Talk:Willy Brandt/Archive 1

Archive 1

First comments

I have removed "He was the first chancellor to be free of any Nazi ties" or whatever that was. While his predecessor Kiesinger was indeed accused of those, IIRC, the same cannot be safely said of Adenauer. -- djmutex 2002-04-28

Adenauer's nazi tie was beeing put in house arrested by them 09:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.89.242.173 (talk)

'Willy Brandt developed an alcohol problem and was frequently too drunk to speak.'. This is quite a serious allegation - can we have a source for it? Morwen 14:38, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Article quality

This article has really come a long way since I first looked at it a year or so ago. I don't know anything special about Brandt so I cannot comment intelligently about accuracy or completeness, but as far as style, flow, readability, appropriate depth of coverage, neutrality, and all the rest, it seems quite well done now. One thing that may be missing is sourcing/footnotes.

Bhugh 23:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Protected

I protected the page on the last stable version due to an ongoing edit war. 172 19:58, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

What's the problem here? The table seems perfectly legitimate. Mackensen 06:35, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Please unprotect this page and revert to Burschenschafter's last version. What is wrong with the table? Andrewlevine 05:30, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No pic

Since there is no longer a pic of Willy Brandt, I went searching for a new one. I found this site which has pics of all the chancellors and appears to have less restrictive copyright than most sites. (Never mind, it has a very restrictive copyright) That should come in handy as most of the chancellors previous to Brandt have badly tagged/sourced images as well. - Lucky13pjn 18:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Wrong Link !!! Different Schröder =

In the bottom table: The predecessor as Min. o. frgn. Aff. was not that(current Chancellor) Gerhard Schröder!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.174.134.87 (talk) 11:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

State Funeral

I removed the part that says his funeral was the first German state funeral since 1929. The state funeral for Konrad Adenauer in 1967 is one of my earliest childhood memories :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romulus15 (talk • contribs) 08:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Time Magazine cover problem

The Time Magazine cover seems to imply that this is the "man of the year" cover when it is not. (It is just another time magazine cover showing Brandt but NOT the Jan 4 1971 edition that is actually the "man of the year".)

The actual "man of the year" cover can be found here: man of year cover — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhugh (talk • contribs) 07:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"How Brandt was able to win over the students"

I think that the name of this section should be changed to something that has more of a professional, encyclopedic tone to it. --Tabun1015 17:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "Winning support from the left" or something like that. It was not just students he won over - although students were an important part of the radical left they were not the whole of it.

I have some knowledge of European political history but I am not German and have no strong right or left position. I would be happy to try to edit the language where neutrality is questioned (to improve grammar as well as to make it more NPOV). But I want to ask here first in case someone is working on a big edit. Shall I go ahead and edit?

Circusandmagicfan 08:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

From my point of view The Baby Boomers is not necessary at all. It is my generation, and (sorry, POV) there were probably as many Baby Boomers who liked Brandt as they disliked him. You can't say it that simply I'm afraid. German WP has nothing about this at all. The APO disliked him completely. --MrsMyer (talk) 14:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Brandt wasn't very left at the beginning and the end, but his policy made a big former part of the SPD, e.g. Hupkas refugees move to the conservative side. Brandt versus Kiesinger was more a life style question than really political (their cooperation in the grand coalition had been very smooth), Brandt won among the baby boomers with a VERY narrow one, quite comparably to Kennedy against Nixon some years before. KIeseinger tended to compare the students movement with his own students movement - as a young Nazi - and was not to harsh about them. Brandt in 1972 however won the best resulat of all times for the SPD. --Polentario (talk) 00:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

==Logic Problem?

First we read:

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

and later, about Matthias:

Earlier that year - when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation to Norway together - it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife 'were typing mysterious things on type writers the whole night through'.

