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Menü War Against Ukraine Bonn-Moscow Ties: Newly Released Documents Shed Fresh Light on NATO's Eastward Expansion

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Bonn-Moscow Ties

Newly Released Do uments Shed Fresh Light on

NATO's Eas ward Expansion
In 1991, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to prevent the eastward
expansion of NATO and Ukrainian independence, according to newly released files
from the archive of the German Foreign Ministry. Was he trying to assuage
Moscow?

By Klaus Wiegrefe
03.05.2022, 11.32 Uhr

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German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Kyiv in 1991 Foto: Frank Darchinger

Usually, only experts take much note when another volume of "Documents on
the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany" is released by the Leibniz
Institute for Contemporary History. They tend to be thick tomes full of
documents from the Foreign Ministry – and it is rare that they promise much in
the way of reading pleasure.

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This time around, though, interest promises to be significant. The new volume
with papers from includes memos, minutes and letters containing
previously unknown details about NATO’s eastward expansion, the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine. And already, it seems that
the documents may fuel the ongoing debate surrounding Germany’s policies
toward the Soviet Union and Russia over the years and up to the present day.

DER SPIEGEL 18/2022

The article you are reading originally appeared in German

in issue 18/2022 (April 30th, 2022) of DER SPIEGEL.

SPIEGEL International

Critics will find plenty of evidence that the Germans have long paid undue heed
to Moscow’s interests. But defenders of the country’s lenient approach toward the
Kremlin – which looks naïve from today’s perspective – will also find support in
the documents for their position.

At the heart of Germany’s policy toward Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union –
known collectively as "Ostpolitik" – at that time were two giants of Germany’s
postwar history: Helmut Kohl, from the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU),
who served for years as German chancellor; and Hans-Dietrich Genscher,
from the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), Kohl’s foreign minister and
vice chancellor. Both of them were in their early s and had a nose for power.
And following German reunification, both were at the peak of their reputations.

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In , the Soviet Union was still in existence, though many of the nationalities
that formed the union had begun standing up to Moscow. Kohl, though, felt that a
dissolution of the Soviet Union would be a "catastrophe" and anyone pushing for
such a result was an "ass." In consequence, he repeatedly sought to drum up
momentum in the West against independence for Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had been annexed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in
, with West Germany later never recognizing the annexation. But now that
Kohl found himself faced with the three Baltic republics pushing for
independence and seeking to leave the Soviet Union, Kohl felt they were on the
"wrong path," as he told French President François Mitterrand during a meeting
in Paris in early . Kohl, of course, had rapidly moved ahead with Germany’s
reunification. But he felt that Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania should be more
patient about their freedom – and should wait around another years, the
chancellor seemed to think at the time. And even then, Kohl felt the three
countries should be neutral ("Finnish status"), and not become members of
NATO or the European Community (EC).

A German Foreign Ministry memo on the eastward expansion of NATO Foto: DER SPIEGEL

He felt Ukraine should also remain in the Soviet Union, at least initially, so as not
endanger its continued existence. Once it became clear that the Soviet Union was
facing dissolution, the Germans were in favor of Kyiv joining a confederation
with Russia and other former Soviet republics. In November , Kohl offered
Russian President Boris Yeltsin to "exert influence on the Ukrainian leadership"
to join such a union, according to a memo from a discussion held between Kohl
and Yeltsin during a trip by the Russian president to the German capital of Bonn.
German diplomats felt that Kyiv was demonstrating a "tendency toward
authoritarian-nationalist excesses."

When over percent of Ukrainian voters cast their ballots in favor of

independence in a referendum held two weeks later, though, both Kohl and
Genscher changed course. Germany was the first EC member state to recognized
Ukraine’s independence.

Nevertheless, the passages could still cause some present-day eyebrow raising in
Kyiv, particularly against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian invasion.

An anti-Soviet demonstration in Kyiv in 1991 Foto: Anatoly Sapronenkov / AFP

Soviet soldiers in Leipzig in 1991 Foto: Peter Hirth

Germany’s policies toward Eastern and Central Europe also raise questions. The
Warsaw Pact collapsed during the course of , and Genscher sought to
employ a number of tricks to prevent countries like Poland, Hungary and
Romania from becoming members of NATO – out of consideration for the
concerns of the Soviet Union.

The momentum of Eastern and Central European countries toward joining the
NATO alliance was creating a volatile mixture in Moscow of "perceptions of
being under threat, fear of isolation and frustration over the ingratitude of former
fraternal countries," reported the German ambassador as early as February .

