Willy Brandt's Private Desk in Berlin, 1960s

This desk was in the Brandt family home in Berlin-Schlachtensee. The objects come from the personal possession of the mayor of Berlin.

Spiegel Cover, 1967-1974

Newspaper article by Herbert Frahm, 11 March 1930

Willy Brandt’s Norwegian Press Card, 11 March

On 8 November 1945, Willy Brandt flies to Nuremberg in Germany as a correspondent for Scandinavian newspapers to report on the Major War Criminals Trial of the “Third Reich”. The proceedings reveal the horrific extent of German crimes, especially the murder of 6 million Jews.  

Herbert Frahm’s Abitur class at the Johanneum, 1932

Memorandum by the Gestapo in Kiel concerning Herbert Frahm, 28 April 1938

In 1938, the Nazi authorities in Germany find out that Herbert Frahm and Willy Brandt are the same person. Because of his resistance activities, they revoke his German citizenship. Expatriation takes place by promulgation in the Reich Index of 5 September 1938. Brandt only finds out that he is an expatriate a few weeks later. However, the Gestapo knows very little about him. Their report is flawed: Brandt neither began an apprenticeship in a silk business, nor was he ever a communist. The date of his escape is also incorrect.  

Graduation certificate of Herbert Frahm

In February 1932 Herbert Frahm passed the Abitur at the Johanneum in Lübeck.

Party programme of the Socialist Workers' Party, 1932

Reply from US President John F. Kennedy to Willy Brandt after the construction of the Berlin Wall, 18 August 1961

Willy Brandt in the press gallery at the Nuremberg Trials, 1946

At the trials, Brandt is one of 250 authorised press correspondents. In the book “Criminals and Other Germans”, he writes about his observations in the courtroom and among the local population. In his narrative, he rejects the thesis that all Germans are Nazis and guilty. But he emphasizes that each and every individual must face political responsibility for the crimes of the NS regime. To denigrate Brandt, some politicians later claim the book is titled “German and Other Criminals”.

Willy Brandt’s Norwegian passport, 1 August 1940

Restoration of citizenship and change of name

This document officially makes Willy Brandt a German again. The form used by the state of Schleswig-Holstein comes from the time of the “Third Reich”. But the swastika is blotted out. However, naturalisation does not come into force until the document is handed to him on 24 September 1948, ten years after Brandt’s expatriation by the Nazi authorities. The certification of the change of name is made official one year later by Berlin’s Chief of Police. Nevertheless, opponents will slander Brandt as a traitor and defame him due to his change of name during his time in exile.

Willy Brandt’s greeting to the SI Congress in Berlin, September 1992

Willy Brandt’s political ascent

In 1948, Willy Brandt is appointed as the Berlin representative of the SPD party’s executive committee, which Kurt Schumacher heads in Hanover. At Ernst Reuter’s side, Brandt experiences first-hand the Berliners’ struggle for freedom during the Soviet blockade. After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the Berlin SPD sends the young politician to Bonn as a member of the Bundestag. From 1950 on, Brandt is also a member of the West Berlin House of Representatives. He is elected its president in 1955.

Certificate of naturalisation of Herbert Frahm, 1 July 1948

Official certificate of change of name, 11 August 1949

Provisional mandate card for the 1st German Bundestag in Bonn, 1949

Membership card of the Berlin House of Representatives, 17 January 1951

A West-Berlin couple’s pass for a day-long visit to East Berlin, 5 January 1964

Willy Brandt Online Biography

Learn more about Willy Brandt's exciting in the detailed timeline of the online biography. The Website offers numerous audios and videos as well as essays about Willy Brandt’s political work and much more.

Controversy concerning Ostpolitik

With a significant portion of the German population and in the political opposition, Brandt’s Ostpolitik encounters strong opposition. The CDU/CSU fears a sell-out of national interests. Particularly controversial is the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border. Spokesmen for the associations of the Expelled complain the loss of their homeland and accuse the Chancellor of treason. On the day of the signing of the Warsaw Treaty, Brandt emphasizes in a televised address to his compatriots that the treaty does not give up anything that has not long since been forfeited. The decisive causes for the loss of the German eastern territories are the millions of crimes committed by the Hitler regime. Above all, they had inflicted the worst suffering on Poland. The majority of the German population support the Eastern Treaties, which are ratified by the Bundestag in 1972.

Willy Brandt’s televised address after the signing of the German-Polish treaty in Warsaw, 7 December 1970

New Ostpolitik

With a new Ostpolitik, Willy Brandt wants to secure peace, promote the cohesion of the divided nation and set in motion the reconciliation between the Germans and their eastern neighbours. In 1970, he is the first Federal Chancellor to travel to the GDR and negotiate with Prime Minister Willi Stoph. Brandt is enthusiastically received by the population in Erfurt. In the basic treaty of 1972, the Federal Republic of Germany accepts the state sovereignty of the GDR. But for Brandt and his government, the other German state is still not a foreign country. Core elements of Ostpolitik are the 1970 Moscow Treaty with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty with the People’s Republic of Poland. Key issues are the mutual renunciation of violence and inviolability of the existing borders in Europe, in particular the recognition of the Oder-Neisse Line as Poland’s western Border. Therefore, the Federal Republic of Germany gives up its legal claim over the former eastern territories of the German Reich still belonging to Germany.