The later sentence reads to me as if Matthias was the first to discover that something was wrong with the Guillaumes, but this is clearly not the case if it was known the year before already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.139.53.102 (talk) 16:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Confusing==

The Portuguese Socialist Party won the elections in 1975 with only 37 %. The so called majority was with the combining votes of the PPD and the CDS. It´s really difficult to understand the political situation of Portugal during the PREC, in 1975, but the idea of a communist military dictatorship seems in reprospective virtually impossible. User:Mistico20:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Willy Brandt Time.jpg

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 12:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

A rationale was added in the last few days so this problem should be solved. Bhugh 18:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

What did he actually do?

the section of 'foreign policy' just vaguely says he had raproachment w the East. What does this mean specifically? Relaxing tariffs? the section of 'domestic policy' lists no actual policy changes and just talks about why he was popular and who was in his cabinet and some scandal. what did Brandt specifically do to change things in West Germany? vroman (talk) 15:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Nothing. I remember him because I grew up in West Berlin. I cannot recall any policy or change that came in through him. He was a tall charismatic man whose father was unknown.

It says in the article that he had (presumably) received 170k Deutschmarks in 1950 from the US government which be denied. I have recently read on Spiegel that he received 250k DM from the Marshall Fund annually 'for always saying the right things'. It was a huge amount of money, you could have bought a 4 storey apartment building for that in Berlin at the time. I found it rather disappointing - #HimToo, but they were all like that. You probably don't move up unless you parrot what 'above' wants. They obviously wanted to secure a successor to Ernst Reuter who knew what was expected.

There was no room for policies anyway. West Germany had to deliver 500k soldiers to NATO, tick. European integration was also important - France had a Value Added Tax, so we in Germany must have one, too (1. July 1968). It was the time of the Cold War, not the time of policies (for one country in the alliance). 2001:8003:AD40:8400:EDA3:325:6255:A9EC (talk) 05:48, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I have since read the German article on Willy Brandt where they list a teacher as his father and who had died in 1958. This is astonishing as I remember quite clearly media speculating who his father might have been and that was definitely after 1958, i.e. when the man had passed away and it could be said(?). Who knows .... maybe it is not that important. I have also since read (probably Spiegel) that both Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl gave money from their under the table sources to organisations who supported former Nazis who had fled to Latin America. Sounds bizarre but makes sense when you take into account that sometimes the movers and shakers like to keep people 'in reserve' should they be regarded as powerful enough to address unrest - if that happens. South Africa did not execute Nelson Mandela after someone said 'no, we might need him one day'. 2001:8003:AD40:8400:B47C:957E:6C1B:C271 (talk) 04:56, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Place of Birth

The city of Lübeck where Brandt was born didn't belong to the Kingdom of Prussia at the time of his birth. Instead it has been a free city within the German Empire (until 1918 and afterwards in the Weimar Republic) similar to Hamburg and Bremen. It lost its status as a free city (after holding it for over 700 years) in 1937 (Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz by Adolf Hitler). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.49.68.231 (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

And in Addition to that: "Lübeck, Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany)" -> Not only Lübeck but also Prussia did belong to the German Empire, the Deutsches Reich, since 1871. And the German Empire was ... Germany. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.238.107.181 (talk) 08:50, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Enormous bulleted list

