Federal Republic of Germany. The international abbreviation is ‘D’ or ‘GER’; between 1949 and 1990 – particularly in sport – it was also known as the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). The abbreviation ‘BRD’ was not, and is not, an official one.

Germania

In 1949, the Parliamentary Council introduced the official name ‘Federal Republic of Germany’. This was intended, on the one hand, to distinguish the West German state fromthe Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR and to assert its claim to sole representation, and, on the other hand, to express its federal character. As a result of this fundamental decision, the term ‘Germany’ was frequently used in the West as a synonym for the Federal Republic. As a consequence of the Eastern Treaties (1970/1972), the term ‘Germany’ came to be increasingly restricted in everyday language to mean West Germany, because the majority of West Germans increasingly regarded reunification as unrealistic. In contrast, the associations of displaced persons, in particular, insisted that ‘Germany’ should be understood to mean the German Reich within the borders of 1937 and that the Basic Law’s requirement for reunification referred to this territory. Since the GDR joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, the terms ‘Germany’ and ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ have become synonymous. By analogy with the respective capitals, the so-called ‘old Federal Republic’ (1949 to 1990) is often referred to as the ‘Bonn Republic’, whilst reunified Germany is known as the ‘Berlin Republic’.

The Federal Republic of Germany is situated in the heart of Europe and shares borders with nine countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark. From 1949 to 1957, the Saarland – which was economically and politically linked to France – was another neighbouring country to the west. The Bonn Republic’s eastern neighbours from 1949 to 1990 were the GDR – although the Federal Republic did not regard it as a foreign country – and, from 1949 to 1992, Czechoslovakia. Germany’s territory today covers 357,376 km²; the area of the former Federal Republic had been approximately 249,000 km² from 1957 to 1990.

In terms of natural geography, the Federal Republic of Germany comprises the North German Plain, the low mountain range zone and the Alpine foothills or the Alps. It is home to six major European rivers: the Rhine, the Danube, the Elbe, the Weser, the Ems and the Oder. In the Alpine foothills and in northern Germany there are large lakes, mostly of glacial origin, such as the Mecklenburg Lake District, Lake Constance, Lake Chiemsee and Lake Tegernsee. Off the North Sea coast lie the East and North Frisian Islands, whilst the largest German islands in the Baltic Sea are Fehmarn, Poel, Hiddensee, Rügen and Usedom. In terms of climate, Germany belongs to the temperate zones of Europe.

The Bonn Republic originally comprised the territories of the US, British and French occupation zones in Germany. In 1957, following the rejection of the ‘Saar Statute’ by the population of the Saarland, that region joined the Federal Republic (‘small reunification’). Under international law, West Berlin did not form part of the Federal Republic due to the Allies’ reserved rights over the whole of Berlin; it enjoyed a special status with regulations that in some respects differed from those of the Federal Republic, but was nevertheless treated in practice as an eleventh federal state. Between 1956 and 1962, the Federal Republic concluded treaties with its western neighbours which essentially confirmed the borders that had existed since 1919/20.

The Federal Republic’s claim to sole representation was maintained until 1967/1970. The border with the GDR was not regarded as a state border under international law. Similarly, the Oder–Neisse line was recognised as Poland’s western border in the Moscow and Warsaw Treaties (12 August and 7 December 1970 respectively) only subject to a final settlement under international law with Germany as a whole. In its judgements of 1973 on the Basic Treaty with the GDR and of 1975 on the Eastern Treaties, the Federal Constitutional Court confirmed the foreign policy doctrine that the German Reich had not ceased to exist in 1945, but continued to exist under international law within the 1937 borders until a peace treaty was concluded with Germany as a whole. Recognition of the eastern border did not take place until the reunification of Germany in the Two Plus Four Treaty (12 September 1990) and the German-Polish Border Confirmation Treaty (14 November 1990). As a result of these agreements under international law, Germany today comprises the territory of the Bonn Republic (including West Berlin) and the GDR (including East Berlin), whose states – re-established in 1990 – joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990 (reunification).

From the outset, the Federal Republic of Germany was a federal state in which the Länder played a strong role in the political process. The majority of these were newly established states, the territorial boundaries of which were largely derived from the borders of the former Prussian provinces and the occupation zones. The small states that still existed in 1945 (Oldenburg, Braunschweig, Schaumburg-Lippe and Lippe) were incorporated into larger states (Lower Saxony and Braunschweig respectively). Only Bavaria and the two Hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Bremen, as well as the state of Hesse – which was enlarged to include large parts of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau – can look back on a centuries-old, largely unbroken tradition. Attempts to reorganise the federal territory repeatedly failed due to the states’ increasingly entrenched interests in maintaining their autonomy and the conflicting political and strategic considerations of the parties involved. Only the merger of the states of (South) Baden, Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern to form the new state of Baden-Württemberg in 1952/53 was successful. Since the 1990s, federalism has been further strengthened by amendments to the Basic Law, whilst its cooperative character and the unitary tendencies of the federal financial constitution have been preserved.

