The 'Ostpolitik' of the social-liberal coalition

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject History of Europe - Newer History, European Unification, grade: B, Vrije University Brussel (Vesalius College), language: English, abstract: The rising threat of a nuclear war The conflict between the two superpowers eventually emerging after the second World War, brought the world on the verge of a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile crisis 1962. During these five days between 22.-27. 10. 1962 the leaders of the two blocks realised the danger of aggressive policies and established a direct phone line between the headquarters in Washington DC and the Kremlin in Moscow. The position of Germany during the beginning of the Cold War Since the Cold War had its origins in the destruction of the German 'Drittes Reich' (Engl. 'Third Reich') Europe and especially Germany played a special role during the Cold War. Immediately after the occupation of the Allies the signs of the Potsdam conference signalised a separation of Germany. Eventually the creation of the German Federal Republic (BRD) in the Zones of France, Britain and the USA was responded by the Soviet military administration with a socialist German state, the German Democratic Republic (DDR). During the first years of the Cold War the gap between the two German states had widened up. The BRD became a member of NATO in 1955 while DDR was forced to join the Warsaw Pact in the same year. The separation of Germany was brought to a climax as Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after Stalin, decided to set up a wall in Berlin on August 13th to separate the eastern part from the western part, in order to prevent East- German citizens from escaping into the West.