The Hallstein Doctrine was one of the cornerstones of the Adenauer era's foreign policy, but it was not an iron-clad cordon against the GDR. The FRG's Foreign Office and the titular Hallstein were far more flexible in applying the doctrine than their rigid defense of it would imply. Bonn's diplomatic relations with the USSR and the other Pact states did not really contradict the Hallstein doctrine because its targets were not really those countries.

In a nutshell, the Hallstein doctrine was much more about diplomatically isolating the GDR from the wider, non-European world than it was about a 100% cordon. For example, of the FRG's three main Western allies, only the US seriously threw its weight behind the Hallstein doctrine. The UK and France at times supported it, but they also maintained a degree of low-level connections with the GDR. Bonn might at times threaten to use its soft power for either Paris or London to curtail its connections with the GDR, but it was generally understood by diplomats that Bonn would never risk its political and economic position in Western Europe for the sake of the doctrine. But the FRG had the advantage in that it was much more valuable of a German partner than the GDR for Western Europeans, so the Western European foreign ministries spent a good deal of effort in the 1960s trying to get Bonn to soften its line on Hallstein than they did in expanding their connections with the GDR. The Cold War and the repressive actions of the SED added a further disincentive not to rock the Hallstein boat for Western Europeans, but it was also clear in various internal correspondence that Bonn's threats contained very little teeth.

While various foreign ministries accurately perceived some of the bluster behind the Hallstein doctrine, the FRG's leaders and diplomats still had to defend it. The resumption of relations with the USSR did create an embarrassment when Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano claimed in 1955 that the Soviets' recognition of the GDR would not pose a barrier to renewed relations between Bonn and Moscow. Adenauer was reportedly furious with his Foreign Minister and demanded, but did not receive, von Brentano's resignation. Bonn immediately sent out a telegram to its foreign missions clarifying the matter claiming that FRG relations with states that recognized the GDR were applied only

exclusively to states within the Soviet sphere of power or, as the example of Finland shows, states in exceptional geographic and political dependence.

Adenauer himself would frame the resumption of relations with Moscow as a necessary precondition for a final peace treaty ending the war in which Bonn would be the sole German signatory as it was the provisional legitimate German state. Adenauer himself was almost prepared to walk away from the negotiations over restored relations. The negotiations had stalled over the GDR recognition issue and neither side would budge on it. It was the Soviet negotiators who proposed reestablishment of relations and the repatriation of the last German PoWs. The GDR issue was silently dropped by both parties, but the PoWs shows that the Soviets appreciated that Adenauer needed something to save political face over the seeming betrayal of the Hallstein doctrine. The FRG's public rationale for the resumption of relations was that the USSR was an exception to the general rule of Hallstein, although these exceptions gradually grew to enfold the rest of the Warsaw Pact states. As with the USSR, the rationale was that these were special cases and were to grease the wheels for a final peace treaty that would reunify Germany.

But the main effort in enforcing the Hallstein doctrine was outside the main political turf of the Cold War superpowers. Yugoslavia, which was outside the blocs, received a warning in 1957 when Bonn broke off relations over the GDR issue. Coming so close on the heels of the resumption of relations with the Soviets, the Yugoslav issue was a warning shot to the Third World that Bonn still adhered to the Hallstein doctrine and would enforce it. The Arab countries as well as southern and southeast Asia also recognized that while the doctrine was a stick, they could parlay either maintaining the cordon or breaking it into lucrative economic concessions. The reality that Third World leaders like Nasser were playing the two Germanies against each other did much to sap the utility of the Hallstein doctrine for Bonn throughout the late 1960s. The FRG though always had the upper hand as it was the more prosperous of the German states and could afford to pay the price to keep the GDR isolated. So even when the Hallstein doctrine failed as it did with Egypt, the GDR often had to pay a high price for its diplomatic recognition.

For all of Bonn's high-minded rhetoric about the Hallstein doctrine, it was very much a strategy of Realpolitik. Countries that knew their relations were valuable to Bonn had some leverage to evade the full force of the doctrine's strictures. Yet the FRG had an advantage in that it was invariably a more desirable German economic and political partner than the GDR. This helped account for the longevity of the Hallstein doctrine in Western European circles even as it became an outdated political relic of the early Cold War. This gave Bonn a degree of tactical cover to claim that its own violations of the Hallstein doctrine like the resumption of relations with the USSR were special cases. Adenauer and company could not abandon the doctrine completely but often had to connect their violation of its principles with some tangible gains such as the return of PoWs. The Hallstein doctrine itself was in rough shape though by the late 1960s as it became clear that the selective and patchwork application of the cordon around the GDR was increasingly expensive and somewhat toothless.

Sources

Berger, Stefan, and Norman Laporte. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949/1990. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.

Gray, William Glenn. Germany: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949-1969. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Sarotte, M. E. Dealing with the Devil East Germany, Détente, and Ostpolitik, 1969-1973. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.