Following the collapse of the ‘Third Reich’ in the spring of 1945, Germany was divided into occupation zones by the USA, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. Building on the existing local authorities and the newly or re-established federal states, supra-regional state structures had to be rebuilt. As a result of the emerging East-West conflict, which escalated into a ‘Cold War’ between the Westernliberal democracies led by the US on the one hand, and the communist Soviet Union and its satellite states on the other, the Federal Republic of Germany was established in 1949 from the Western zones, whilst the German Democratic Republic (GDR) emerged from the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). The CDU-led federal governments under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1949–1963) were, from the outset, consistently oriented towards the West. The goal of German reunification was subordinated to this ‘integration with the West’. Through close integration into the political and military alliance of the Western democracies (NATO) and into an increasingly unified Western Europe (ECSC, EEC and EC respectively), as well as by renouncing traditional national power politics, the aim was to enable the Federal Republic to regain as much political sovereignty as possible. Of particular significance in this regard was the process of reconciliation with France. Closely linked to this was also a kind of ‘intellectual shift towards the West’ in the Federal Republic, particularly with regard to cultural issues and intellectual values.

Building on older parliamentary and democratic traditions in German history, a parliamentary, federal republic was established with the help of the Allies; this proved to be a sustainable system with which the vast majority of West Germans increasingly identified, even on an emotional level. The successful introduction of a social market economy based on liberal principles by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Ludwig Erhard (1949–1963) contributed to this. It enabled West Germany’s economic recovery. From the late 1950s onwards, it became necessary to recruit migrant workers, primarily from southern Europe, known as ‘guest workers’. The so-called ‘economic miracle’ and the Cold War also facilitated the reintegration into West German society of individuals with a political past dating back to the Nazi era, not least because anti-communism (including amongst the Allies) formed a kind of intellectual bridge that enabled large numbers of former Nazis to return to their former positions in short order. On the other hand, a comprehensive ‘policy of reparations’ towards the surviving victims of Nazism, and in particular towards the State of Israel, had already begun in the 1950s. These processes were accelerated from the late 1950s onwards by the legal reckoning with the crimes of Nazism in numerous court cases and by a gradual shift in attitudes, particularly among younger West Germans, which was accompanied by, in some cases, sharp criticism of so-called ‘restorative tendencies’ of the Adenauer era. The ‘’68 Movement’ was an expression of this shift, which brought about lasting change in the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1960s onwards. This context of a changing republic also includes the ‘New Ostpolitik’, the first signs of which were already emerging during the first ‘Grand Coalition’ (1966–1969), although it only really gained momentum under the social-liberal government of Willy Brandt and Walter Scheel (1969–1974) that it really gained momentum, ushering in a period of détente in Central Europe between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union and its allies, including the GDR. Despite the resumption of a second phase of the Cold War from the late 1970s onwards, this policy was continued from 1982 by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1982–1998). Even though he demonstratively championed the (long-term) goal of German reunification, both the Federal Government and the West as a whole were taken by surprise by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989/90. The policy of building trust with the Western victorious powers, which had been pursued since the 1950s, now paid off; after some initial hesitation, they supported the reunification of the two German states. This was accompanied by a further deepening of European integration from 1992 onwards (the creation of the EU and a European Economic and Monetary Union, the introduction of the euro as the common currency of the ‘eurozone’), which was intended to contain Germany’s increased power-political potential.

The integration of refugees and displaced persons from the former German eastern territories and other parts of Eastern Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe is one of the fundamental upheavals in recent German history that have had a lasting impact on and transformed the Federal Republic of Germany. It represented one of the key challenges facing the fledgling state and only gradually lost its significance as integration measures began to take effect from the mid-1950s onwards.

In 1945–46, around ten million people arrived in Germany’s four occupation zones. In 1950, almost eight million displaced persons were living in what was then the territory of the Federal Republic (approximately 16 per cent of the population); in some Federal States, the proportion was even higher (e.g. 27 per cent in Lower Saxony, 21 per cent in Bavaria and 33 per cent in Schleswig-Holstein). The French occupation zone was least affected by the influx of displaced persons because France, which had not been invited to the Potsdam Conference, refused to meet any quotas regarding the reception of displaced persons. This changed following the founding of the Federal Republic. After 1949, targeted resettlements also took place within Germany to relieve the pressure on the states that had been particularly hard hit. The local population often felt overwhelmed by the influx. Although the new arrivals were predominantly German citizens and spoke German, they were generally not made to feel very welcome.

