Nobel Peace Prize for Willy Brandt

The Chancellor of the SPD/FDP coalition is honoured for his foreign policy

On 20 October 1971, the Nobel Committee in Oslo announced the award of the Peace Prize to German Chancellor Willy Brandt. The committee stated that Brandt had “extended his hand in a policy of reconciliation between old enemies” and had worked tirelessly for peace. Special mention was made of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the non-aggression pacts that West Germany had signed with the Soviet Union and Poland. The committee also praised Brandt’s efforts to “secure fundamental human rights such as personal safety and full freedom of movement” for the people of West Berlin. It recognized his initiatives for increased cooperation within the European Community as an important contribution to peace.

Although many in the outside world viewed this “New Ostpolitik” – symbolized by Brandt spontaneously falling to his knees at the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 – positively, West German conservatives attacked it for stabilizing Soviet rule in Eastern Europe. To this day, it remains controversial whether the policy of rapprochement actually paved the way for German reunification and contributed to the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Willy Brandt’s Nobel Prize was one of four awarded to Germans and the only one presented after 1945.