entitlement to leave of absence from work and cash benefits in the event of a child’s illness.
• Increased allowances for retraining and advanced training and for refugees from East Germany.
• The Seventh Modification Law (1973), which linked the indexation of farmers’ pensions to the indexation of the general pension insurance scheme.
• An increase in federal grants for sport.
• The Third Modification Law (1974), which extended individual entitlements to social assistance by means of higher-income limits compatible with receipt of benefits and lowered age limits for certain special benefits. Rehabilitation measures were also extended, child supplements were expressed as percentages of standard amounts and were thus indexed to their changes, and grandparents of recipients were exempted from potential liability to reimburse expenditure of social assistance carrier.
• An amendment to a federal civil service reform bill (1971) which enabled fathers to apply for part-time civil service work.
• The allocation to local communities of matching grants covering 90% of infrastructure development. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of public swimming pools and other facilities of consumptive infrastructure throughout West Germany.
• A modernization of the federal crime-fighting apparatus.
• The introduction of a matching fund program for 15 million employees, which stimulated them to accumulate capital.
• A much needed school and college construction program.
• The introduction of substantial federal benefits for farmers.
• The passage of a progressive anticartel law.
• A modernization of the armed forces establishment.
• The introduction of postgraduate support for highly qualified graduates, providing them with the opportunity to earn their doctorates or undertake research studies
• The Third Law for the Liberalization of the Penal Code (1970), which liberalized “the right to political demonstration”.
• The lowering of the age of eligibility for political office to twenty-one.
• The lowering of the office age of majority to eighteen (March 1974).
• The passage of a law which guaranteed “amnesty in minor offences connected with demonstrations.”
• The attainment of a lower rate of inflation than in other industrialised countries at that time.
• A rise in the standard of living, helped by the floating and revaluation of the mark.

First cabinet

• Willy Brandt (SPD) - Chancellor
• Walter Scheel (FDP) - Vice Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Helmut Schmidt (SPD) - Minister of Defense
• Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP) - Minister of the Interior
• Alex Möller (SPD) - Minister of Finance
• Gerhard Jahn (SPD) - Minister of Justice
• Karl Schiller (SPD) - Minister of Economics
• Walter Arendt (SPD) - Minister of Labour and Social Affairs
• Josef Ertl (FDP) - Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Forestry
• Georg Leber (SPD) - Minister of Transport, Posts, and Communications
• Lauritz Lauritzen (SPD) - Minister of Construction
• Käte Strobel (SPD) - Minister of Youth, Family, and Health
• Hans Leussink - Minister of Education and Science
• Erhard Eppler (SPD) - Minister of Economic Cooperation
• Horst Ehmke (SPD) - Minister of Special Tasks
• Egon Franke (SPD) - Minister of Intra-German Relations

Cabinet changes

• 13 May 1971 - Karl Schiller (SPD) succeeds Möller as Minister of Finance, remaining also Minister of Economics
• 15 March 1972 - Klaus von Dohnanyi (SPD) succeeds Leussink as Minister of Education and Science.
• 7 July 1972 - Helmut Schmidt (SPD) succeeds Schiller as Minister of Finance and Economics. Georg Leber (SPD) succeeds Schmidt as Minister of Defence. Lauritz Lauritzen (SPD) succeeds Leber as Minister of Transport, Posts, and Communications, remaining also Minister of Construction.

1972 crisis

Brandt's Ostpolitik led to a meltdown of the narrow majority Brandt's coalition enjoyed in the Bundestag. In October 1970, FDP deputies Erich Mende, Heinz Starke, and Siegfried Zoglmann crossed the floor to join the CDU. On 23 February 1972, SPD deputy Herbert Hupka, who was also leader of the Bund der Vertriebenen, joined the CDU in disagreement with Brandt's reconciliatory efforts towards the east. On 23 April 1972, Wilhelm Helms (FDP) left the coalition ; the FDP politicians Knud von Kühlmann-Stumm and Gerhard Kienbaum also declared that they would vote against Brandt; thus, Brandt had lost his majority. On 24 April 1972 a vote of no confidence was proposed and it was voted on three days later. Had this motion passed, Rainer Barzel would have replaced Brandt as Chancellor. To everyone's surprise, the motion failed: Barzel got only 247 votes out of 260 ballots; for an absolute majority, 249 votes would have been necessary. There were also 10 votes against the motion and 3 invalid ballots. Most deputies of SPD and FDP did not take part in the voting, as not voting had the same effect as voting pro Brandt. It was not revealed until much later that two Bundestag members (Julius Steiner and Leo Wagner, both of the CDU/CSU) had been bribed by the East German Stasi to vote for Brandt.

