The establishment of the Federal Ministry for Pan-German Affairs in 1949 was a consequence of the division of Germany. Whilst formally responsible for matters relating to reunification and for maintaining public awareness of the historic German territories in the East, it was in fact always overshadowed by the Federal Chancellery: The Chancellor alone reserved the right to make major decisions on German policy, insofar as these did not fall within the remit of the Allied victorious powers. In view of these circumstances, during the 1950s and early 1960s the BMG shifted its efforts towards German unity to subordinate areas. Among other things, it thus placed itself at the service of the state’s anti-communist policy. This, in turn, had a lasting impact on the political culture of the fledgling Bonn Republic. In the wake of the ‘New Ostpolitik’ under a social-liberal leadership, the Ministry’s substantive work and orientation began to change from autumn 1969 onwards. This development was reflected not least in the renaming of the ministry responsible for all-German affairs: from October 1969 until its dissolution on 1 January 1991, it was known – in keeping with the changing times – as the Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations (BMB).

From the outset, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) was a purely political government department. Committed to the idea of reunification, it was intended to contribute to the formation of political will in the Federal Republic. In 1955, its formal remit was set out in the following self-explanatory statement: “to prepare for the restoration of German unity and to ward off the dangers threatening the German nation, particularly in the border regions”.^[1] In this capacity, the BMG also focused on supporting those forces committed to “resolutely opposing the drive for communist expansion”. In this sense, the Ministry saw itself, from its very inception, as a “guardian, admonisher and promoter”, whose services were always required whenever “pan-German issues were to be discussed and decided”.^[2] Within the framework of the “New Ostpolitik”, this remit underwent a far-reaching modification in substance. The idea of reunification was no longer on the immediate agenda of the Federal Government bodies responsible for German policy. The BMB, which was subsequently renamed, was thus tasked with managing the division of Germany. The primary aim was to make intra-German relations more bearable for the population on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’, in the spirit of an ‘orderly coexistence’ between the two German states. To this end, the Ministry was to take on relevant coordination tasks between the individual federal government ministries. Nevertheless, its scope of action in this regard was repeatedly restricted by the Federal Chancellery’s authority to set policy guidelines on German affairs. This became clearly apparent by 1989/90 at the latest, when the Chancellor’s Office, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Foreign Office emerged as the key political actors in the German reunification process.

Over the decades of its existence, the BMG/BMB underwent numerous structural reorganisations. Despite this, one fundamental policy decision was upheld: the Ministry’s headquarters were located at the government centre in Bonn. From the outset, the Berlin branch office was a ‘smaller replica’ of the parent organisation on the Rhine. However, as Berlin lost its long-standing locational advantages in the wake of the intensifying Cold War – a process that was finally sealed by the construction of the Wall in 1961 at the latest – the importance of the branch office there diminished. From that time onwards, it generally performed only secondary tasks. Only the ransoming of political prisoners from the GDR – carried out under the strictest secrecy – and matters relating to intra-German family reunification remained organisationally based in Berlin until the Ministry was dissolved.

In the decades leading up to German reunification, the ministry was mostly headed by CDU ministers: Jakob Kaiser, 1949–1957; Ernst Lemmer, 1957–1962; Rainer Barzel, 1962–1963, 1982–1983; Johann Baptist Gradl, 1966; Heinrich Windelen, 1983–1987; Dorothee Wilms, 1987–1991. Between 1963 and 1966, Erich Mende, an FDP politician, took charge of the ministry, whilst from 1966 to 1982, two Social Democrats – Herbert Wehner and (from 1969) Egon Franke – held the post. Among the ministers of those years, Herbert Wehner was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding figures. During the Grand Coalition (1966–1969), he succeeded for the first time in securing, albeit temporarily, a say and the opportunity to shape policy for the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) in the broader context of German politics: The fact, for instance, that Chancellor Kiesinger did not leave the so-called Stoph letters from the then Prime Minister of the GDR unanswered in 1967 – a first in the history of inter-German relations – would not have been possible without Wehner’s decisive efforts to persuade.

Whilst Wehner, in his capacity as minister, symbolised the beginning of détente, this was not the case for the founding generation of the Federal Ministry of Health. In keeping with the political context of the time, they placed themselves unreservedly at the service of the Cold War, which meant seeking to win the systemic conflict between East and West, waged below the military threshold. Modelled on US examples, the Ministry focused on destabilising the SED regime using methods of so-called psychological warfare and in collaboration with private anti-communist organisations. Furthermore, the aim was to effectively counter the communist infiltration attempts in West Germany carried out by the GDR with the help of the West German KPD. This task was entrusted primarily to Department I within the BMG. The confrontation with the political opponent in the East also took place at other levels. Relevant specialist units within the Ministry regularly coordinated humanitarian aid campaigns, mainly to support the churches in the GDR. Such measures, as well as the extensive media efforts to instil a pan-German consciousness in Germans in both East and West under the conditions of national division and to raise their awareness of the causes of freedom and Western democracy, were carried out in each case with a deliberate distinction from the GDR dictatorship.

