ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the progress and differences in Soviet-East German and Soviet-West German relations. Before investigating the impact of Soviet-East German affairs on post-1973 cooperation, several features of the relationship must be emphasized. In the aftermath of the Helsinki Agreement, both East German actions against the Western press and alleged West German border violations in 1976, the second of which produced a lengthy Soviet as well as East German condemnation of the Federal Republic, precluded further inner-German rapprochement. The East German expulsion of all Spiegel personnel, however, was a swift and decisive short-term action through which East Berlin assured the Soviet leadership of its will to prevent a public undermining of the regime. Inner-German relations were thus no less complicated by the problem of Soviet interests in the German question than was the case prior to the Basic Treaty. Inner-German travel in the 1970's represented a genuine problem for both the East and West German leaderships.
