This chapter traces the transformation of Christian Democratic attitudes toward the Chilean military regime. Whereas the two Christian Democratic parties in the FRG defended the military coup in 1973, by 1975 the CDU had turned against the Pinochet because of three interrelated reasons. First, CDU politicians feared that left-wing solidarity activists were using Chile to monopolize the topic of human rights in the FRG. Second, the international movement against the Pinochet regime and the latter’s international isolation forced the CDU to take a more critical stance. Finally, the Pinochet regime repressed Chile’s Christian Democratic Party (PDC), a close collaborator of the CDU and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation since the 1960s. The CSU, however, welcomed the Pinochet regime’s neoliberal restructuring of the Chilean economy and rejected the Keynesian PDC. Despite these differences, there was also convergence. The CDU consistently criticized the asylum program for refugees from Chile, largely accepted Pinochet’s neoliberal experiment, ignored abuses elsewhere in Latin America, and moved towards normalizing relations with the Pinochet regime by the late 1970s.

Chapter 11 examines the steps needed to rescue Brandt’s Ostpolitik from its near-demise at the hands of a polarized Bundestag. Following a rash of back-channel diplomacy with Egon Bahr at the center, France, Britain, the United States, and the USSR finally reached a Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin; it guaranteed access to the city but failed to clarify West Berlin’s relationship to the Federal Republic, leaving room for future disputes. Brandt’s surprise visit to Brezhnev in Crimea deepened the relationship between these two leaders, but created suspicion in the Western camp that did not ease even with Brandt’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize. Rainer Barzel, leader of the CDU/CSU, insisted that the Warsaw and Moscow treaties must be renegotiated; he maneuvered in the Bundestag to overthrow the Brandt government. Outside observers feared that the entire course of détente was in jeopardy. Barzel’s bid for power failed, but he continued to seek concessions from the Soviets; the GDR did briefly take a softer line. The treaties passed without CDU/CSU support, and Brandt went on to win a decisive victory in the 1972 elections, affirming public backing for Ostpolitik.