ABSTRACT
No other international controversy during the Cold War drew Finland so deeply into the conflict between the East and West as did the issue of a divided Germany.1 This predicament can be understood in the framework of Finland’s exceptional geopolitical position between the Cold War fronts. When Germany was divided in 1949, the West recognized the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), while the East recognized the German Democratic Republic (GDR). For a country such as Finland, itself trapped between the two blocs, the division of Germany was the worst of all possible poisons. Thus, one of the most difficult issues in Finland’s policy of neutrality in the Cold War was its relation to divided Germany. Until 1973, Finland was the only European country that could not establish full diplomatic relations with either of the two German states. Maintaining good and evenhanded relations with Bonn and East Berlin simultaneously was like walking a tightrope, both ends of which seemed to be in Moscow.
