West Germany and the Baltic question during the Cold War
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Šaltasis karas; Vakarų Vokietija; Baltijos valstybės; Cold war; West Germany; Baltic States.
ENThis chapter investigates the nature of West Germany’s Baltic policies between 1949 and 1990. To date little has been written on Bonn and the Baltic question, with most scholarly literature falling into the field of international law. The very few historical analyses are essentially all authored by the German Balt and law professor Boris Meissner, who used published materials in conjunction with first-hand knowledge gained while working in the Federal Foreign Ministry and the German embassy in Moscow during the 1950s. It is crucial to understand that Bonn’s stance towards the Baltic question cannot be examined in isolation from the ‘German question’, which deeply affected the Federal Republic’s very being and hence all of its political choices at home and internationally. The German question stood at the heart of the Cold War in Europe. The divided country with its divided former capital Berlin epitomised the division of Europe and the world into East and West. The Germans – like the Baltic peoples – suffered from unresolved legal issues in the wake of the Second World War. Germany faced the issues of re-unification, and an un-concluded peace treaty. For the Baltic peoples (inside the USSR and outside), it was a case of national survival following the Soviet annexation of 1940. Both Germans and Balts could couch their claims in the rhetoric of the UN charter and later the Helsinki Final Act, in which reference was made to the people’s right to self-determination and the peaceful change of borders. Given the significance of international law and universal normative values in Western policy with regard to the German and Baltic problems, it is not surprising that, in line with its Western allies, Bonn never recognised de jure the Baltic states’ incorporation into the USSR. [Extract, p. 101]