Speaking note for the address at the United Nations in New York, 26 September 1973

Policies for One World

As Chairman of the “Independent Commission for Internationals Development issues”, Willy Brandt tries in 1977 to revive the North-South dialogue. Half of the members of the Commission will be from industrialised and half from developing countries. Brandt turns its comprehensive report over to the United Nations in February 1980. The Brandt Report makes numerous proposals: The industrialized countries should significantly increase development aid, barriers to trade are to be dismantled and the world economic order is to be reformed. Although these recommendations for action are very popular internationally, national governments hardly implement them.

Introduction to the North-South Report with incorporations by Willy Brandt, 1979

Beyond Europe

The worldwide association of social-democratic parties regains political status through its president Willy Brandt. Especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, but in Africa, too, the Socialist International gains numerous new partners. With his friends in the SI, Brandt sets his sights in particular on overcoming right-wing dictatorships in Central and South America and ending the apartheid regime in South Africa. At the SI Congress in September 1992, a poignant greeting from the terminally ill Willy Brandt is read aloud. It is a call for global commitment against injustice and for human rights. That the SI under his presidency has become a “truly worldwide community”, is characterised by Brandt as especially satisfying.

Letter from Willy Brandt to Mikhail Gorbachev, 11 November 1989

In exchange with Gorbachev

To secure peace, in the 1980s the SPD and its chairman intensely seek dialogue with those in power in Eastern Europe. Willy Brandt forms a particularly close relationship with the Soviet head of state and party, Mikhail Gorbachev. Since the opening of the Wall on 9 November 1989 triggers great concern in Moscow, Gorbachev addresses a message to federal Chancellor Kohl as well as to former Chancellor Brandt. In it, he asks them to help prevent “a chaotic situation with unimaginable consequences”. Apparently, Gorbachev fears there might be attacks on the Soviet troops stationed in the GDR. In his reply Brandt makes it clear he considers this concern to be unfounded.

Enlargement

Willy Brandt plays a major role in ensuring that the heads of state and of government of the six EEC Member States begin negotiations in early December 1969 in The Hague with four applicant countries. In 1973, Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland join the European Community. The fact that Norway rejects membership in a referendum in 1972 is a bitter disappointment for Brandt. An essentials prerequisite for the unification of Europe is a favourable German-French relationship. That is why federal Chancellor Willy Brandt cultivates an intensive personal exchange with the president of France, Georges Pompidou. European agricultural policy is an ongoing issue with them.

“The European Union will come”

Willy Brandt is the first German Chancellor to speak before the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 13 November 1973. In his keynote speech, he sets out his vision of a united Europe with one voice on foreign policy to perceive its own interests more successfully in the world. Brandt supports the plan to create a European Union by 1980, preceded by the creation of an economic and monetary union. His goal is a European government under parliamentary scrutiny which can make the necessary decisions in the areas of common policy. However, those plans cannot yet be realized.

Speech manuscript for the address to the European Parliament, 13 November 1973

SPD poster during the Bundestag election campaign, 1972

New environmental awareness

In the early 1970s, there is a growing awareness of the vulnerability of the Earth’s unique ecosystem. The belief in unbridled progress is shaken. In its report “The Limits of Growth”, the “Club of Rome” in 1972 warns urgently about the destruction of the foundations of life on our planet through the continued over-exploitation of nature. The oil crisis is also showing people in the Federal Republic of Germany that natural resources are not inexhaustible.

Speech manuscript for the Nobel Laureate Meeting, 26 June 1972

Speech at the Nobel Laureate Meeting at the Stadttheater Lindau, 26 June 1972

More Co-Determination and More Co-Responsibility

Willy Brandt’s first government declaration on 28 October 1969 causes a great stir. The new chancellor promises to expand freedom and rights of co-determination for all citizens but also calls for more co-responsibility from them. Above all, the sentences with which Brandt announces reforms in domestic policy leave a lasting impression: “We are not at the end of our democracy. We’re just getting started.”

Manuscript of Willy Brandt’s government declaration, October 1969

Government declaration of Willy Brandt to the Bundestag in Bonn, 28 October 1969

Willy Brandt’s speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, 13 November 1973

Willy Brandt's speech on the occasion of US President John F. Kennedy's visit to Berlin at Rathaus Schöneberg, 26 June 1963

Rainer Fetting "Willy Brandt, klein", 1996

Border Treaty with Poland and genuflection in Warsaw

Chancellor Willy Brandt in Erfurt (East Germany), 19 March 1970

The Awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Willy Brandt, 10 December 1971

Speech of Chancellor Brandt before the United Nations in New York, 26 September 1973

Interview with Willy Brandt in front of Schöneberg Town Hall in Berlin, 10. November 1989

The construction of the Berlin Wall, August 1961

John F. Kennedy in Berlin, 26 June 1963