New elections

Though Brandt remained Chancellor, he had lost his majority. Subsequent initiatives in parliament, most notably on the budget, failed. Because of this stalemate, the Bundestag was dissolved and new elections were called. During the 1972 campaign, many popular West German artists, intellectuals, writers, actors and professors supported Brandt and the SPD. Among them were Günter Grass, Walter Jens, and even the soccer player Paul Breitner. Brandt's Ostpolitik as well as his reformist domestic policies were popular with parts of the young generation and led his SPD party to its best-ever federal election result in late 1972. The "Willy-Wahl", Brandt's landslide win was the beginning of the end; and Brandt's role in government started to decline.

Many of Brandt's reforms met with resistance from state governments (dominated by CDU/CSU). The spirit of reformist optimism was cut short by the 1973 oil crisis and the major public services strike 1974, which gave Germany's trade unions, led by Heinz Kluncker, a big wage increase but reduced Brandt's financial leeway for further reforms. Brandt was said to be more a dreamer than a manager and was personally haunted by depression. To counter any notions about being sympathetic to Communism or soft on left-wing extremists, Brandt implemented tough legislation that barred "radicals" from public service ("Radikalenerlass").

Guillaume affair

Main article: Guillaume Affair

Around 1973, West German security organizations received information that one of Brandt's personal assistants, Günter Guillaume, was a spy for the East German intelligence services. Brandt was asked to continue working as usual, and he agreed to do so, even taking a private vacation with Guillaume. Guillaume was arrested on 24 April 1974, and many blamed Brandt for having a communist spy in his inner circle. Thus disgraced, Brandt resigned from his position as the Chancellor on 6 May 1974. However, Brandt remained in the Bundestag and as the Chairman of the Social Democrats through 1987.

This espionage affair is widely considered to have been just the trigger for Brandt's resignation, not the fundamental cause. Brandt was dogged by scandals about serial adultery, and reportedly also struggled with alcohol and depression. There was also the economic fallout on West Germany of the 1973 oil crisis, which almost seems to have been enough stress to finish off Brandt as the Chancellor. As Brandt himself later said, "I was exhausted, for reasons which had nothing to do with the process going on at the time." [Where "the process" seems to have been the unfolding of the Guillaume espionage scandal.]

Guillaume had been an espionage agent for East Germany, who was supervised by Markus Wolf, the head of the "Main Intelligence Administration" of the East German Ministry for State Security. Wolf stated after the reunification that the resignation of Brandt had never been intended, and that the planting and handling of Guillaume had been one of the largest mistakes of the East German secret services.

Brandt was succeeded as the Chancellor of the Bundesrepublik by his fellow Social Democrat, Helmut Schmidt. For the rest of his life, Brandt remained suspicious that his fellow Social Democrat (and longtime rival) Herbert Wehner had been scheming for Brandt's downfall. However, there is scant evidence to corroborate this suspicion.

Ex-Chancellor

Willy Brandt in 1988 at the Münster party rally

After his term as the Chancellor, Brandt retained his seat in the Bundestag, and he remained the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party through 1987. Beginning in 1987, Brandt stepped down to become the Honorary Chairman of the party. Brandt was also a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983.

Socialist International

For sixteen years, Brandt was the president of the Socialist International (1976–92), during which period the number of Socialist International's mainly European member parties grew until there were more than a hundred socialist, social democratic, and labour political parties around the world. For the first seven years, this growth in SI membership had been prompted by the efforts of the Socialist International's Secretary-General, the Swede Bernt Carlsson. However, in early 1983, a dispute arose about what Carlsson perceived as the SI president's authoritarian approach. Carlsson then rebuked Brandt saying: "this is a Socialist International — not a German International".

Next, against some vocal opposition, Brandt decided to move the next Socialist International Congress from Sydney, Australia to Portugal. Following this SI Congress in April 1983, Brandt retaliated against Carlsson by forcing him to step down from his position. However, the Austrian Prime Minister, Bruno Kreisky, argued on behalf of Brandt: "It is a question of whether it is better to be pure or to have greater numbers".

Brandt Report

In 1977, Brandt was appointed as the chairman of the Independent Commission for International Developmental Issues. This produced a report in 1980, which called for drastic changes in the global attitude towards development in the Third World. This became known as the Brandt Report.

Reunification

Willy Brandt at an elections convention in Wismar, March 1990

In October 1979, Brandt met with the East German dissident, Rudolf Bahro, who had written The Alternative. Bahro and his supporters were attacked by the East German state security organization Stasi, headed by Erich Mielke, for his writings, which had laid the theoretical foundation of a leftist opposition to the ruling SED party and its dependent allies, and which promoted new and changed parties. All of this is now described as "change from within". Brandt had asked for Bahro's release, and Brandt welcomed Bahro's theories, which advanced the debate within his own Social Democratic Party. In late 1989, Brandt became one of the first leftist leaders in West Germany to publicly favor a quick reunification of Germany, instead of some sort of two-state federation or other kind of interim arrangement. Brandt's public statement "Now grows together what belongs together," was widely quoted in those days.