The associations representing displaced persons were less successful in the area of so-called ‘homeland policy’. Hopes of a return to their former homelands and a revision of the ‘Potsdam borders’ had been fuelled, in the wake of the escalating East-West conflict, primarily by the USA, because it saw the displaced persons as potentially useful allies, whose support for the Federal Republic’s policy of alignment with the West seemed easier to secure if their expectations in this regard were nurtured. Nevertheless, these hopes were unrealistic, as there was a tacit agreement amongst the Allied powers that, despite the bloc confrontation, the territorial status quo established in 1945 was not to be altered. Even within the major mainstream parties and the Federal Government, beyond official statements, the majority showed no genuine willingness to actively champion the repatriation policy objectives of the BdV and its member organisations. This political failure on the part of the association can also be explained by the successes of the integration policy: the desire of the vast majority of displaced persons to return waned more and more, despite impressive mass rallies. Nevertheless, the social influence of the organised displaced persons – and, above all, their electoral potential – was still so great that the parties avoided publicly taking a confrontational stance towards the BdV; this also applied to the SPD until the end of the 1960s. Ultimately, however, the displaced persons’ associations were only able to act as a hindrance and thus contributed significantly to the Federal Republic of Germany’s ‘Germany Policy’ and ‘Ostpolitik’ increasingly reaching an impasse in the 1960s. The ‘New Ostpolitik’ was fiercely, though unsuccessfully, opposed by the displaced persons’ associations. Contrary to what critics of the BdV always claimed, however, this did not lead to a shift towards the political right. A politically stabilising factor here was that the Union parties, which had been in opposition since 1969, supported the BdV ’s interests regarding the return of displaced persons to their homelands.

Following the change of government in 1982, however, it soon became apparent that Chancellor Helmut Kohl was not prepared to act as an agent for the BdV and its member associations’ domestic policy objectives. Kohl continued his political course, geared towards international reconciliation, in 1989–90. In the face of fierce opposition, particularly from the long-serving BdV President Herbert Czaja (1970–1994), the Two Plus Four Treaty (12 September 1990) and the subsequent border confirmation treaty with Poland (14 November 1990), it was confirmed that the historic German eastern territories were to remain definitively with Poland. The recognition under international law of the Oder–Neisse line, by a CDU-led Federal Government of all things, was a disappointing experience for many organised displaced persons. It now became apparent that, whilst the Federal Constitutional Court rulings of 1973 and 1975—for which the BdV and the CSU had fought so hard—had indeed beendomestic legal titles, they were worthless, as they could not be enforced externally in terms of power politics and, domestically, the majority of Germans had come to terms with the loss of the eastern territories. The all-German legislature was therefore able, in the interests of realpolitik, to disregard them.

In the context of reunification, the BdV was once again able to distinguish itself successfully as an advocate for the economic interests of its clientele: As the Unification Treaty between the two German states (31 August 1990) had ruled out the extension of West German burden-sharing arrangementsto the new federal states, there was a risk that displaced persons in the GDR would receive nothing. At the end of a long political struggle, the Displaced Persons Allowance Act of 27 September 1994 was finally enacted, providing for a one-off payment of 4,000 DM for those affected.

Another consequence of reunification was the revision of the Federal Displaced Persons Act by the Bundestag and the Bundesrat: This was adapted to the new political situation by the ‘Act on the Settlement of Consequences of the War’ of 21 December 1992; in other words, provisions that were no longer applicable – those relating to the circumstances of the Cold War – were amended or formally repealed. In this context, the displaced persons’ identity card – and with it the quasi-hereditary status of displaced persons – was abolished. In contrast, detailed provisions concerning late repatriates were newly incorporated into the Federal Displaced Persons Act. This amendment to the Act was in line with the then Federal Government’s wish that the BdV should take a more active interest in this group of people, who had been immigrating to Germany in increasing numbers since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Between 1990 and 1998, cultural funding based on Section 96 of the Federal Displaced Persons Act was also stepped up.

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• www.hdg.de/ (Website of the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany)
• www.bpb.de/ (Website of the Federal Agency for Civic Education)
• www.blz.bayern.de/thema-im-fokus/flucht-und-vertreibung/meldungen.html (Bavarian State Agency for Political Education, Thematic Forum on Flight and Expulsion)