Problems with the "Big Brother": The GDR's Ministry for State Security and the CPSU's Policy toward Germany in 1969/70

Abstract:This article examines how the East German secret service reacted to the onset of the new Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt's Social Democrat–Liberal coalition in Bonn in 1969/70. Material from the GDR Ministry for State Security (MfS) shows that Minister Erich Mielke and his deputy Markus Wolf, the head of the department for espionage in Western countries (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA), considered Brandt's variant of "imperialist" Ostpolitik especially dangerous for the GDR and the Socialist states, as it allegedly aimed at abolishing Socialism in the GDR and undermining the Eastern alliance system. In conversations with the KGB leadership, they warned their "Big Brother" and exhorted Moscow not to make any concessions to the West German government at the expense of the GDR. The core of this article consists of a presentation manuscript—translated into English for the first time—prepared by the Stasi as it sought to make its case to KGB chief Yuri Andropov in the summer of 1970. Wolf tried to exhibit a confident, sometimes even schoolmasterly attitude toward the Soviet representatives. The Stasi nevertheless failed to dissuade the Soviets from signing a renunciation of force treaty with Brandt's government in August 1970.