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

It is difficult to ascertain what the actual objective of the FRG’s intervention was. The government must have been aware that a change in the tune of Soviet propaganda was not in the cards. If the point of the exercise was to continue to expose propaganda for what it was, it would have been more logical to analyze the Soviet counterprotest and to expose the weaknesses of the Soviet position. However, Bonn came up with an entirely different reaction. According to the UPI Press Agency on 2 August, the FRG Foreign Ministry confined itself “to rebuffing the accusations of the Soviet ambassador, Tsarapkin, which centered on the claim that ‘certain circles’ were meddling in the internal affairs of Czechoslovakia” and stated “that the Foreign Ministry had no intentions of discussing this issue any further.” 45

By 21 August, USSR-FRG relations were smoother, if not entirely back to normal. On 20 August, literally on the eve of the invasion of the ČSSR by Warsaw Pact troops, a meeting took place between the head of the 3rd European Department, Gorinovich, and the ambassador of the FRG, Allardt, who signed, on behalf of the federal government, an international agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space. In the minutes of this meeting, Gorinovich writes: “I welcomed Allardt and expressed the hope that the next international agreement would be the one on Nuclear Non-Proliferation. The ambassador replied that this was by no means impossible.”

Allardt inquired about the state of affairs concerning the direct airlink between the Soviet Union and the FRG because the FRG was still awaiting a reply to its note of 15 January. Gorinovich answered evasively: “The project is still being evaluated.” 46

Public reaction in the FRG to the invasion of the ČSSR by troops of the five Warsaw Pact countries was extremely negative. Protest demonstrations outside the buildings of the USSR’s embassy and trade delegation escalated into riots. Bonn’s official position was more restrained, if not downright apologetic. On 31 August, another meeting took place between Gorinovich and Allardt, which Allardt used to register a protest. However, his protest did not concern the events of 21 August, but a comment made in a German-language program of Radio Moscow to the effect that Chancellor Kiesinger’s statement on 25 August “could be interpreted as a declaration of war and that the Warsaw Pact countries would draw their own conclusions from it.” The Soviet side denied, of course, that it had the intention of starting a war with the FRG, and at the end of the meeting, the ambassador had to tender an apology for what had happened outside the Soviet embassy.

Kiesinger himself was even more obliging toward the USSR in a meeting with Tsarapkin on 2 September 1969. This author has already written extensively on this topic, yet one characteristic detail can now be added: the West German ambassador had confined himself to asserting that his government had never interfered in the internal affairs of the ČSSR and would certainly not do so in future. 47At the same time, he conveyed that the FRG could not remain indifferent to the events unfolding in a neighboring country. The chancellor went definitely further than this. According to the minutes that were made on Tsarapkin’s behalf, “he underscored… that the government of the FRG had never tried to interfere in security matters concerning Socialist countries or in their internal affairs or in their mutual relations ” (emphasis added). As far as the past was concerned, this statement was less than candid; as an assurance concerning the future, it sounded decidedly attractive in Soviet ears.

An anecdote may be helpful in illustrating the mood at the time. On 7 September, Berthold Beitz, a member of the board of directors of the Krupp conglomerate, called on the Soviet ambassador in Bonn. He told the diplomat he had received an invitation to go hunting in Romania and was wondering “whether this trip might not provoke criticism in view of the existing circumstances.” An indulgently inclined Tsarapkin gave his permission: “It was up to [Beitz] where and when he chose to go hunting.” 48Before 21 August, such an answer would have been unthinkable.

The FRG’s reactions were not limited to exceptional demonstrations of respect for the Soviet state and to official declarations of the same effect. In bilateral relations, the “business as usual” mode soon began to reassert itself and included an initiative to intensify contacts that originated with the FRG. As early as 5 September, the West German side contacted the Foreign Ministry of the USSR to inquire whether a delegation of the Ludwigsburg-based Central Office of the State Justice Administration for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes was welcome in the USSR. A positive answer was given on 9 September. On 20 September, the second secretary at the FRG embassy, Diepgen, told Ivan Sorokoletov, an official at the 3rd European Department, that the visiting group “was making good progress” and that the members of the group were “very in good spirits.” 49Otto von Stempel, the acting plenipotentiary, hinted in a meeting on 7 October with the new head of the 3rd European Department, Valentin Falin, that the FRG might conceivably be having second thoughts on its formerly adamant position regarding trade and cultural exchange agreements. He also raised the question again as to when the FRG could expect an answer on the direct airlink issue. This time, the Soviet reaction was less evasive than in the Gorinovich-Allardt meeting on 20 August: Falin assured his interlocutor that “an answer might well be forthcoming any time soon”—and “soon” it was to be: on 21 October the Air Ministry signaled its approval to the start of negotiations and these kicked off on 9 October 1968 in Bonn. 50The crisis between the USSR and the FRG had been overcome and soon gave way to normal relations.

It is to be deplored that this happened after a demonstration of its power by the USSR; in a way, one could even say this happened because of it. This was not setting the best of examples for the future.

Translated from German into English by Otmar Binder, Vienna.

1. The sources used here are above all the files of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation from the holdings F. 138a (Czechoslovak Desk), F. 757 (FRG Desk), F. 553 (Desk of the Soviet embassy in the FRG), F. 66 (Austrian Desk), and F. 56 “b” (holdings of the Press Department—TASS files), as well as the files of the former Archive of the CC of the CPSU.

2. RGANI, F. 3, op. 72, d. 214, 61, Politburo resolution of the CC of the CPSU P 106 (10), “On the memorandum addressed to the fraternal parties on the current situation in Czechoslovakia,” 18 October 1968.

3. See also the chapter by Günter Bischof, “‘No Action’: The Johnson Administration and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968,” in this volume.

4. This was one of the issues the Soviet ambassador to Austria, Boris Podtserob, addressed on 31 August 1968 in his conversation with Austria’s chancellor, Josef Klaus. AVP RF, F. 66, op. 47, 100, d. 6, pp. 179–83, official log of the USSR ambassador to Austria, Podtserob, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #182.

5. This refers to a reprint of an article first published in Volksstimme .

6. TASS, 28 August 1968, 4-AD, and TASS, 30 December 1968, 16-VE.

7. TASS, 2 April 1968, 11-BE.

8. TASS-Report, 1–4-AD.

9. TASS, 13 July 1968, 29-BE, 41-BE.

10. TASS, 16 July 1968, 19–20-BE.

11. TASS, 20 July 1968, 6-AD.

12. The said interview was also published in the TASS edition of 2 August 1968, 15–19-BE.