West Germany’s architect of change Egon Bahr dies at 93

Egon Bahr, the architect of West Germany's change- through-rapprochement "Ostpolitik" under chancellor Willy Brandt, died from a heart attack yesterday aged 93.

Bahr, a braces-loving Social Democrat for six decades, was responsible for efforts in the 1970s to ease tensions after Bonn's chilly relationship with East Berlin and Moscow.

Born in 1922 in today’s eastern state of Thuringia, he served as a Wehrmacht soldier for two years until 1944 but was demoted for being “non-Ayrian” because of a Jewish grandmother.

After the war he worked as a journalist and, from 1960, as press attaché to the mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt. The two established a close relationship and he followed Brandt to Bonn, first as ministerial director in the foreign ministry then, when Brandt became chancellor in 1969, as special adviser.

There Bahr retooled West German policy towards the eastern bloc, moving away from shows of military strength towards what he called “change through rapprochement”.

What followed were a series of treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland and the (East) German Democratic Republic (GDR), renouncing violence and securing the status of West Berlin as an island in the eastern bloc – the first thaw in the chilliest phase of the Cold War. "Sometimes small steps are better than big words," he said last year.

The low point of Bahr’s political career was May 7th, 1974, when Brandt resigned after an adviser, Günter Guillaume, was exposed as a spy for the East German secret police, the Stasi. Television footage captured the drama of the day: as SPD deputies applauded Brandt, Bahr wept uncontrollably.

He served as development aid minister under chancellor Helmut Schmidt and as a Bundestag deputy for 18 years until 1990. Social Democratic Party leader Sigmar Gabriel praised Bahr as a "politician for peace" who "believed deeply in the power of freedom and the might of conversation".

Chancellor Angela Merkel, raised in East Germany, said Bahr would "remain in people's memories as a person who felt committed" to his country.