Genscher was concerned about fueling this situation further. NATO membership
for Eastern-Central Europeans is "not in our interest," he declared. The
countries, he noted, certainly have the right to join the Western alliance, but the
focus should be on ensuring "that they don’t exercise this right."

Was his position born merely of prudence and a desire to ensure peace for the
good of Europe? Or was it a precursor to the accommodation with Moscow "at
the expense of other countries in Eastern Europe" that Social Democratic (SPD)
parliamentarian Michael Roth recently spoke of? The chair of the Foreign Affairs
Committee in the German parliament, Roth is in favor of establishing a
committee of inquiry to examine failures in Germany and within his own party
when it comes to Ostpolitik. He believes that Germany "de facto denied the
sovereignty" of its neighboring countries.

Roth is referring specifically to Berlin’s policies in recent years. But should the
analysis perhaps take a look further into history? All the way back to the era of
Kohl and Genscher?

“Initially, he former Warsaw Pa t countries pursued

he intention of becoming NATO members. They
have been discouraged from doing so in confidential
dis ussions.”
German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in 1991

Curiously, Germany’s Ostpolitik – both in the period leading up to German

reunification and since then – has today become the focus of criticism from all
sides. Russia, too, is among the critics, accusing the West of having broken its
word with the eastward expansion of NATO.

Some of the documents that have now been declassified may even be reframed
by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his acolytes as weapons in the ongoing
propaganda war. Because in several instances, Genscher and his top diplomats
refer to a pledge made during negotiations over German reunification – the Two
Plus Four negotiations – that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe.

Russian politicians have been claiming the existence of such a pledge for decades.
Autocrat Putin has sought to use the argument to justify his invasion of Ukraine.
Yet Moscow approved the eastern expansion of NATO in the NATO-Russia
Founding Act of , if only grumblingly.

Many of the documents that have now been made public seem to support the
Russian standpoint:

On March , , Genscher told the U.S. that he was opposed to the

eastward expansion of NATO with the justification that "during the Two Plus
Four negotiations the Soviets were told that there was no intention of
expanding NATO to the east."
Six days later, the policy director of the German Foreign Ministry, Jürgen
Chrobog referred in a meeting with diplomats from Britain, France and the
U.S. to "the understanding expressed in the Two Plus Four process that the
withdrawal of Soviet troops from the West cannot be used for our own
advantage."
On April , Genscher told his Greek counterpart that he had told the Soviets:
"Germany wants to remain a member of NATO even after reunification. In
exchange, it won’t be expanded to the east ..."
On October , Genscher met with his counterparts from France and Spain,
Roland Dumas and Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, respectively. Minutes from
that meeting recorded Genscher’s statements regarding the future of Central
and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) as follows:

"We cannot accept NATO membership for CEEC states (referral to Soviet
reaction and pledge in + negotiations that NATO territory is not to be
expanded eastward). Every step that contributes to stabilizing situation in CEEC
and SU is important." SU is a reference to the Soviet Union.

Kohl, Genscher and Gorbachev in 1990 Foto: STAFF / REUTERS

As such, Genscher wanted to "redirect" the desires of CEEC to join NATO and
was on the lookout for alternatives that would be "acceptable" to the Soviet
Union. The result was the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, a body within
which all former Warsaw Pact countries would have a say.

"Initially, the former Warsaw Pact countries pursued the intention of becoming
NATO members," said Genscher. "They have been discouraged from doing so in
confidential discussions."

For a time, the Germans were even in favor of NATO issuing an official
declaration that it would not expand eastward. Only after the German foreign
minister visited Washington in May and was told that an expansion "cannot
be excluded in the future" did he quickly back off and say that he was not in favor
of a "definitive declaration." De facto, however, it appears that he wanted to
avoid expanding NATO to the east.

In Bonn, the initial capital of newly reunified Germany, the mood was one of self-
confident optimism. The Cold War was over, Germany had been unified and
Kohl and Genscher were pushing forward the consolidation of the EC into the
European Union.

The chancellor also saw an historic opportunity when it came to relations with
the Soviet Union. "Perhaps we will now be able to make right some of what went
wrong this century," he said. After World War II with its millions of deaths and
the partitioning of Germany that resulted, Kohl was hoping to open a new
chapter in relations with Moscow.

"The dissolution of he Soviet Union cannot be in our

interest ..."
Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1991

The Soviet Union at the time was under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, an
idealistic, pro-reform communist who the Germans loved since he had acquiesced
to the end of East Germany. "If the Germans are prepared to help the Soviet
Union, it is primarily out of gratitude for the role played by Gorbachev in
Germany’s reunification," was Kohl’s description of the situation. The fact that
Gorbachev was vehemently opposed to expanding NATO into Central and
Eastern Europe was of no consequence when it came to the esteem in which he
was held in Germany.

