Bridge Builder

Walther Leisler Kiep

Description

Walther Leisler Kiep is one of the most independent and influential German post-war politicians. He is also a successful entrepreneur and longtime chairman of Atlantik-Brücke, the influential German-American friendship organization, which he now serves as honorary chairman. In his autobiography, Kiep speaks frankly about a life at the center of power: as an independent politician and treasurer of the governing CDU party from 1970 to 1991, who did not shrink from conflict with party leaders Helmut Kohl and Franz Josef Strauss; as Minister of Finance in Lower Saxony; as a longtime member of the Volkswagen Supervisory board for 21 years; and as an ambassador for German-American relations, and confidant of several US presidents. As well as presenting an inside history of the relationship between Germany and the United States, the book sheds particular light on the struggle for German unification and that country's complex relationship with the Middle East.
List of Abbreviations

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: A Long Road to Politics

Chapter 2: In Politics

Chapter 3: In the Opposition

Chapter 4: Ostpolitik

Chapter 5: Special Missions

Chapter 6: Business, Politics, and Personalities

Chapter 7: My Bridge across the Atlantic

Epilogue: America In Me

Name Index

Subject Index

Sujets

• Histoire
• History of Europe
• Germany
• History
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612492063
• Langue: English

Extrait

B RIDGE B UILDER
B RIDGE B UILDER
AN INSIDER’S ACCOUNT OF OVER SIXTY YEARS IN POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY, AND GERMAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS
BY
W ALTHER L EISLER K IEP
Purdue University Press
West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2012 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kiep, Walther Leisler, 1926-
Bridge builder : an insider’s account of over sixty years in post-war reconstruction, international diplomacy, and German-American relations / Walther Leisler Kiep.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-620-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-207-0 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-206-3 (epub) 1. Kiep, Walther Leisler, 1926- 2. Statesmen--Germany--Biography. 3. Politicians--Germany--Biography. 4. Germany (West)--Politics and government. 5. Germany--Politics and government--1990-6. Germany (West)--Foreign relations--United States. 7. United States--Foreign relations--Germany (West) 8. Germany--Foreign relations--United States. 9. United States--Foreign relations--Germany. I. Title.
DD259.7.K48A3 2012
327.43073092--dc23
[B]
2011047688
Cover: Walther Leisler Kiep with Richard von Weizsäcker, who later became President of Germany.
I have great respect for Walther Kiep. I can think of nobody that has done more for US-German relations. I know his book will be a must read for all who believe in a strong German-American alliance.
— George H. W. Bush, 41 st President of the United States of America
 Contents 
List of Abbreviations
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
A Long Road to Politics
Chapter 2
In Politics
Chapter 3
In the Opposition
Chapter 4
Ostpolitik
Chapter 5
Special Missions
Chapter 6
Business, Politics, and Personalities
Chapter 7
My Bridge across the Atlantic
Epilogue
America In Me
Name Index
Subject Index
 List of Abbreviations  AJC American Jewish Committee APO Extraparliamentary Opposition BND West German Federal Intelligence Service CDU Christian Democratic Union CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe CSU Christian Social Union DC Christian Democrats (Italy) DM deutsche mark EC European Community EU European Union FAW First Automobile Works FDP Free Democratic Party FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Democratic Republic GMF German Marshall Fund IAC International Advisory Council IMF International Monetary Fund INA Insurance Company of North America INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces JFK John Fitzgerald Kennedy KfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau MBFR Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NordLB Norddeutsche Landesbank AG NPD National Democratic Party of Germany NPT Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons NSDAP National Socialist German Workers’ Party OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development PLO Palestine Liberation Organization RAF Red Army Faction RICO Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Stasi East German Secret Service SPD Social Democratic Party UN United Nations ZDF Second Television Network (German public broadcaster)
 Foreword 

This lively personal/political saga by Walther Leisler Kiep is an ultimate European insider’s account, rare in the English language. It constitutes an unusually valuable record of a half century of German and transnational politics. The author’s breadth of personal contacts, his ease of access in European and world capitals, and his repeated availability for important special assignments combine to give the reader many fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses of important financial, political, and diplomatic developments over recent decades.
The narrative covers the author’s wide and deep personal involvement over many decades as an astute trouble-shooter at home and abroad. His ventures start in Europe, but extend to East Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Confidential missions take him to Communist East Germany, Turkey, Italy, Morocco, China, Japan, and often to the United States. Having spent his youth in Turkey where he maintained a close affinity, Kiep is even called upon to explain Turkey’s importance to a skeptical Greek caucus in the US Congress.
The author enjoyed British as well as German citizenship, which helped pave the way for his early business success in post-war occupied Germany, his continued success with Britishrelated activities in the Federal Republic, and his eventual receipt of honors from the Queen.
In addition, here is some vivid and entertaining writing by an accomplished storyteller. Kiep displays a disarming openness about his own unachieved ambitions for the German Chancellorship. The book is replete with insider portraits of Western leaders of the past half century. These well-written vignettes of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic benefit from, and are lent authenticity by, the author’s lifelong habit of keeping daily diary entries of his private and public activities.
The significance of Kiep’s “bridge building” role is demonstrated in a host of situations at home and abroad. Clearly many of his winning techniques were honed by repeated use. Serving as mediator/pacifier in big business conflicts like the Volkswagen-General Motors feud served him well in local, regional, and international disputes of a more public nature. His account of the origins and renewal of the highly successful German Marshall Fund of the United States, for instance, will be of special interest in the American NGO and foundation community. Kiep credits another NGO, the Bilderberg Group, with introducing him to other Western leaders who would be important to him eventually.
Kiep often found himself a dissenter in his own Christian Democratic party, although he remained—not without some grief—the CDU party treasurer for many years. His criticism is at times unabashed of some of his conservative colleagues. Flavorful verdicts like “obnoxious blockheads” and “such orchestrated mediocrity” add spice to his recollections.
An early believer in Ostpolitik, Kiep often found his sympathies more in tune with SPD chancellors like Brandt, Schmidt, and Schröder than with his own conservative faction in the Bundestag. Even while holding office as a cabinet minister in Lower Saxony, he found time to undertake sensitive missions in the German Democratic Republic, quietly laboring to lay the groundwork for future German reunification. His accounts of conversations with GDR officials from Erich Honecker on down are illuminating.
Famous names emerge effortlessly from these pages. All the post-war German Chancellors appear—Adenauer, Erhard, Kiesinger, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl, and Merkel—as well as other distinguished German political figures like Scheel, Gerstenmeier, Barzel, Wehner, Biedenkopf, Richard von Weizsäcker, and Ernst Albrecht.
Important non-German world figures also emerge—from Souvvanna Phouma to Peres and Arafat; from Agnelli and Ecevit to Falin and Zagladin; and from Margaret Thatcher to Princess Diana.
There are sketches of American Presidents Nixon, Carter, and Reagan, as well as Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43. Kiep’s American contacts also included Averell Harriman, Hubert Humphrey, John J. McCloy, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Ted Kennedy, Cyrus Vance, Robert McNamara, Al Haig, and Warren Christopher, not to mention Volkswagen lawyers Vernon Jordon and Robert Strauss.
The book’s final chapter is likely to be of particular interest to American readers. Starting in 1984 Kiep chaired Atlantik-Brücke for many successful years, and he has been honorary chairman since 2004. In his book the bridge builder pays a highly deserved tribute to Beate Lindemann who is also well known in America and who has inspired and managed most recent Atlantic Bridge programs. Despite, and during, occasional official ups and downs—like the Berlin-Washington split over the US invasion of Iraq in 2003—this organization helped keep German-American relations on an even keel. Its continuing investments in the future through its ventures like Youth for Understanding, the Young Leaders Program, and Atlantik Forum are especially noteworthy.
For anyone looking for an informed behind-the-scenes account of a critical era in world politics, and of German-American relations in particular, this book is a major addition to the existing literature.
—Thomas L. Hughes
Former US Assistant Secretary of State
President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Senior Fellow of the German Historical Institute
 Preface 

Christmas 1945: Those were the days when we Germans first sensed and received signals from America indicating a certain feeling of compassion, concern, and even friendship. After the unconditional German surrender in May 1945, the American soldiers took over as victors who requisitioned homes, took prisoners, and excluded from public life Germans whom they considered to have been active in Hitler’s rule.
At the end of the war over twelve million Germans from the East sought and found refuge in West Germany.
But around Christmas a feeling of compassion—an increasing desire and readiness to help—arose. Relatives and friends in America were the first ones to reestablish contacts with former friends in Germany, and larger organization