ABSTRACT
When Willy Brandt became Governing Mayor of West Berlin in October 1957 he was convinced that the Federal government in Bonn should broaden the range of its foreign policy. After its creation as a product of the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany had to achieve one main goal, namely, the establishment of friendly relations with the USA and their neighbours in Western Europe. Stopping there, however, would mean standing ‘on one leg’ only. In Brandt’s view Bonn, in accordance with the Three Powers and firmly adhering to the West, had to put down the other foot too, ‘and that is called Ostpolitik’. It seemed to Brandt that the necessity to develop an Ostpolitik was felt more strongly in Berlin ‘than on the left bank of the Rhine’. 1
