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Soviet Considerations
The question is, would the other side cooperate? The Soviets were rooting for a Brandt victory as the lesser of two evils in the election, and Izvestia called him "more realistic on certain foreign policy questions." Perhaps they might sign a mutually attractive trade deal or grant Lufthansa landing rights in Russia. But so far, it seems unlikely that the collective leadership of Brezhnev and Kosygin would agree to any far-reaching accommodation with West Germany. One reason the Soviets moved against Czechoslovakia was that Brandt had opened negotiations in Prague that might have led to diplomatic relations and German investments in Czechoslovak industry. Soviet diplomats subsequently warned Brandt's aides that they do not want the Germans poking around in Eastern Europe. Still, Brandt is not likely to give up easily. For years the Soviets have unfairly castigated West Germany as a haven of unrepentant Nazis. It is a charge Brandt and the West Germany that helped bring him to power are both singularly well qualified to refute.
Brandt's administration means, in fact, a new era in which the power in West Germany has largely passed to the untainted Germans—those who were too young to be accomplices in Hitler's crimes. When Brandt cries, "Twenty years is enough!", it is not so much a plea for absolution as a reminder that a new generation is arriving and should not be condemned in advance.
The Germany of this new generation will be somewhat different and perhaps a bit difficult for its old allies. Yet it may well be a Germany that is far more attractive than any of the earlier generations were able to make. In one of Helmut Kirst's novels about World War II, a German soldier in Russia expresses the hope that maybe some day there may even be a Germany that is fun to live in. With luck, Brandt's Germany could be that place.