The Norwegian parliament, the Storting, decided to institute relations with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) almost immediately after its establishment. In July 1951 the state of war with Germany was formally ended, allowing the FRG to be represented by a diplomatic legation in Oslo. In May 1953 the Foreign Minister, Halvard Lange, was the first Norwegian to make an official state visit to the FRG. For Norway this normalisation in international legal relations coincided with a growing functional dependency on the FRG. It was an important trade partner from 1950, and from 1955 both countries were NATO members and therefore allies. Thus Norway came increasingly to depend on the FRG. Norway's bilateral policy was dictated by self-interest and dependency rather than by friendship and trust. Relations with Bonn went against some profound popular feeling and became a political problem at home. For this reason alone the government was reluctant to normalise its ostensible relations with Bonn, and the political relationship was not normalised until the 1960s. Although political normalisation was a gradual process, and very sensitive to international tensions, the appointment of Willy Brandt as the FRG's Foreign Minister in 1966 was a breakthrough. Nonetheless Bonn continued to be cold-shouldered long after political relations had been normalised, which is a reminder that the relationship was heavily constrained by the wider conflict of the Cold War.

The Cold War exercised even stronger constraint over Norway's policy towards the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Oslo supported the FRG's claim to be sole representative of the German people (the so-called Alleinvertretungsanspruch) and refused to recognise the GDR as a state until January 1973. Svein Holtmark has pithily described East Berlin's failed attempts to gain recognition and normalise relationships as ‘the diplomacy of powerlessness’.Footnote ¹ Norway had no diplomatic representation in East Berlin apart from a military mission. Functional contacts were limited. The Norwegian government conducted a restrictive visa policy for citizens of the GDR from 1954, when the Soviet Union granted sovereignty to the new state. Sympathy for the GDR was more marked on the political left, which also showed the most hostility to the FRG.

Throughout the 1960s the policy of rejecting the GDR was gradually replaced by a more conciliatory approach, but the Norwegian government avoided straining its relations with fellow NATO members. Hence Willy Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik not only made it possible to normalise the political relationship with Bonn: from 1969 it also allowed the long-sought-after political rapprochement with East Berlin. Formal recognition of the GDR by the NATO countries in 1973 satisfied Norway's desire for détente.

A number of historians have worked to reveal the impact of distrust, dependency and détente on Norway's relations with the two German states between 1945 and 1973.Footnote ² Norwegian policy in relation to ‘the German question’ has also been explored in studies of both Norway's foreign policy and its defence policy.Footnote ³ In the present article I shall try to highlight the remarkable extent to which Norway's policies were anchored in its perception of ‘the German problem’.

Quite soon after 1945 it became clear that the ‘German question’ lay at the heart of the Cold War, which put one German state on each side of the Iron Curtain. Both the FRG and the GDR faced major challenges in their efforts to normalise their relations with neighbouring states. While their problems were closely related to the Cold War, they also had to deal with the entrenched ‘German problem’.Footnote ⁴ Neighbouring states had worried about Germany's influence on the balance of power, security and stability in Europe for over a century, seeing it as an economic, political and, not least, military threat.Footnote ⁵ After 1945 distrust of Germany became insuperable, and the collective memory of neighbouring states was largely predicated on ‘the German problem’ (rather than ‘the German question’).Footnote ⁶ It was widely believed that German reunification would start a mighty Drang nach Osten (drive towards the east) and lead to unpredictable changes in the European balance of power. Some feared another Rapallo, others a new Barbarossa. In any case reunification was at best a worrying prospect. This attitude was still evident in the apprehension aroused in neighbouring countries by the actual reunification of 1990.Footnote ⁷ Norway, too, made ‘the German problem’ into an interpretative framework. Though an opinion poll in November 1989 indicated that 63 per cent of Norwegians thought that German reunification would be ‘natural’, 46 per cent agreed that keeping the division into two states would ‘best contribute to peace and maintain political stability in Europe’.Footnote ⁸

