The Willy Brandt House

Wednesday, November 25th

Today our class met for a tour and some discussion at the Willy Brandt House, the headquarters of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the SPD. We began our visit with a brief tour of the building. The Willy Brant House has a very interesting past; the SPD party resurrected the building plans which had been gathering dust without investors interested in building. When Berlin once again became the capital of Germany, the SPD took the opportunity to build the Willy Brandt House just a few blocks from the location of its previous Berlin headquarters. The Willy Brandt House is now located in the center of reunified Berlin!

After our tour and a lengthy discussion of a bronze-cast portrait of Willy Brandt himself, we met for a discussion of German foreign policy with Markus Engels. We were given a recently printed SPD manifesto, outlining the party’s goals in the wake of poor performance in the recent elections, and much of this document contained commentary on foreign policy issues. Mr. Engels shed some light on the importance of foreign policy in the German political arena, specifically on the German-American relationship. He talked about the war in Iraq and answered questions about whether or not Germany was doing enough in the global security effort. His answer: Germany is doing its fair share, the Iraq war was an unpopular war and the Bush administration was less popular still and Germany’s decision not to become involved was based on the sentiment of the German people, and not on politics, as some have claimed. Engels believes that Germany is fulfilling its responsibilities to the international community, citing German involvement in overseas peacekeeping operations, especially the conflict in Afghanistan, as Germany is the third greatest contributor of troops in that conflict. He was very firm that a new strategy was needed in Afghanistan, but that Germany was committed to the cause and would not simply pull its support; Engels stressed that Germany was waiting eagerly for Obama’s announcements concerning Afghanistan scheduled for this week. He also defended Germany’s relationship with Russia, which has been criticized throughout the West. Engels argued that it was only logical for Germany to develop healthy relations with its biggest neighbor – he mentioned German dependence on Russian oil as well.

Mr. Engels was obviously a politician, never answering any question directly, and refusing to offer any critique of Angela Merkel or her speech o the joint houses of Congress in Washington DC a few weeks ago. The answers he did provide were very helpful, and I left the Willy Brandt House with a much clearer picture of the SPD’s approach to foreign policy.