From 1918 to 1990 Germany lost two world wars and was ruled by two dictatorships, the Nazis and the socialist GDR. A historical disaster for the German people, and as well its neighbors in France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Russia and other states as well as the Jewish population.
No country in Europe was so entirely devastated after the Second World War 8 May 1945 as Germany. The darkest hour. Ground zero. All cities completely destroyed by bombing raids with 6.1 million Germans dead, including 1.1 million civilians. Divided into three parts, with the loss of the eastern territories to Poland and the USSR, 12 million were expelled and fled to West Germany. The GDR with 18 million as a socialist vassal state of the USSR and new dictatorship. With 300,000 political prisoners and 1,900 refugees dead at the Berlin wall and the brutal 1300-kilometer-long iron curtain to the West, until reunification in 1990. Free West-Berlin was threatened frequently, like during the Berlin Blockade 1948. Well-equipped, nuclear-armed Soviet forces in the GDR.
Germany morally bankrupted by the Holocaust, after six million Jews were killed by Nazi terror.
Suspiciously watched by the long-time arch-enemies France and United Kingdom, the opponents in two lost world wars.
Hour zero marked the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 in Bonn. From then on, the country emerged from the ruins to become a new prosperous and tolerant society in the West, respected again and surrounded by friends and partners.
How did this success come about?
Reconciliation played five important roles:
- Reconciling capitalism and socialism by establishing the innovative balanced ‘Social Market Economy’.
- Reconciliation with the former enemies in the West: Mainly France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- Reconciliation with the East: Poland and even Russia.
- Reconciliation with the Jewish community and Israel.
- Reconciliation with soldiers and functionaries of the socialist GDR, the adversary until October 3, 1990, the day of national reunification.
All these components of reconciliation laid the foundation for Germany´s admission as a respected member of the family of nations after total defeat.
Reconciliation paved the way to a new peace order and prosperous European nations as well as the miracle of the German reunification.
Reconciling capitalism and socialism by establishing the Social Market Economy.
At first, there was a controversy over the direction of economic policy. The SPD preferred classical socialism, but the new CDU chose economic freedom, supported by the liberal FDP.
Introducing a stable currency, the D mark, served as the basis of the Währungsreform in 1948. This measure provided citizens with purchasing power.
The first Federal Minister of Economics, Ludwig Erhard, the second Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, developed something completely new in 1949: The Social Market Economy.
At the CDU party conference in 1948 he emphasized: “Not the free market economy of the laissez-faire plundering of a bygone era …, but the socially responsible market economy that once again brings the individual to the fore, that places a high value on the person and that provides a fair return for work carried out, this is the modern version of the market economy.”
Erhard’s fresh ideas: “Attaining social stability by improved distribution of opportunities in a free competitive economy. Price stability, external economic equilibrium, a high level of employment and solid finances”. With the core objective of avoiding hyperinflation and mass unemployment, as in the Weimar Republic, which pushed disillusioned voters to the Nazi party and ultimately led to the end of democracy in 1933.
Erhard's credo: Prosperity for All.
“But it must first be earned before one can think of distributing it”, he said. The essentials were an “increase in productivity, thus economic growth and low unemployment”. He also demanded “social policy without false incentives enabling broader sections of the working population to generate prosperity. Growth allows fair wages and thus prosperity for all”.
It worked very well: The Federal Republic of Germany experienced its Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) in the 1960s as a result of a courageous Mission Future with heart and mind. Democracy could flourish.
Reconciliation with the former adversaries in the West, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The second major construction site was foreign policy.
Real reconciliation with the former adversaries plus reunification.
What were the building blocks of Germany´s reunification?
What was the driving force behind shaping relations with the other countries in the West and East, and with the United States as the occupying power?
The wise first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, focused on a completely new German foreign policy:
Rejecting the idea of a neutral Germany in the center of Europe, as the Left favored, but instead supporting unification of a free Europe. The first stage of this process was the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. Later additional steps in the integration process led to a stronger European Union (EU). This process also included reconciliation with the former arch enemies France and the UK as well as establishing a transatlantic friendship with the United States of America.
