ABSTRACT
The USSR’s policy towards West Germany during the period from 1945 to 1990 cannot be viewed in isolation, but must be seen in the context of Moscow’s policy towards the West as a whole, in which its relations with Washington figure most prominently. The potential Soviet threat to Western Europe in its demobilized and impoverished economic state, posed by Stalin’s advancing ‘satellization’ and Moscow’s retention of some 4.5 million men under arms, had been recognized by Churchill as early as May 1945. The Soviet Union also retained its control over Eastern and Central Europe, and gained ratification of Europe’s post-war boundaries at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe accord at Helsinki Charter in 1975. In the mid-1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in the Soviet Union was soon followed by ‘new thinking’ in Moscow’s foreign policy. West Germany was the focus for Soviet policy towards Western Europe from 1945 onwards.
