Willy Brandt's charisma enchanted many Germans. The first social-democratic chancellor in Germany fought against the Nazi dictatorship, contributed as chancellor to a relaxation of Ostpolitik and received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Constructive vote of no confidence
It is April 27, 1972. Germany is standing still:men, women and children are following the counting of the secret ballot. Will Chancellor Willy Brandt remain in office? For the first time in the history of the young republic, the CDU and CSU are using a so-called constructive vote of no confidence.
They want to elect the CDU parliamentary group leader Rainer Barzel as chancellor and overthrow Willy Brandt - in office since 1969. Brandt's Ostpolitik, which was intended to normalize the relationship between the FRG and the GDR, polarized. The CDU and CSU are talking about a "sell out of German interests". Some of the disappointed members of the social-liberal coalition of SPD and FDP switched to the opposition. Brandt's government majority is shrinking.
However, the constructive vote of no confidence remains unsuccessful. Brandt calls it a "pipe burst". The SPD deputies in the Bonn plenary hall cheer. But since the social-liberal coalition is shaky, there is only one way out:new elections.
From these, Willy Brandt emerges strengthened. 91.1 percent of all eligible voters cast their votes in the 1972 federal election. With 45.8 percent, the SPD becomes the strongest parliamentary group in the Bundestag for the first time - it is a historic result for the Social Democrats and a triumph for Willy Brandt.
Failed:Rainer Barzel has to congratulate Willy Brandt
First Lübeck, then exile
It was a rocky road for Willy Brandt up to this day. His biography differs significantly from that of his predecessors Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard and Kurt-Georg Kiesinger (all CDU).
On December 18, 1913, Willy Brandt sees the light of day as Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm. He grew up in a working class district of Lübeck. He never gets to know his father. His mother takes care of him first. Then his neighbor takes care of him, later his grandfather, whom he calls "Dad". He moves into a six square meter attic room with him.
At the age of 14 he became a member of the social-democratic children's organization "Rote Falken" and at the age of 16 Frahm joined the SPD. His classmates already call their talented classmate "the politician". In 1931 he joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD), a left-wing socialist party that split off from the SPD.
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After Hitler came to power, the SAPD was banned. The left wing of the party continues to work illegally underground. Also Herbert Frahm. Hidden under the lines of a fishing cutter, he fled into exile in Norway in 1933 at the age of 19, in order to organize the fight against the Hitler regime and to collect funds from there. His code name:Willy Brandt.
When he was in Berlin illegally in 1936, he traveled as a Norwegian student, Gunner Gaasland. He also publishes articles as Felix Frank and Felix Franke.
"During the years in exile, Herbert Frahm transforms into Willy Brandt, he leaves behind the child he was, splits it off," writes Thorsten Körner in his book "The Brandt Family". Brandt had to "maneuver between his identities and always choose the one that seems least suspicious to the respective authorities".
"Hitler is not Germany"
In 1938 Brandt lost his German citizenship:the National Socialists expatriated him. Brandt becomes Norwegian in 1940, his birth name "Frahm" is in his passport. In later election campaigns, his exile was compared to treason. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer will also refer to him as "Brandt alias Frahm".
Willy Brandt does not let go of Germany even during his exile:he is intensively concerned with National Socialism and Hitler. One headline of his journalistic work in Norway is "Hitler is not Germany".
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After the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Brandt fled to Sweden. When the Second World War is over, he returns to Germany. First he reports for Scandinavian newspapers on the war crimes trials in Nuremberg. Then he decides to pursue a political career.
Elected chancellor after three candidacies
In 1948 Brandt became a German citizen again, and from 1949 his official name was Willy Brandt. In the same year he becomes a representative of the SPD party executive in Berlin. He became known as the Governing Mayor of Berlin (1957-1966) - but in the federal political arena, Brandt was initially considered "a politically clueless, controllable lightweight", as the political scientist Franz Walter put it.
That didn't change until 1966. Then came the next step up the career ladder:Brandt became vice chancellor and foreign minister in the grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD. In 1969, Brandt made it into the chancellery. After three attempts and numerous setbacks, the "German Kennedy" becomes the first social democratic chancellor - in a coalition with the FDP.
Brandt promises reforms in foreign and domestic policy. During Brandt's first term in office, the Bundestag unanimously decides to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, the rights to participate and the protection of children in the family are increased, works councils are given more room for maneuver and the education system is reformed.
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International Recognition
"The task of politics in the years ahead is to preserve the unity of the nation by relieving the current tension between the parts of Germany," said Willy Brandt in his government statement in October 1969.
Under the leadership of Brandt and Foreign Minister Walter Scheel (FDP), the Federal Republic recognizes the border with the GDR and the Oder-Neisse border in the so-called "Eastern Treaties". On the day the Warsaw Pact was signed (December 7, 1970), Brandt laid a wreath at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial. He falls to his knees for a few seconds, remains in silent mourning - a gesture that goes around the world. It was spontaneous and uncontrolled, Brandt emphasizes afterwards.
Brandt's Ostpolitik is also celebrated abroad. "Time" magazine named Willy Brandt "Man of the Year" in 1970. In 1971 he even received the Nobel Peace Prize. The reasoning of the Nobel Prize Committee:"As head of the West German government and on behalf of the German people, Chancellor Willy Brandt stretched out his hand to a policy of reconciliation between old enemy countries."
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Chancellor Brandt resigns on May 6, 1974. He falls over the so-called Guillaume Affair. Chancellor advisor Günter Guillaume is exposed as an East German agent. Brandt's resignation comes as a surprise to many.
The background to the resignation is much more complex. There have been increasing economic problems:the oil crisis with its car-free Sundays, strikes in numerous sectors, rising unemployment. Support is also shrinking in the party. Some just call Brandt "Willy Wolke" because he's aloof and has said goodbye to everyday political business.
End of the "Brandt era"
After his resignation as Federal Chancellor, Brandt continued to be involved in world politics. In 1976 Brandt became chairman of the Socialist International (until 1992), an international union of the labor movement. From 1977 to 1980 he chaired the North-South Commission, an independent commission on international development issues.
Even in German social democracy there is no way around him. He remained party chairman until 1987. The resignation came because a dispute broke out in the SPD over the personality of Margarita Mathiopoulos, the daughter of a Greek journalist. Brandt wants the non-party and politically inexperienced as the new SPD spokeswoman. Party colleagues consider this to be "foolishness". Internal party quarrels have been going on for a long time. After the "Brandt era", some SPD party leaders have very short terms of office.
Brandt, honorary chairman of the SPD after resigning as party chairman, is happy when he can call out to the people after the opening of the Wall on the night of November 9/10, 1989:"Now what belongs together is growing together. Now we are experiencing and I am thankful to the Lord that I can witness this:the parts of Europe are growing together."
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Historical milestone
Historians praise the "change through rapprochement" - the formula coined by the SPD politician Egon Bahr - as a milestone in the history of the Federal Republic.
The Brandt biographer Peter Merseburger praises Brandt as a "Chancellor of reconciliation, who laid down the orderly coexistence of two states of a nation, but at the same time knew how to keep open the option of national self-determination (...)".
Most recently, Willy Brandt's third marriage is to the publicist Brigitte Seebacher. He had three children (Peter, Lars and Matthias) with his second wife Rut Brandt and a daughter named Ninja with his first wife Carlota Thorkildsen. Willy Brandt dies on October 8, 1992 in Unkel am Rhein.