This policy rested on a strong Western power-base. In 1955, Germany, having set up the Bundeswehr with 500,000 soldiers, joined NATO. In 1967, the Alliance´s raison d’etre found its expression in the two pillars of the Harmel Report: Credible deterrence and détente.
All this was revolutionary.
And it worked very well.
From this position of strength of the Free World, Adenauer wanted to achieve reunification. He rejected neutrality, a position sharply criticized by the opposition party SPD in particular. Adenauer’s new strategy, unification by European integration, paid off on October 3, 1990, under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It marked the day of reunification and integration ending the socialist GDR´s regime. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 8, 1989, the U.S. in particular supported this course, while France and Great Britain remained hesitant.
Germany had proven itself as a peaceful and respected partner in Europe.
Reconciliation with Russia and Poland
24 million Russians, including 10 million soldiers, lost their lives during the Nazi Wehrmacht attack from 1941 to 1945. Russia had been destroyed by the Nazis with a scorched earth strategy reaching as far as Moscow. The victor Josef Stalin annexed large parts of eastern Poland and half of German East Prussia in 1945. He occupied the center of Germany and established a socialist dictatorship in East Berlin. His troops were now on German soil. A very difficult starting point for reconciliation.
The controversial Entspannungspolitik, a dialogue (détente) focused on the relaxation of tensions, had started early with Konrad Adenauer’s visit to Moscow in 1955.
Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy of détente created additional trust in the central and eastern European countries in the 1960ies and 1970ies.
Over four decades Bonn negotiated with the Kremlin and East Germany economic cooperation, human relief and visits from the GDR, diplomatic relations, and arms control. These talks paved the way for more trust and ultimately led to reunification.
Mikhail Gorbachev tenure at the head of the rotten USSR from 1985 to 1991 offered a unique opportunity for the peaceful reunification of Germany and simultaneous independence of the Eastern European countries.
A great moment for mankind, a peaceful revolution in all Eastern Europe.
The relationship with Poland was also very strained.
The Nazis had treated the Poles as sub-humans and labor slaves. The territories of Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia, which had been German for three centuries, were transferred to Poland "for administration" at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, but effectively annexed. More than 12 million Germans were expelled, 600.000 perished in the process. A national tragedy.
Four historical events were significant for the reconciliation of Germans and Poles:
First, in their "Charter of German Expellees” declaration of August 5, 1950, in Stuttgart, the representatives of 12 million refugees renounced violence in their efforts to take back their former homeland from the Poles.
"We expellees renounce revenge and retaliation. This decision is serious and sacred to us in remembrance of the infinite suffering that the last decade in particular has brought upon humanity."
"To create a united Europe [...] in which the peoples can live without fear or constraint. [...] We will participate in the reconstruction of Germany and Europe through hard, tireless work."
"The peoples must recognize that the fate of the German expellees, like that of all refugees, is a world problem whose solution demands the highest moral responsibility and commitment to tremendous achievement. We call on peoples and people of good will to join hands in order to find a way out of guilt, misfortune, suffering, poverty and misery into a better future for us all."
Read the Charter of the German Expellees from 1950 here.
Second, on November 18, 1965, the Polish bishops of the Catholic Church – among them Karol Wojtyła, the Archbishop of Kraków (later Pope John Paul II) – send a pastoral letter to their German counterparts. They invited them to celebrate the 1000 Year Anniversary of Christianization. In this unique Letter of Christian Reconciliation the Polish bishops declared:
“In this most Christian and at the same time very human spirit, we extend our hands to you in the benches of the Council that is drawing to a close, granting forgiveness and asking for forgiveness. And when you, German bishops and Council Fathers, fraternally grasp our outstretched hands, only then will we be able to celebrate our millennium in Poland with a clear conscience in a completely Christian manner. We cordially invite you to Poland.”
“And despite all this, despite this almost hopelessly burdened situation with the past, it is precisely from this situation, dear brothers, that we call out to you: Let us try to forget! No polemics, no further cold war, but the beginning of a dialog, as it is sought everywhere today by the Council and by Pope Paul Vl.”
