The 35s: NATO and the Warsaw Pact had been fighting each other for decades, the West and the East were in the Cold War. However, suddenly it seemed that a phase of relaxation had set in. On July 21, 1975, more than XNUMX countries, including the USA and the Soviet Union, committed themselves to two-year negotiations on the inviolability of borders and the peaceful settlement of disputes in Helsinki.
The signing of the final document of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe raised great hopes.
However, the arms race between the two blocs did not end there. In 1977, the Soviet Union surprised the West with a nuclear program. The USSR modernized medium-range missiles in Eastern Europe and introduced the twentieth generation of SS-missiles (surface-to-surface).
Like eighty bombs from Hiroshima
The projectile, which the Russians called the "pioneer missile," was reputed to be the most dangerous medium-range nuclear missile in Europe. Equipped with three warheads, it had 80 times more destructive power than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
Mounted on trucks, it was ready for launch in a few minutes, and had a range of 5.000 kilometers. It was a nightmare for the armed forces in the West. And the beginning of a new ice age in the Cold War.
The then German chancellor Helmut Schmidt believed that the strategic balance in Europe was disturbed and that West Germany was threatened. "I was afraid that one day (...) it could become a means of putting pressure on Germany." The missiles were essentially aimed at Germany," Schmidt said later in an interview.
In 1977, in a speech at the London Institute for Strategic Studies, the chancellor proposed additional arming of the West with medium-range missiles. He asked that NATO deploy missiles right in his country.
Arming the West
Two years later, NATO formulated an answer: Exactly four decades ago, on December 12, 1979, NATO adopted the so-called Double Conclusion in Brussels.
"Double" because it foresees negotiations with Moscow on the one hand, but also a threat on the other: If the Soviets do not remove their missiles, then in four years - at the end of 1983 - the USA will also deploy medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
It was playing with fire. The Soviet Union did not allow itself to be forced into negotiations. Just a few days later, on December 24, 1979, Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan. The fronts tightened, the Warsaw Pact and NATO continued arming.
In reaction to the escalation, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in West Germany. Protests also broke out in East Germany. Demonstrators in both Germany were of the opinion that if they prevent the stationing of American missiles, then at the same time they prevent not only a further arms race, but also a possible outbreak of war, explains historian Manfred Gertemaker.
Chancellor Kohl takes over Schmidt's strategy
The peace movement became a political factor of power, the Green party was born there, which entered the Bundestag in 1983. Their enemy was, first of all, US President Ronald Reagan, elected in 1981, who was clearly less interested in negotiations and more in arming.
Helmut Schmidt was also under pressure within his Social Democratic Party. Partly because of social and economic policy, and partly because the party doubted that the Double Conclusion was the right solution. Schmidt was voted no-confidence in 1982, and that's when the era of the Christian Democrat Chancellor Helmut Kohl began.
Kohl continued Schmidt's earlier policy and in November 1983 the Bundestag voted to station US medium-range missiles. Pershing II nuclear missiles and cruise missiles are deployed in Germany.
Horst Telczyk, head of the chancellor's office at the time, says: "When Kohl became chancellor, we were almost at the height of the Cold War. In 1983, we had up to 500.000 demonstrators on the streets. It was a so-called peace movement. Today we know that they financed it and supported both the KGB and the Stasi with manpower".
But Helmut Kohl, as Telchik says, always believed that Schmidt's position was correct: "Soviet missiles will disappear only if we stick to this alternative: if you don't disarm, we will arm ourselves."
Expenditure on arms overburdened the Soviet economy
Then, in 1985, a historical turning point occurred. Michael Gorbachev took power in the USSR. The Kremlin is opening up to reforms. The disarmament of the Soviets was forced - a large increase in the costs of the military apparatus forced Gorbachev to reform plans. The economically strong capitalist West simply brought the socialist East to its knees.
Already in the year when Gorbachev came to power, negotiations began. In December 1987, both sides undertook to destroy all missiles with a range between 500 and 5.500 kilometers. Then in 1991 came the Start Treaty on Limiting Long-Range Missiles.
According to the German Foreign Minister at the time, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, NATO's Double Conclusion was the initial capsule for calming tensions: "The result of the Double Conclusion was what we always promised, namely that there would not only be fewer such missiles, but that it won't be".
And today? The Greens, which emerged from the peace movement, have long established themselves as a force in German politics. The Cold War is on the way back, the Disarmament Treaty signed in 1987 was repealed last August.
In Germany, nuclear warheads are still stationed at the Bichel military airport. Four decades after NATO's Double Conclusion, humanity is still far from a world without nuclear weapons.
Bonus video:
