I.

Introduction

Germany, West, common name for a former republic of central Europe, bordered on the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; on the east by the former East Germany and the Czech Republic; on the south by Austria and Switzerland; and on the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

West Germany had an area of 248,577 sq km (95,976 sq mi). It was established officially as the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; German, Bundesrepublik Deutschland) on May 23, 1949, as one of two successor states—East Germany (officially the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) being the other—to the nation of Germany after its defeat in World War II. West Germany ceased to exist in 1990 when it merged with East Germany into a single nation known as Germany (officially the Federal Republic of Germany).

When World War II ended in 1945, leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) met at the Potsdam Conference. They decided to divide Germany temporarily into four occupation zones—French in the south-west, British in the north-west, American in the south, and Soviet in the east. The city of Berlin, located inside the Soviet zone, was also divided among the four powers.

When the USSR began to establish Communist governments in Eastern Europe, the rest of the alliance suffered a breakdown. With Western powers opposed to Soviet expansion, the Cold War began and tensions in Germany increased. The Soviets increased the isolation of the zones of Germany and Berlin under their control, distancing them from the democratic development encouraged by the Western powers in the rest of the country. Unable to agree with the Western powers on a policy for Germany, the Soviets set up a Communist government in the eastern part of the country (East Germany). The United States, France, and Great Britain supported the free market democracy in the west (West Germany).

West Germany comprised the states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein. Bonn, an old university city on the River Rhine, served as the West German capital and continues to host much of the government of the new Germany. The official capital of Germany, Berlin (formerly the capital of East Germany), is scheduled to take over some of the federal government functions by the year 2000. At the time of reunification in 1990 West Germany had about 62 million inhabitants.

II.

The Adenauer Years

From 1949 to 1963 the government of West Germany was dominated by the Christian Democratic Union. Its leader, Konrad Adenauer, was elected the republic’s Chancellor in 1949. As West Germany’s first leader, Adenauer sought to transform the country from a post-war occupied zone to an independent nation accepted as an equal by other countries. The goal of independence became more attainable after the United States, the United Kingdom, and France recognized that Western Europe could not withstand Soviet pressure without the aid of a strong West Germany. Accordingly, military occupation of West Germany was ended with the Bonn Convention of 1952.

III.

European Cooperation

In 1955 West Germany was internationally recognized as an independent nation. Allowed to re-arm, it joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which had been established in 1949 for the defence of Europe. West Germany also cooperated with the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Community, and the Council of Europe (see European Union).

As partial reparation for war crimes and out of gratitude for post-war aid from the United States, West Germany assumed aid obligations to Israel and developing nations. Although not a member of the United Nations (UN) until 1973, the republic joined many UN agencies and made large contributions to UN projects. In 1963, in a move to reverse long-standing hostility between the French and Germans, Adenauer and French President Charles de Gaulle agreed to hold regular conferences. West Germany also improved relations with Eastern European countries. With reunification as his goal, Adenauer encouraged trade with East Germany but steadfastly refused to recognize it as a sovereign state.

IV.

Economic Resurgence

In domestic affairs Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard, his economics minister, encouraged economic recovery through free enterprise aimed at the consumer market both at home and abroad. Industrial growth was aided by tax laws favouring business-owners, by heavy private investment, and by hardworking, relatively undemanding labourers. The workforce was augmented first by a large influx of skilled immigrants, who were among the more than 11 million refugees from East Germany and former German areas of Europe. Later, so-called guest workers (German, Gastarbeiter) came from Italy, Spain, and Turkey. The result was the period of rapid industrial expansion and prosperity known as the Wirtschaftswunder (German for “economic miracle”). Funded by its growing industrial wealth, the government built an army and expanded the social welfare system.

V.

Social Democrats in Power

When Adenauer retired in 1963 at the age of 87, he was succeeded as chancellor by Erhard (1963-1966) and Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1966-1969), fellow Christian Democrats who headed coalition governments. In 1969 a Social Democratic victory brought Willy Brandt, former mayor of West Berlin, to the chancellorship. With the approval of big business, he initiated the Ostpolitik (German for “eastern policy”) to improve political and trade relations with the Soviet bloc. In 1970 he signed non-aggression treaties with the USSR and Poland that confirmed existing boundaries. Reversing Adenauer’s policy on East Germany, he reached an accord with East Germany in 1972 that facilitated West German access to West Berlin. In 1973 the two countries granted each other full diplomatic recognition and were admitted to the United Nations. The following year, Brandt resigned when it was discovered that a member of his personal staff was an East German spy. He was succeeded by Helmut Schmidt.

Schmidt faced domestic problems that had been simmering since the late 1960s. The economy suffered under rising unemployment and rapid inflation, exacerbated by the presence of four million guest workers and their families. The country was also troubled by student unrest and by a wave of bombings, kidnappings, and murders by such terrorists as the Baader-Meinhof group. In foreign affairs Schmidt applied Brandt’s Ostpolitik to relations with East Germany. Schmidt’s Social Democratic-Free Democratic coalition government won the elections in 1976 and 1980, but in 1982 the Free Democratic Party ended the Schmidt coalition government by withdrawing and forming a new coalition headed by Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democrats.

VI.

Economic Ascendancy

In the 1980s West Germany emerged as a leading economic power, along with Japan and the United States. West German leadership in the international arena became more prominent in the late 1980s. West Germany supported both the federation of Western Europe in the European Community (now called the European Union) and the birth of new democracies in Eastern Europe. Kohl’s political coalition was confirmed in elections in 1983 and 1987. The two German republics achieved better relations with new financial and travel agreements in 1984, and East German President Erich Honecker paid his first official visit to West Germany in 1987.

VII.

Reunification

With the reform of Soviet society and economy introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, the Soviet-backed regimes of Eastern Europe began to lose control over their people. East Germany’s Communist government fell in 1989, an event that profoundly altered relations between the two German republics. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and other emigration barriers, more than 200,000 East Germans streamed into West Germany. The West German government not only aided the new immigrants but also allocated a massive infusion of capital to shore up the ailing East German economy.

West Germany and East Germany merged their financial systems in July 1990, and in October the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) dissolved and became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Christian Democratic coalition, led by Kohl, scored a decisive victory in elections for the new German government in December 1990, and Kohl became the chancellor of the unified Germany. The newly elected Bundestag (the legislative body of the German parliament), representing both East and West, named Berlin the capital of Germany on June 20, 1991. The transfer of administration from Bonn, the capital of the former West Germany, was expected to take several years.