Read the pastoral letter from the Polish bishops to their German counterparts from November 18, 1965 and the reply from the German bishops dated December 5, 1965, here.
Third, Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt at the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, December 7, 1970, where 56,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in 1943.
This historic gesture, after laying a wreath, become the symbol of German recognition of guilt, atonement and regret for the crimes of the Nazis in Poland and hope for reconciliation in the future.
Fourth, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Poland's first non-communist prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, celebrated a reconciliation mass in Gut Kreisau on November 12, 1989. Archbishop Alfons Nossol conducted the sermon.
The Holy Mass ended with the usual sign of reconciliation and both statemen embraced each other. Nossol told Mission Future this anecdote: The still socialist dominated Polish government asked the archbishop in advance to cancel this important element of reconciliation of the mass. He told them: “I will give you the telephone number of the Vatican. There you may ask there for an dispense from our Catholic liturgy.”
Wind of Change 1989 and 1990
The new second phase of reconciliation with Poland followed Brandt´s Ostpolitik with the Wind of Change initiated by Kohl in November 1989 and 1990. Topped by the membership of Poland in NATO (1999) and in the EU (2004) as a new partner for peace in Europe.
In 1990, ceding of the large former German territories in the east to Poland and the Soviet Union was recognized by the German parliament in Bonn under international law, codified by the Two-Plus-Four Treaty and sealed with the German-Polish Border Treaty. These treaties stoked bitterness among the 12 million refugees from these former German lands in the east. But they served German interests by paving the way to unification and reconciliation between both countries shaping a better future together.
Poland had to recover from the bitter past as well.
Many people forget that Poland was a victim of Nazi totalitarism and race ideology from 1939 to 1945 and followed by socialist totalitarism from 1945 to 1989. Poland had to fight for freedom and dignity twice.
The Catholic Church as well as millions of strong believers were the driving force behind this struggle.
In 1990, Poland needed to achieve domestic reconciliation with the brutal Communist party as well as with the German minority numbering 400,000 individuals, and with Germany as a strong neighbor in the West.
Mission Future met the archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, in his episcopal. He had worked for Karol Józef Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, since 1966. When Wojtyła was elected Pope, he persuaded Dziwisz to accompany him to Rome where he stood loyally at John Paul’s side as his private secretary and archbishop until the pope’s death in April 2005. In the same year, Dziwisz followed in Wojtyła’s footsteps when he was appointed bishop of their beloved city of Krakow. During our visit, Dziwisz told us,
“John Paul II lived in God, and with God. He searched for God in his daily life, made people around him happier, and talked to everyone, especially young people. It was not just his great personality, but also his living in God which made him so strong and influential.”
During our conversation about tolerance, we asked Cardinal Dziwisz about Pope John Paul II’s position concerning Muslims. He told us about the pope’s visit to Damascus, where Islamic scholars kindly welcomed him as “Our Grand Mufti” in the Great Mosque. The pope stated that the future depends on the possibility of engaging in constructive dialogue with Islam and discovering common values. Instead of focusing on struggle, it is more important to avidly search for common roots. For Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Dziwisz explained, humanity was a community without any kind of discrimination. Differences should lead to a strengthening of our human family, so the pope believed, because everyone must understand and respect the value of human diversity.
Read more about Pope John Paul II and his fight against Nazis and Communists here.
These were the results of a courageous new best practice policy of the various German governments from 1949 to 1990, a fresh “Mission Future Germany”, using a combination of Realpolitik and reconciliation.
Reconciliation with the Jewish community and Israel
In 1951, the Federal Republic of Germany started a reconciliation and Wiedergutmachungs-Politik with Israel and the former Jewish citizens. Almost a “mission impossible” after what had happened during the Nazi dictatorship with six million Jews killed in concentration camps.
How did this difficult mission succeed?
Early reparations paid to survivors and the State of Israel were important as a start.
