Long before Chancellor Willy Brandt began bidding for closer political ties with Communist Eastern Europe, West German Economics Minister Karl Schiller was pursuing a business Ostpolitik. Unlike Brandt's diplomacy, which is still in the negotiating stage, it has already produced a solid success. Last week in the Krupp company town of Essen, Schiller and Soviet Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev toasted each other with Kupferberg Furst Bismarck champagne after signing what may be the biggest trade deal ever between the U.S.S.R. and a Western nation.
By the end of 1972, the firms...
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