The "Chancellor of domestic reform" section contains an enormous bulleted list - two and a half pages on my 1080 monitor - of his achievements as chancellor. It's a disaster. What went wrong here? One editor working on his own, or was it a short list that other people added to? It's great to learn about his "amendment to a federal civil service reform bill (1971) which enabled fathers to apply for part-time civil service work" and his "extension of accident insurance to non-working adults" but this is sub-trivial stuff. So, he passed "the Seventh Modification Law (1973), which linked the indexation of farmers’ pensions to the indexation of the general pension insurance scheme" and "the Third Modification Law (1974), which extended individual entitlements to social assistance by means of higher-income limits compatible with receipt of benefits and lowered age limits for certain special benefits". No doubt true, but what the hell? What went wrong? I suggest you leave a message on my talk page when you decide to stop editing Wikipedia, so that I can come back and erase the whole rotten lot. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:12, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention "the Second Sickness Insurance Modification Law (1972), which linked the indexation of the income-limit for compulsory employee coverage to the development of the pension insurance contribution ceiling (75% of the ceiling), (and) obliged employers to pay half of the contributions in the case of voluntary membership, extended the criteria for voluntary membership of employees, and introduced preventive medical check-ups for certain groups". How is this notable? Did it come to pass? Was it amended in the future? What impact did it have? Why did he introduce it? When and how did it pass into law? Who was affected? Is it still in force? Why is it notable? Again, what went wrong? Systemic failure or individual insufficiency? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the bulleted laundry list of Brandt's "accomplishments" exceeds 2,000 words and is far, far too long and detailed. What would work in context would be a concise summary of his major policy successes, comprising two or three paragrahps of clear English prose. (Speaking as a former newspaper editor, I can say that bullets usually are useful for no more than half a dozen items.) The list as it exists is impenetrable to the average reader and serves no purpose whatever. (In fact, IMO, the article would be better without any such section than with this monstrosity. I was tempted to simply delete the whole thing.) This is really a glaring fault in an entry about a major figure of recent history.

I'd do the revision myself but I lack expertise re Willy Brandt's career and must leave the task to someone else, preferably a German fluent in English, to come up with something appropriate.

Sca (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:57, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Surely its useful for people to know exactly what Willy Brandt did in office. Isn't deleting that information it a bit extreme? I thought that Wikipedia was about sharing knowledge. :::zictor23 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• It is indeed useful to know what Brandt's government did in office, and for that, one ought to go to the pertinent historical article for German government. This article is not about the accomplishments of the government, but about Brandt himself. That section is still far, far, far too long, and I'm about to trim it. Ravenswing 02:07, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

But only a government lead by Brandt would ever have undertaken social reforms on this scale; the work of the first SPD government in Germany was deeply influenced by his values. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:18, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. zictor23 (talk) 19:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

critique

A section on critique is missing. And serious questions. The man served in Allied armies during the war and hence is a traitor. --41.151.249.214 (talk) 08:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

1.) He had sought Norwegian statehood by then - and as a Norwegian fighting with the allies he's clearly not a traitor 2.) Even if he still had been a German he could only be a traitor under the condition that the Nazi regime was legit. By breaking the Weimar constitution they lost legitimacy in 1933 - and there was no free election afterwards until 1949. So Brandt did not only have the right but the duty to fight them. You could argue though that every German fighting for Germany was a traitor since they fought for an illegitime dictatorship. 3.) And even if the Nazi regime would have been legit: They started to hunt him down in 1933 for nothing more than just his political views. Thus joining the allied forces when the Nazis illegally occupied Norway clearly was an act of self defense against an illegal attack. 79.220.195.178 (talk) 08:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Vokoban

Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem

Under "Death and Memorials", we should mention the Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem. --93.215.176.184 (talk) 08:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Birthname

There seems to be some diversity of opinion on Brandt's birth name. Do we have some RS for this? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC).

Dispute where? "Herbert Frahm" is widely known and there are a large number of sources for it; it's in the category "Paris is the capital of France". The middle name "Karl" should be spelled thus, not "Carl". A superficial search yielded http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-43160076.html from Der Spiegel. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:17, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Brandt's seat in the Bundestag

He obviously had one, so which one was it? Was he elected from a constituency or on a state list? Lockesdonkey (talk) 18:11, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

real background of resignation

It was industrial association Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie which forced Brandt to resign by presenting intimate snapshots. Brandt was somewhat too left for German ruling circles.16:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)16:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.201.239.83 (talk)

Under command of the USA: Receiving secret payments throught US

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/historiker-enthuellt-washington-unterstuetzte-willy-brandt-mit-geheimen-zahlungen-14280080.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.130.10.101 (talk) 09:53, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

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Willy Brandt and the Yom Kippur War

My chapter on Willy Brandt and the Yom Kippur War was deleted. This is absolutely unacceptable, since the authors of the quoted articles are well established authorities, writing in major German newspapers.John de Norrona (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

User de norrona makes a valid point. A wiki article should be an encyclopedic article not a hagiography. After all the sources used are leading german papers. There are tiring lengths in the chapter on economic and social reform, while there is no space for what leading german papers regard as his major policy failure?Thomas Bernhard 1945 (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Willy Brandt and the Yom Kippur War

The Director of the Documentation Council of the State Archives of Israel, Hagai Tsoref, and Michael Wolffsohn historian at the German Army University Munich maintained in an article, first published in the German Daily Die Welt that Chancellor Willy Brandt, highly praised as a peace builder, could have prevented the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, but he didn’t.

