Definition: Policy of West Germany towards Eastern Europe and the USSR, which sought closer ties (economic and political) between the two and recognition of the current boundaries (including the German Democratic Republic as a state) in the hope of a long term ‘thaw’ in the Cold War and eventual reunification of Germany. The policy is most closely associated with West German Foreign Minister and then Chancellor Willy Brandt, who pushed the policy forwards in the late 1960s/1970s, producing, among others, the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR, the Prague treaty with Poland, and the Basic Treaty with the GDR, forging closer ties.
Examples: Germany negotiated with the East under a policy of Ostpolitik.