Hostages in Iraq

One of Brandt's last public appearances was in flying to Baghdad, Iraq, to free Western hostages held by Saddam Hussein, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Brandt secured the release of a large number of them, and on November 9, 1990, his airplane landed with 174 freed hostages on board at the Frankfurt Airport.

Death and memorials

Willy Brandts Park, Stockholm.

Willy Brandt died of colon cancer at his home in Unkel, a town on the Rhine River, on 8 October 1992, and was given a state funeral. He was buried at the cemetery at Zehlendorf in Berlin.

When the SPD moved its headquarters from Bonn back to Berlin in the mid-1990s, the new headquarters was named the "Willy Brandt Haus". One of the buildings of the European Parliament in Brussels was named after him in 2008.

German artist Johannes Heisig painted several portraits of Brandt of which one was unveiled as part of a honoring event at German Historical Institute Washington, DC on March 18, 2003. Spokesmen amongst others were former German Federal Minister Egon Bahr and former U.S. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

In 2009, the University of Erfurt renamed its graduate school of public administration as the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. A private German-language secondary school in Warsaw, Poland, is also named after Brandt.

On 11 December 2009, Willy Brandt's name was attached to Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport.

Brandt's family

From 1941 until 1948 Brandt was married to Anna Carlotta Thorkildsen (the daughter of a Norwegian father and a German-American mother). The two of them had a daughter, Nina Brandt (born in 1940). After Brandt and Thorkildsen were divorced in 1946, Brandt married the Norwegian Rut Hansen in 1948. Hansen and Brandt had three sons: Peter Brandt (born in 1948), Lars Brandt (born in 1951), and Matthias Brandt (born in 1961). Today Peter is a historian, Lars is an artist, and Matthias is an actor. After 32 years of marriage, Willy Brandt and Rut Hansen Brand divorced in 1980, and from the day that they were divorced, they never saw each other again. On 9 December 1983, Brandt married Brigitte Seebacher (born in 1946).

Rut Hansen Brandt outlived Willy Brandt but died on 28 July 2006 in Berlin.

Matthias Brandt

In 2003, Matthias Brandt acted the role of Guillaume in the movie Im Schatten der Macht ("In the Shadow of Power") directed by the German filmmaker Oliver Storz. This movie deals with the Guillaume affair and Willy Brandt's resignation from the Chancellorship. Matthias caused a minor controversy in Germany when it was announced that he would portray the man who betrayed his father, and who caused him to resign in 1974. Earlier in 1974 - when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation in Norway together - it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife "were typing mysterious things on typewriters the whole night through."

Lars Brandt

In early 2006, Lars Brandt published a biography of his father called "Andenken" ('Remembrance'). This book has been the subject of some controversy. Some see it as a loving memory of the father-son-relationship, but others label it as a ruthless statement of a son who still thinks that he never had a father who really loved him.

Selected works

• 1960 Mein Weg nach Berlin (My Path to Berlin), autobiography
• 1966 Draußen. Schriften während der Emigration. (Outside: Writings during the Emigration) ISBN 3-8012-1094-4
• 1968 Friedenspolitik in Europa (The Politics of Peace in Europe)
• 1976 Begegnungen und Einsichten 1960-1975 (Encounters and Insights 1960-1975) ISBN 3-455-08979-8
• 1982 Links und frei. Mein Weg 1930-1950 (Left and Free: My Path 1930-1950)
• 1986 Der organisierte Wahnsinn (Organized Lunacy)
• 1989 Erinnerungen (Memories) ISBN 3-549-07353-4

2002f, Berliner Ausgabe, Werkauswahl, ed. for Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt Stiftung by Helga Grebing, Gregor Schöllgen and Heinrich August Winkler, 10 volumes, Dietz Verlag, Bonn 2002f, Collected Writings, ISBN 3-8012-0305-0

Biographies

• Lars Brandt, Andenken (ISBN 3-446-20710-4) Template:De icon
• Helga Grebing, Willy Brandt. Der andere Deutsche. (ISBN 978-3-7705-4710-4) Template:De icon - [Homepage of Prof. Dr. Helga Grebing] Template:De icon
• Peter Merseburger, Willy Brandt (ISBN 3-421-05328-6) Template:De icon
• Barbara Marshall, Willy Brandt, A Political Biography (ISBN 0-312-16438-6)
• Nestore di Meola, Willy Brandt raccontato da Klaus Lindenberg (ISBN 88-7284-712-5) Template:It icon

External links

• Official Biography of Willy Brandt by Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation
• Adam Sneyd, "Brandt Commission", in Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium, edited by William D. Coleman and Nancy Johnson
• Biography of Willy Brandt
• Special file on Willy Brandt and the unification of Europe in the ENA digital library
• Ubben Lecture at DePauw University
• Willy Brandt International Airport