USSR - Relations with Western Europe

In 1955 the Soviet Union agreed to the independence and neutrality of Austria. The same year full diplomatic relations were established with West Germany, but the West German "economic miracle"-a "magnet" on the borders of Eastern Europe-and the new Ostpolitik of the West German foreign minister (later chancellor) Willy Brandt increased Soviet misgivings about its position in an Eastern Europe tempted by Western trade, technology, and ideas. The USSR championed East Germany against West Germany and caused repeated crises in the relations of the two Germanys. The problem of West Berlin, surrounded by East German territory, was particularly thorny. The USSR tried to bring all of Berlin under East German control and supported East German pressures for German unification. Relations with West Germany, however, improved at the end of the decade with the advent of a Social Democratic government in the Federal Republic. In August 1970 the Soviet and West German governments signed a treaty renouncing the use of force to settle disputes and accepting existing European frontiers, including the Oder-Neisse boundary between East Germany and Poland. Tensions were further reduced in 1973, when West and East Germany granted each other full diplomatic recognition.