The USSR and the German Question

Abstract

For the past 45 years the German question has been paradoxically both a dividing issue and common ground for the Soviets and the West. Since the last war the nightmare for the western allies has been the reappearance of a powerful Germany playing a loner game at the centre of Europe or, worse still, a Germany seduced by the Soviets into accepting neutrality in exchange for reunification. For the Soviets, the spectre haunting them has been that of revived German militarism, accompanied by score-settling ‘revanchism’ and lusting for the return of lost territories. Although reunification of the country, albeit on contrasting terms, has been the declared objective of both East and West, in reality there was something approaching a tacit understanding that their interests were better served by the maintenance of partition.¹