The 1950s and 1960s, which were entirely shaped by the US anti-communist liberation strategy, had a lasting impact on the history of the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). As a West German government department, the Ministry unreservedly aligned itself with the associated, state-led defence against totalitarian communism. In doing so, the Ministry simultaneously supported Chancellor Adenauer’s efforts towards the political integration of the young Federal Republic into the West, as the liberal-democratic rationale of the Western bloc, led by the USA, was generally legitimised by a resolute anti-communism.

In this spirit, during the early years of its existence, the BMG organised activities in the East that were actively directed against the SED regime. In doing so, it also sought direct contact with opposition circles in the GDR. However, in the wake of the failed popular uprising there on 17 June 1953, the Ministry’s operational counter-intelligence work shifted focus. From then on, there was no longer any desire to recklessly endanger human lives in the eastern part of Germany. Consequently, the conviction gradually took hold within the BMG that the SED regime could be contained just as effectively – and, above all, combated with less risk – if the focus were now fully directed towards waging the ‘struggle against the internal enemy’ within the Federal Republic: This referred to the KPD, which was controlled from East Berlin, and its so-called front organisations. In this regard, the BMG cooperated with the West German intelligence services and the US CIA. Moreover, the numerous West German anti-communist private organisations also proved to be natural allies in this defensive struggle. They therefore received generous subsidies from the BMG’s secret funds over many years.

In its dealings with political dissidents – a group that included not only communists but also pacifists and ‘neutralists’ on the issue of German reunification – the BMG was by no means always restrained. In order to protect the West German population from ‘communist infiltration’, courses of action were endorsed which were highly questionable from the perspective of democracy and the rule of law. The whole affair was legitimised as a measure of ‘positive constitutional protection’. On the basis of mere suspicion, alleged opponents were stigmatised and – whether justified or not – subjected to the scrutiny of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Furthermore, right up until the early 1960s, the Ministry repeatedly interfered covertly in federal and state election campaigns. The anti-communist consensus was always the overriding priority. This determined the choice of means and methods and justified much of what ultimately served to curb ‘communist subversive activities’ within the federal territory. None of this, however, was in any way consistent with the BMG’s constitutional powers. Yet this generally caused little concern amongst those within the all-German ministry who were focused on the success of their work.

When substantial changes in this regard finally began to emerge from the late 1960s onwards, the main reason for this – apart from the general willingness of those in political office – was the following circumstance: Namely, as the Bonn Republic consolidated itself politically and economically, there was ever less reason to ‘immunise’ the increasingly well-off citizens of the Federal Republic against the temptations and the ‘ideological threat’ of communism by means of ‘psychological warfare’. This was all the more true as, in parallel – and certainly by the early 1970s at the latest – a shift in the global political landscape was becoming apparent, with the international situation moving from confrontation to détente between East and West. The GDR’s activities in the West, which until then had legitimised the West German state’s anti-communism, were not left unaffected by this development. Consequently, a paradigm shift gradually began to take shape in East Berlin as well, one that henceforth was no longer aimed primarily at bringing about a change of political system in the Federal Republic, but rather at securing the GDR’s recognition under international law by the political authorities in Bonn. All this was not without consequences for the Ministry for Inter-German Relations. And so, under these circumstances, it evolved into a government body whose primary task was henceforth simply to administer the division of the country – a division that was increasingly accepted as a political reality.

• Alfred Adam: The Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations. Bonn 1971 (Agencies and Organisations of the Federal Republic of Germany).
• Federal Ministry of the Interior, Federal Archives (eds.): Documents on German Policy: ‘Special Efforts’ by the Federal Government. Vol. 1: 1962 to 1969. Prisoner ransoms, family reunification, exchange of agents. Munich 2012.
• Stefan Creuzberger: The Struggle for Unity. The All-German Ministry and the Political Culture of the Cold War 1949–1969. Düsseldorf 2008 (Publications of the Federal Archives 69).
• Stefan Creuzberger: Psychological Warfare and Operational Influence on the GDR. The Federal Ministry for Pan-German Affairs in West Berlin. In: Michael C. Bienert, Uwe Schaper, Hermann Wentker (eds.): Claims to the Capital and Symbolic Politics. The Federal Presence in Divided Berlin 1949–1990. Berlin 2012 (Focus on Contemporary History 1), pp. 221–240.
• Detlef Kühn: The Institute for Pan-German Affairs in the Crosshairs of the State Security Service. Berlin 2001 (Publications of the Berlin State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR 13).
• Gisela Rüss: Anatomy of a Political Administration. The Federal Ministry for Pan-German Affairs – Intra-German Relations 1949–1970. Munich 1973 (Munich Studies in Politics 23).

[1] As stated in Section 27 of the Federal Ministry of Health’s 1955 budget, quoted from: Adam: *Das Bundesministerium*, pp. 40–41.

[2] Adam: *Das Bundesministerium*, p. 41.

Stefan Creuzberger: Federal Ministry for Pan-German Affairs (BMG). In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32865 (as at 25 August 2020).