Thatcher’s German Policy: The ‘Unambiguous Failure’

Abstract

The German problem, as Thatcher called it by the end of her political career, was as it had always been since 1871. How should British foreign policy deal with a country which was both larger and wealthier than Britain, and had been prepared to use its advantages to achieve predominance in Europe? The answers given by successive British governments were that it should be countered, contained and, once American power established itself in Europe, converted. Countering Germany had entailed the construction of global alliances to conduct two world wars, but after 1945 containment and conversion predominated. Containment of the country was achieved by occupying and partitioning it into two German states, the Federal Republic (FRG) in the west and the Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east. These were admitted into regional military and commercial organizations which severely circumscribed their autonomy, and then their conversions were attempted by the imposition of social systems shaped by the ideological priorities of their respective occupiers and patrons. Comprehensive though this settlement might sound, however, it had not resulted from some grand plan of the victorious allies but rather from their failure to agree and the ensuing Cold War.

Thatcher, p. 813: ‘If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification.’