Later, the chancellor would say in public that he had been Gorbachev’s "best
advocate." The two leaders used the informal term of address, passed along
greetings to their wives and gossiped over the phone.

Kohl sought to drum up support around the world for "Misha" and his policies.
He helped secure an invitation for the Kremlin leader to attend the G- summit
and under Kohl’s leadership, Germany sent by far the most foreign aid to
Moscow.

Kohl was deeply concerned that Gorbachev detractors in the Soviet military,
secret services or state apparatus could seek to overthrow him. And an attempted
putsch only just barely failed in August . A group surrounding Vice President
Gennady Yanayev detained Gorbachev, but mass demonstrations, the
widespread refusal to obey orders in the military and resistance from Boris
Yeltsin, who was president of the republic of Russia at the time, doomed the
attempted overthrow to failure. Gorbachev remained in office.

It is hard to imagine what might have happened if the Soviet military had ended
up under the command of a revanchist dictator at the time. Hundreds of
thousands of Soviet soldiers were still stationed in what had been East Germany
and additional units were still waiting to be pulled out of Poland and
Czechoslovakia. The German Foreign Ministry files make it clear that the
withdrawal of the troops was a "central priority" of German policy.

And then there were the roughly , Soviet nuclear warheads, which
represented a significant danger. The "nuclear security on the territory of Soviet
Union has absolute priority for the rest of the world," the Foreign Ministry in
Bonn stated.

From this perspective, any weakening of Gorbachev was out of the question, and
the same held true for the Soviet Union as a whole, which Gorbachev was trying
to hold together against all resistance.

Kohl and Genscher believed in a kind of domino theory, which held that if the
Baltic states left the Soviet Union, Ukraine would then follow, after which the
entire Soviet Union would collapse, and Gorbachev would fall as well. And that
is roughly what happened throughout the year of . Kohl, though, had his
doubts as to whether such a dissolution would be peaceful. He felt that a kind of
"civil war" was possible, of the kind that was soon to break out in Yugoslavia.

Gorbachav’s longtime foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, even warned the

Germans. During a Genscher visit to Moscow in October , Shevardnadze,
who was no longer in office by that time, prophesied that if the Soviet Union
were to fall apart, a "fascist leader" could one day rise to power in Russia who
may demand the return of the Crimea.

Putin annexed the Crimea a little over two decades later.

In , Kohl even felt it was possible that the poisonous form of nationalism
that appeared in Eastern Europe following World War I could make a
reappearance. He believed that if the Baltic countries were to become
independent, "the clash with Poland will start (anew)." Poland and Lithuania
fought against each other in .

The conclusion drawn by the German chancellor was that "the dissolution of the
Soviet Union cannot be in our interest ..."

Ultimately, the Baltic countries and Ukraine went on to gain independence. And
it likely won’t ever be possible to determine conclusively if Kohl’s analysis of the
situation was erroneous or whether the Latvians and Lithuanians were simply
lucky that their path to independence was more or less peaceful.

Many Western allies, in any case, tended to side with the Germans in their
analysis of the situation. French President Mitterrand, for his part, complained
about the Baltics, saying "you can’t risk everything you have gained (with
Moscow – eds.) just to help countries that haven’t existed on their own in
years." Even U.S. President George H. W. Bush, a cold realist, complained about
the forcefulness of the Baltic politicians as they pushed for independence.

Germany’s friendship with the Kremlin even led Chancellor Kohl to overlook a
criminal offense on one occasion. On Jan. , , Soviet special forces in the
Lithuanian capital of Vilnius were unleashed on the national independence
movement there, storming the city’s television tower and other buildings.
Fourteen unarmed people were killed and hundreds more injured.

The protests from Bonn were tepid at best.

Just a few days after the violence, Kohl and Gorbachev spoke on the phone. The
diplomat listening in on the call noted that the two exchanged "hearty greetings."
Gorbachev complained that it was impossible to move forward "without certain
severe measures," which sounded as though he was referring to Vilnius. Kohl’s
response: "In politics, everyone must also be open to detours. The important
thing is that you don’t lose sight of the goal." Gorbachev concluded by saying
that he "very much valued" the chancellor’s position. The word Lithuania wasn’t
uttered even a single time, according to the minutes.

Gorbachev’s role in the violent assault remains unclarified to the present day.

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