70 Facts About Willy Brandt

Willy Brandt was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1969 to 1974.

Willy Brandt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his efforts to strengthen cooperation in western Europe through the EEC and to achieve reconciliation between West Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe.

Willy Brandt was the first Social Democratic chancellor since 1930.

Willy Brandt served as the foreign minister and as the vice-chancellor in Kurt Georg Kiesinger's cabinet, and became chancellor in 1969.

Willy Brandt was controversial on both the right wing, for his Ostpolitik, and on the left wing, for his support of American policies, including the Vietnam War, and right-wing authoritarian regimes.

The Willy Brandt Report became a recognised measure for describing the general North-South divide in world economics and politics between an affluent North and a poor South.

Willy Brandt was known for his fierce anti-communist policies at the domestic level, culminating in the Radikalenerlass in 1972.

Willy Brandt resigned as chancellor in 1974, after Gunter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.

Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lubeck on 18 December 1913.

Willy Brandt's mother was Martha Frahm a single parent, who worked as a cashier for a department store.

Willy Brandt's father was a teacher from Hamburg named John Heinrich Moller whom Brandt never met.

Willy Brandt joined the "Socialist Youth" in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party in 1930.

Willy Brandt left the SPD to join the more left wing Socialist Workers Party, which was allied to the POUM in Spain and the Independent Labour Party in Britain.

Willy Brandt was in Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland.

In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Willy Brandt worked in Spain as a journalist.

Willy Brandt lectured in Sweden on 1 December 1940 at Bommersvik College about problems experienced by the social democrats in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries at the start of the Second World War.

Willy Brandt spoke Norwegian fluently, and retained a close relationship with Norway.

In late 1946, Willy Brandt returned to Berlin, working for the Norwegian government.

In 2021, it became known that Willy Brandt served as a paid informant for the US Counterintelligence Corps from 1948 to 1952.

Willy Brandt supplied reports on circumstances in the GDR, including the situation of East German authorities and industries, as well as Soviet troops.

Willy Brandt was elected to the West German Bundestag in the 1949 West German federal election as a SPD delegate from West Berlin, serving there until 1957.

From 3 October 1957 to 1966, Willy Brandt served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin, during a period of increasing tension in East-West relations that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Willy Brandt was an outspoken critic of Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and of Nikita Khrushchev's 1958 proposal that Berlin receive the status of a "free city".

Willy Brandt was supported by the influential publisher Axel Springer.

However, following the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Willy Brandt was disappointed and angry with Kennedy.

In June 1963, Willy Brandt figured prominently in the staging of Kennedy's triumphant visit to West Berlin.

Willy Brandt became the chairman of the SPD in 1964, a post that he retained until 1987, longer than any other party chairman since the founding of the SPD by August Bebel.

Willy Brandt was the SPD candidate for the chancellorship in 1961, but he lost to Konrad Adenauer's conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

In 1965, Willy Brandt ran again, but lost to the popular Ludwig Erhard.

Erhard's government was short-lived and in 1966 a grand coalition between the SPD and CDU was formed, with Willy Brandt serving as foreign minister and as the 5th Vice-Chancellor of Germany.

Willy Brandt was active in creating a degree of rapprochement with East Germany, and in improving relations with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern Bloc countries.

Willy Brandt introduced his Ostpolitik gradually starting in 1967 with the establishment of diplomatic relations with Romania and making a trade agreement with Czechoslovakia.

Willy Brandt condemned the invasion and put Ostpolitik on hold while he negotiated a coalition with the Free Democrats.

Willy Brandt expressed an eagerness to meet with the USSR and Poland to resolve frontier questions that had remained unsettled since 1945.

Willy Brandt met with the East German premier Willi Stoph in 1970.

Willy Brandt made a six-point proposal that would involve two separate German states that respected each other's territorial integrity and settle disputes peacefully.

Willy Brandt became the first German chancellor to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Willy Brandt is trying to accept the real situation in Europe, which has lasted for 25 years, but he is trying to bring about a new reality in his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc.

In 1971, Willy Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union.

Willy Brandt negotiated a peace treaty with Poland, and agreements on the boundaries between the two countries, signifying the official and long-delayed end of World War II.

Willy Brandt's predecessor as chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a member of the Nazi party, and was a more old-fashioned conservative-liberal intellectual.

Willy Brandt represented a figure of change, and he followed a course of social, legal, and political reforms.

In 1969, Willy Brandt gained a small majority by forming a coalition with the FDP.

In education, the Willy Brandt Administration sought to widen educational opportunities for all West Germans.

The Willy Brandt Administration introduced enabling legislation for the introduction of comprehensives, but left it to the Lander "to introduce them at their discretion".

In regards to civil rights, the Willy Brandt Administration introduced a broad range of socially liberal reforms aimed at making West Germany a more open society.

Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik led to a meltdown of the narrow majority Willy Brandt's coalition enjoyed in the Bundestag.

The FDP politicians Knud von Kuhlmann-Stumm and Gerhard Kienbaum declared that they would vote against Willy Brandt, completing the loss of Willy Brandt's majority.

Willy Brandt was said to be more a dreamer than a manager and was personally haunted by depression.

Around 1973, West German security organizations received information that one of Willy Brandt's personal assistants, Gunter Guillaume, was a spy for the East German intelligence services.

Willy Brandt was asked to continue working as usual, and he agreed to do so, even taking a private vacation with Guillaume.

Guillaume was arrested on 24 April 1974, and many blamed Willy Brandt for having a communist spy in his inner circle.

Willy Brandt resigned from his position as chancellor on 6 May 1974, but he remained a member of the Bundestag and chairman of the Social Democrats until 1987.

Wolf stated after the reunification that the resignation of Willy Brandt had never been intended, and that the planting and handling of Guillaume had been one of the biggest mistakes of the East German secret services.

Willy Brandt was succeeded as the Chancellor of the Bundesrepublik by his fellow Social Democrat, Helmut Schmidt.

Willy Brandt was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983.

For sixteen years, Willy Brandt was the president of the Socialist International, during which period the number of Socialist International's mainly European member parties grew until there were more than a hundred socialist, social democratic, and labour political parties around the world.

However, the Austrian Prime Minister, Bruno Kreisky, argued on behalf of Willy Brandt: "It is a question of whether it is better to be pure or to have greater numbers".

In 1977, Willy Brandt was appointed as the chairman of the Independent Commission for International Developmental Issues.

In October 1979, Willy Brandt met with the East German dissident, Rudolf Bahro, who had written The Alternative.

Willy Brandt had asked for Bahro's release, and Willy Brandt welcomed Bahro's theories, which advanced the debate within his own Social Democratic Party.

On 11 September 1988, Willy Brandt described the hope for German reunification as a delusion.

In late 1989, Willy Brandt became one of the first leftwing leaders in West Germany to publicly favor a quick reunification of Germany, instead of some sort of two-state federation or other kind of interim arrangement.

Willy Brandt secured the release of a large number of them, and on 9 November 1990, his airplane landed with 174 freed hostages on board at the Frankfurt Airport.

Willy Brandt died of colon cancer at his home in Unkel, a town on the River Rhine, on 8 October 1992, at the age of 78.

Willy Brandt was given a state funeral and was buried at the cemetery at Zehlendorf in Berlin.

The Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation was established in 1994.

Willy Brandt has an unusual memorial in Hammersmith in London, United Kingdom.

In 1963, when he was mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt travelled to Hammersmith with a street lamp from West Berlin, and presented it to the mayor of Hammersmith to mark its twinning with Neukolln.

From 1941 until 1948, Willy Brandt was married to Anna Carlotta Thorkildsen.