Just six years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust and only two years after the Federal Republic of Germany was established in Bonn, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer started this delicate reconciliation process with an historic speech in the Bundestag on September 27, 1951. It was labeled “Government Statement on the Attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the Jews.”. He declared:
“Recently, the attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the Jews has been the subject of various public debates around the world. Doubts have been raised here and there as to whether the new state is guided by principles in this important matter that take into account the terrible crimes of a bygone era and place the relationship between the Jews and the German people on a new and healthy footing. The attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany towards its Jewish citizens is clearly defined by the Basic Law. Article 3 of the Basic Law stipulates that all people are equal before the law and that no one may be disadvantaged or favored because of their gender, their origin, their race, their language, their homeland and origin, their faith, their religious or political views. Furthermore, Article 1 of the Basic Law states: "Human dignity is inviolable. It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect it.”
The German people are therefore committed to inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every human community, of peace and of justice in the world. These legal norms are directly applicable law and oblige every German citizen - and in particular every civil servant - to reject any form of racial discrimination. In the same spirit, the Federal Government also signed the Convention on Human Rights drafted by the Council of Europe and committed itself to implementing the legal ideas set out therein.
However, these norms can only become effective if the attitude from which they were born becomes the common property of the entire nation. This is therefore primarily a problem of education. The Federal Government considers it necessary for the churches and the educational administrations of the Länder to do everything in their power to ensure that the spirit of human and religious tolerance is not only formally recognized by the German people, but especially among German youth and that it manifests itself in mental attitudes and practical actions. This is an essential task of the authorities called upon to educate, which, of course, needs to be supplemented by the example of adults.
In order to ensure that this educational work is not disrupted and that inner peace in the Federal Republic is preserved, the Federal Government has decided to combat groups still engaging in anti-Semitic incitement through relentless criminal prosecution. Proposals to amend the Criminal Code have been submitted to the Bundestag, on the basis of which, among other things, racially inciting propaganda would be punishable by severe penalties. The Federal Government will apply these provisions with the utmost determination as soon as they come into force.
The Federal Government and the vast majority of the German people are aware of the immeasurable suffering inflicted on the Jews in Germany and in the occupied territories during the Nazi era. The overwhelming majority of the German people abhorred the crimes committed against the Jews and did not participate in them. During the period of National Socialism, there were many among the German people who, at their own peril for religious reasons, out of remorse, out of shame at the desecration of the German name, were willing to help their Jewish fellow citizens. However, unspeakable crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, which require moral and material reparation, both with regard to the individual damage suffered by Jews and to Jewish property, for which there are no longer any individual beneficiaries today. The first steps have been taken in this area. However, much remains to be done. The Federal Government will ensure that the restitution legislation is concluded soon and that it is implemented fairly. Part of the identifiable Jewish property has been restituted; further restitution will follow.
With regard to the extent of restitution - a very significant problem in view of the enormous destruction of Jewish assets by National Socialism - account must be taken of the limits imposed on Germany's ability to pay by the bitter necessity of providing for the countless victims of the war and caring for the refugees and displaced persons. The Federal Government is prepared to work together with representatives of Judaism and the State of Israel, which has taken in so many homeless Jewish refugees, to find a solution to the problem of material reparations in order to ease the path to the spiritual cleansing of infinite suffering. It is deeply imbued with the conviction that the spirit of true humanity must once again come to life and bear fruit. The Federal Government regards serving this spirit with all its strength as the noblest duty of the German people.”
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany was established in 1951. Together with the State of Israel negotiations started in March 1952 with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. Two Luxembourg agreements were signed. Israel received DM 3 billion in goods and services. DM 450 million were paid to the Claims Conference and more compensation to individuals with separate legislation. The Federal Compensation Act (BEG) of 1956 provided payments to those persons as compensation for physical injury and damage to health, restrictions on personal freedom, harm to economic and professional growth, and damage to personal property. Many Holocaust survivors received a monthly pension. The Federal Restitution Law (BRüG) of 1957 provided more compensation payments of USD $ 2.255 billion until 2011.
Germany also identified more than 16,000 Nazi-looted objects and returned them to the Holocaust survivors and their heirs.
The German government paid approximately over USD 86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust victims and their heirs.
A large part of the compensation for Israel consisted of secret arms deliveries for various wars.