The authors say that Egypt and Syria, almost exactly forty years ago, had almost extinguished Israel's existence by their surprise attack on the highest Jewish holiday.

Israel's then Prime Minister, Golda Meir according to this analysis, based on hitherto unpublished and now released documents in the United States, Germany and Israel, in the summer of 1973 wanted peace with Egypt and hand back virtually all of the territories conquered on the Sinai Peninsula in the June 1967 war. John de Norrona (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Because she no longer trusted in the mediation of the great powers, Social Democrat Golda Meir asked the German Social Democrat Willy Brandt for advice and action during his visit to Israel in June 1973. It should have helped to set the peace process in motion. But Willy Brandt, the argument says, dismally failed to help. For Brandt, Israel was a disturbing factor.

Firstly, because he had no great interest in close contacts with Israel. This corresponded (and corresponds in the opinion of the authors until today) to the majority opinion of the SPD in Germany.

Brandt was not prepared to mediate in the Middle East.

He handed over the initiative of Golda Meir to the chief executive to the German Foreign Office (AA), which was not Israeli friendly and favored the Arab world.

Its head, FDP chairman Walter Scheel, had, since 1966, reoriented his party from the right to the left, but maintained its Israeli-critical attitude.

German foreign policy, the analysis maintains, miserably failed the mediation, while Yugoslav President Tito correctly warned Brandt in summer 1973: “It is five minutes before twelve. The Arabs are preparing for a total war ... They are ready to destroy Israel, and they have the means to do so" Tito told the Chancellor.

Summing up their assessment, the analysis comes to the conclusion that beyond the question of guilt for not having prevented the Yom Kippur War, the Chancellor made a crass mistake: he depreciated Jerusalem's unalloyed initiative, leaving it to the routine of professional diplomats. More importantly, unlike Golda Meir, he had included the great powers. Peace Chancellor Brandt did not prevent the Middle East war in 1973. He could have done it.

Even worse, Michael Wolfssohn revealed in another article based on recently revealed documents, that Brandt, after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, by not allowing United States Air Force transport planes, rushing in the urgently needed military supplies for Israel, to fly over Germany or to land at U.S. airbases in Germany for the urgently needed refueling. Eventually, not Willy Brandt, but the government of Marcelo Caetano in Portugal, still under the Estado Novo regime, saved the State of Israel in its finest hour, by granting the United States airlift of supplies to Israel via the Azores. In the operation, the biggest of its kind ever in military history, the Military Airlift Command of the U.S. Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of tanks, artillery, ammunition, and supplies in C-141 Starlifter andC-5 Galaxy transport aircraft between October 14 and November 14, 1973 to Israel.

References

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Served in Norwegian forces?

I am intrigued by the uncited statement (under section Early Years and Second World War):

In 1940, he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, but was not identified as he wore a Norwegian uniform.

Reading between lines it appears he was regarded as a serviceman of the defeated Norwegian forces with entitlement to treatment as a POW on Geneva Convention lines. Does that signify he was in the Norwegian forces during the invasion of Norway? Normally such a person would have been sent on to POW camp. Worth looking up. Did he mention anything in memoirs?Cloptonson (talk) 09:09, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

euro in 1970s?

for the following " Between 1970 and 1974, unemployment benefits rose from around 300 euros to around 400 euros per month, and unemployment assistance from just under 200 euros per month to just under 400 euros per month" no reference point for conversion is given, and there surely wasn't euro at that time. needs clarification. 84.215.194.30 (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)