A Patriot's Life

Willy Brandt reached the high point of his career -- and possibly his prestige -- when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971. It was a gratifying award for a consistent opponent of the Nazis, and a proponent of East-West rapprochement.

Born Herbert Frahm in Lübeck, Germany, in 1913, Brandt joined the SPD at the age of 16. Two years later he switched to the Socialist Workers' Party, a fraction of the SPD that was further to the left. A staunch opponent of the Nazis, Brandt left Germany in 1933 after Hitler took power. In April of that year he reached Norway, which became his second home.

Exile in Norway and Sweden

In exile, Frahm began living under the pseudonym Willy Brandt, a name he later officially adopted. In Oslo, he studied history, worked as a journalist and became involved in politics. However, after the Germans occupied Norway in 1940, he had to flee once more. No longer a German citizen, Brandt went to Sweden. But he returned to Germany shortly after the war ended, in 1945.

He once again became active in the Social Democratic Party, this time in Berlin. In October, 1957 he reached an important goal when he was elected mayor -- and thus head of government -- of West Berlin.

Brandt's first attempt to take the chancellery was as an SPD candidate in 1961. But in August of that year, in the middle of the election, he found himself faced with an enormous challenge: the construction of the Berlin Wall.

After the Wall, choosing Ostpolitik

The country needed to find a way to cope with the division of the country in East and West. Brandt, as Berlin's mayor, chose to approach the problem through his policy of Ostpolitik, a controversial political direction at the time, which sought to overcome the effects of the division of Germany and Europe by accepting the current reality and working within its confines.

Part of this was devising the "pass treaty," which allowed West Berliners to visit the eastern part of the city under very strict conditions.

As Germany's foreign minister from 1966 to 1969, and his party in a "grand coalition" government with the conservative bloc of Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), Brandt stuck to this policy. But it first took wing when he himself became chancellor after the SPD formed a ruling coalition with the Free Democrat Party, or FDP, in 1969.

Along with Ostpolitik, Brandt made internal reform a trademark of his administration. In one famous government policy statement he said: "Let's dare to have more democracy … We aim to give every citizen the possibility to work with us toward the reform of the state and of society."

At the same time, Brandt gave at least as much attention to foreign policy, pursuing a policy of detente with Eastern Europe and reconciliation with the countries that had been occupied by Hitler. Several accords were signed, including ones with the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Brandt opens dialog with East Germany

In Erfurt, in March, 1970, he met with GDR Premier Willy Stoph. "We hope Erfurt is a beginning. Nobody should have any illusory hopes. But I see it as my responsibility to try -- as my responsibility to open up a dialog with the government of the GDR. We should never be able to blame ourselves for not trying absolutely everything in order to improve the situation of Germany, and the situation in Germany," he said at the meeting.

The Erfurt meeting was a catalyst for many future agreements between the two states. Yet at the same time, Brandt had to fight a number of critics who were fond of referring to his "surrender" and "betrayal." His political opponents even held up as a fault the fact that he was a child born out of wedlock. The attacks reached their height when Brandt, in Warsaw in December, 1970, made an unexpected gesture: He dropped to one knee before the memorial to the insurgents of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This led to a heated debate within Germany, although it won him deep respect abroad.

Just two years later, the SPD won an unusual victory -- taking nearly 46 percent of the vote for its best result in parliamentary elections to date -- after the opposition narrowly missed out on toppling Brandt's government with a snap election and a no-confidence vote. The party maintained its coalition with the FDP.

But in 1974, when it was discovered that a spy for the GDR had made his way into the tight circle of the chancellor's closest advisers, Brandt accepted the consequences and stepped down.

"I'm not leaving the ship"

Development and north-south equality became key policy topics for Brandt when he left the chancellorship and once again took up a seat in the Bundestag, retaining his position as SPD party leader. He also spent a lot of energy trying to smooth out the difficult relations between the SPD and the new German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

In 1987, with the SPD now long in opposition, internal party quarrels led Brandt to step down as party chief.

"I'm stepping off the bridge but I'm not leaving the ship," he told his party colleagues at the time. Still "on board," he experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, and fought for the SPD in elections in eastern Germany.

On October 8, 1992, Willy Brandt died in Unkel, a town not far from Bonn.