Shortly before Christmas in 1957, Shimon Peres met Minister of Defense Franz Josef Strauß at his home in Rott am Inn in Bavaria. Since the supply of weapons abroad required a debate and decision of the Bundestag and Chancellor Adenauer and Minister Strauss feared that official deliveries of weapons to Israel could lead to recognition of the GDR by Egypt, Syria and other Arab states, the two only agreed on an informal secret cooperation. This was also in the interest of Israel, where survivors had protested against any cooperation with Germany. Bonn agreed to supply new weapons worth DM 300 million to Israel and additional support for the next seven years. The secret deliveries were organized by the newly founded Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The training of Israeli soldiers took place discreetly in Bundeswehr barracks, for example in Rendsburg, which also provided weapons from the depots.
The secret remained secret until 1964. A year later, Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany established diplomatic relations. In a new official treaty, the countries agreed on the scope of the final arms deliveries.
Germany delivered 40 battle tanks, 500 trucks and 500 trailers, 34 military aircraft, 24 helicopters, 1,600 anti-tank missiles, equipment for two anti-aircraft battalions and ammunition. The Ministry of Defense covered the acquisition costs of DM 200 million.
In May 1960, several German-made Noratlas transport aircraft were flown to the French Air Force base in Lahr as Luftwaffe planes, repainted with the Star of David in Marseille and transferred to Israel.
In 1962, Israel received 24 brand new Sikorsky S-58 helicopters, which arrived in a ship. Their destination port was Hamburg, but they were diverted to Haifa on the high seas. This increased the number of Israeli helicopters from eight to 32 and the military strike force for the airlift of 15 soldiers each by several times. Their deployment in the 1967 Six-Day War demonstrated the value of these weapons.
To support the development of the Israeli arms industry, Germany ordered weapons for DM 250 million. It included 10,000 simple Uzi submachine guns for the Bundeswehr, which had been developed by the Uzi Gal who had fled Weimar to escape the Nazis.
The intense military cooperation continues to this day:
In 1991, Chancellor Helmut Kohl delivered three state-of-the-art German Dolphin-U-Boote(submarines) from HDW in Kiel to Israel free of charge. Israel currently operates six German submarines nuclear armed cruise missiles, which now deter totalitarian Iran. In 2017, Israel purchased three new submarines for € 1.5 billion, which will be operational in 2027, with € 540 million paid by the German government. In 2022, Israel ordered another three submarines of the new "Dakar" class from Germany for € 3 billion, of which Berlin paid € 540 million. They will be operational in 2030. In doing so, Germany secures Israel's second-strike capability and covered over € 1.5 billion of the costs. ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in Kiel is currently building four corvettes as well.
On September 19, 2023, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant agreed the largest arms deal in Israel's history. Beginning in 2025, Germany will be deploying the American Israeli missile defense system Arrow 3 for four billion euros. It can intercept incoming missiles at altitudes of over 100 kilometers.
In 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in the Israeli parliament:
"The historical responsibility of Germany is part of my country's reason of state. This means that Israel's security is never negotiable for me as German Chancellor.”
In addition to financial reparations and important military aid, a culture of reconciliation between the Federal Republic of Germany, the Jews and Israel was established over decades with thousands of symbols, meetings and discussions.
There were school exchanges, town twinning, sports competitions and regular visits by delegations from Germany to Israel. For example, the legendary soccer match in Israel between Borussia Mönchengladbach and the Israeli national team on February 28, 1970, was an emotional first bridge-stone to a new relationship.
Thousands of books, articles and films have dealt with the bitter past.
The Holocaust became a subject at schools.
The former concentration camps were turned into memorials and more than 100 new synagogues were built, after the Nazis had destroyed them during Kristallnacht November 9, 1938.
Since 2005 the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal der Ermordeten Juden Europas) in the center of Berlin, close to the Brandenburger Gate and Reichstag, has left a deep impression among visitors.
Germany is the global best practice of transforming a nation of sinners into a nation of peace and reconciliation with former enemies France, United Kingdom, Poland, the United States of America and the Jewish community- this gives us hope for the conflicts of today.
