Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

86. Kennan to Hooker, 17 October 1949, George F. Kennan Papers, box 23, Seeley J. Mudd Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Emmet J. Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of the Eisenhower Years (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 275–81.

87. See the documents cited in notes 53, 54, and 65 above.

88. J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (New York: Random House, 1966), 245–46; Meeting Kissinger with Representatives of Foreign Service Class, 6 January 1977, cit.

89. For a similar approach, see also the memoirs of President Carter’s ambassador to Italy, Richard N. Gardner, Mission Italy: On the Front Lines of the Cold War (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

90. On these diplomatic maneuvers see Brogi, Confronting Anti-Americanism ; cf. argument in broader context in Alessandro Brogi, A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy, 1944–1958 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002). On G-7 and anticommunist strategy see also Duccio Basosi and Giovanni Bernardini, “The Puerto Rico summit of 1976 and the end of Eurocommunism,” The Crisis of Détente in Europe: From Helsinki to Gorbachev, 1975–1985 , ed. Leopoldo Nuti (London: Routledge, 2008).

This chapter answers three basic questions regarding how the Prague Spring crisis in Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) affected relations between the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). First, how did Soviet interpretations of the FRG’s politics concerning Czechoslovakia come into being, and to what extent did they correspond to reality? Second, on what did Czechoslovakia—in the eyes of the Soviets—base its relations with the FRG? Finally, what effects did the Czechoslovak crisis and its outcome ultimately have on USSR-FRG relations? 1

The Politburo Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (“Information for Fraternal Parties on the Current Situation in Czechoslovakia”) of 28 October 1968 contains the following passage:

Reactionary Western circles actively support the rightist forces in Czechoslovakia. As is known from a reliable source, the USA, England, the FRG and Italy, acting on a US government initiative, reached an agreement at the beginning of July, which provides for these countries to pursue a common course with regard to Czechoslovakia. This course concerns above all political and economic measures designed to weaken Czechoslovakia’s ties to other Socialist countries, notably the Soviet Union. It was also agreed for the Federal Republic of Germany to play the key role in the deployment of Western influence on developments in Czechoslovakia . (Emphasis added)

In March 1968, Franz Josef Strauss stated in a meeting with senior West German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) functionaries that the U.S. and the German governments had invested a great deal of work in order to compromise the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) leadership in the eyes of the Czechoslovak public. According to Strauss, the Western world was, therefore, supposed to make “sensitive and prudent” use of all channels of ideological and economic influence in order further to weaken the KSČ’s clout in the country and “gradually to prise away Czechoslovakia from the USSR.” 2

It has proved impossible to identify the source from which the Soviet leadership could have obtained this information. Leaving the authenticity issue aside, we may note that in this concrete case, mention is made of plans and intentions on the part of the West to interfere in Czechoslovak affairs, yet there are no facts to document any kind of actual interference. These are referred to in the next paragraph of the document, in which charges are leveled not at West German, but at Austrian politicians, those in Austria’s Socialist Party (SPÖ), to be precise.

An examination of the files of the Soviet press and of TASS results in a corroboration of the Austrian role in events in Czechoslovakia, which is even stronger and more accentuated than the West German one. The Literaturnaya Gazeta of 28 August 1968 3published an article entitled “Green Berets Again” about the transfer of “arms and saboteurs” from the FRG to Czechoslovakia across Austrian territory, whereas Pravda wrote about the transfer of “22 West German radio transmitter stations”—again across Austrian territory. 4According to these incriminatory articles, the Soviet propagandists blamed Czechoslovakia’s two “Western” neighbors in equal measure. In the secret TASS material, Austria’s role is underlined more strongly and in a more “aggressive” diction, as a glance at some of the headlines of these information bulletins 5conveys: “Austria’s radio transmits Czech language broadcasts on developments in the ČSSR” and “The Vienna unit of Austria’s Military Secret Service focuses its activities on Czechoslovakia.” 6

It has to be borne in mind that we are talking here of the time after the invasion of the ČSSR by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. While the crisis was still brewing, the main target for all incriminations regarding “interference” was clearly the FRG. It is obvious that propaganda came in different degrees of intensity. Judging by the dossier “Czechoslovakia and the FRG,” which was put together in 1968 at the Soviet Foreign Ministry from TASS material, statements of FRG politicians, which were full of exhortations to use caution in exploiting the new situation in the ČSSR for German purposes, were the first focus of interest. A Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) report of 1 April reported that

Ernst Majonica, a CDU member of the Bundestag , warned against rushing through an initiative concerning the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia. Majonica: We do not want to put the government in Prague on the spot by pressurizing them. It will be advisable to exercise restraint in making comments on developments in Prague, as our comments are liable to have repercussions on the Federal Republic’s relations to Moscow…. Any West German eastern policy is doomed to fail if it is anti-Soviet in character. 7

It took some time for annoyance with the FRG to surface in comments in connection with the events of the Prague Spring. Reporting in the West German media on events in the ČSSR triggered the first sharp reaction. On 25 May the regular edition of the TASS Report 8published an article entitled “Libelous article in the weekly Der Spiegel on the developments in Czechoslovakia” (referring to the article “Zu Europa” in the edition of 13 May). Soon afterwards, the visits of members of the FRG’s political and economic elite in the ČSSR were given top priority in the TASS Report. Of particular interest to the Soviet Foreign Ministry were the almost simultaneous trips— on 12 and 13 July—of two representatives of the Free Democratic Party ( Freie Demokratische Partei or FDP), Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Walter Scheel, and of the president of the Bundesbank, Karl Blessing. 9On 16 July, TASS published an article entitled “UPI on the Relations between the FRG and Czechoslovakia” (“UPI zu den Beziehungen zwischen der BRD und der Tschechoslowakei”) by the correspondent of the U.S. news service in Bonn, Wellington Long, which contained the following statement: 10

West Germany has begun building a political bridgehead in Czechoslovakia. A first “on-the-spot inspection” was carried out at the end of last week by the party leader of the opposition FDP, Walter Scheel, and by the CEO of the Bundesbank, Karl Blessing…. The institute that Blessing heads is an issue bank and the Federal Reserve Bank. He does not grant or underwrite loans yet he can certainly offer his services as a go-between and has no doubt done so. A word from Blessing uttered in the right place can work wonders in Germany.