The distrust of reconstruction and the call for guarantees

In the early years after liberation, distrust of Germany was naturally prevalent in Norway. Sigrid Undset, the Nobel prize-winning novelist, published a book full of stereotypical assertions about ‘the German problem’. Its message was that the atrocities of the Nazi regime followed inherently from the character of the German nation.Footnote ⁹ An opinion poll published on 5 July 1946 indicated that 88 per cent of Norwegians felt that Germany should remain under long-term control. Only 7 per cent believed that it should be granted autonomy.Footnote ¹⁰ Deep distrust permeated the memorandum presented by Norway prior to the negotiations among the major powers on a peace treaty with Germany in 1947. The Norwegian government recognised that a new Germany with a decentralised and democratic constitution would have to be allowed sovereignty at some future date, but only on condition that it was permanently disarmed. Its economy would have to be reconstructed, but carefully and in a controlled way: some key industries would need to be dismantled and the heavy industry in the Ruhr put under the control of international authorities.Footnote ¹¹ Records of parliamentary debates confirm this lack of trust.Footnote ¹² A major newspaper commented that Germans could not cope with the idea of a democratic and sovereign Germany because ‘they have no way of understanding such unbiased reasoning; they are accustomed to the iron heel and might as well bend under it’.Footnote ¹³ While a Norwegian brigade participated in the occupation under British command from 1947, the Norwegian Ministry of Defence maintained that world peace would be threatened if German reunification were based on German ideas.Footnote ¹⁴

Thanks to the Cold War, West Germany's recovery was speedier than anyone could have predicted in 1947. The Marshall plan forestalled Norwegian dissatisfaction with reparations. At the conference on reparations in Paris in December 1945 Norway put in a claim for US$3.74 billion. When the Inter Allied Reparations Agency had doled out its last reparations in April 1950, Norway's total reparations account was valued at $14 million, whereof German assets in Norway amounted to $3.8 million.Footnote ¹⁵ Nor was the reparations deficit a problem during the London Debt Conference in 1952–3.Footnote ¹⁶ When drawing up Norway's long-term programme for the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) in 1948, the government acknowledged its interest in German reconstruction: the fact that Germany was no longer supplying investment goods was reinforcing the dollar problem and slowing recovery in Norway.Footnote ¹⁷ Lange therefore affirmed that Norway would be better off if a halt was called to the dismantling of German industry.Footnote ¹⁸

Norway supported the establishment of the FRG in 1949, but considered it absolutely necessary that the Petersberg agreement maintain demilitarisation. Officially the government supported Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Western orientation, but was still afraid that Bonn might some day provoke a new conflict. A memorandum from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 1950 expressed anxiety that the great powers would attempt to outbid each other to obtain German favours and that the Germans would exploit this.Footnote ¹⁹ The Norwegian Labour government opposed the West German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which put reunification before integration with the West. In 1951 Lange described Kurt Schumacher's policy as implacable and excessively nationalistic,Footnote ²⁰ but Norway nevertheless paid official lip service to the idea of reunification. Lange gave the following explanation to the Storting behind closed doors: ‘The worst possible end to the whole German mess would be to be facing one day a communist Germany, and the Western powers cannot place themselves in a position where the Russians appear to be in favour of German reunification while the Western world resists this very natural German aspiration.’Footnote ²¹ In reality the Norwegian government preferred a split Germany, within separate alliances, to a reunified Germany outside Western control. Stalin's memo on reunification in 1952 was rejected in Oslo as elsewhere.

The reconstruction and Western integration of the FRG established a new agenda for dealing with Norwegian distrust. There was always an underlying fear that Bonn might misuse its newly gained power and succumb to the blandishments of the Kremlin. Norwegian foreign policy called for adequate guarantees against West German Alleingang (unilateralism). This need for guarantees also dominated domestic debates on the future of Germany, as is shown by reactions to the Schuman Plan of 1950. Politicians were sceptical about the organisation itself, but the projected union would both bind the FRG to the Western alliance and ensure continuing Western influence on German policy. Oslo also wanted the strongest possible Anglo-American presence, and therefore expressed sympathy for the Eden plan in spring 1952. However, in summer 1952 it became clear that the Council of Europe would not play the political role required by the Eden plan. At a meeting of the Council in September 1952 the Norwegian representative, Finn Moe (chairman of the Norwegian parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs and advisor to the government on foreign policy) proposed that NATO should be given more prominence in Western European political collaboration. A memo from the Foreign Ministry reveals his motives: ‘The Eden plan no longer offered any protection against a possible German domination of the federation and therefore could not be considered as having any further importance.’Footnote ²²

The need for a guarantee was particularly urgent with regard to rearmament. The North Atlantic Treaty was itself seen as a guarantee against Germany. In the discussions on Norwegian accession to the treaty in spring 1949, the parliamentarian Erling Wikborg said, ‘We must not be blind to the fact that our huge neighbour to the south is getting back on its feet . . . If that happens, the North Atlantic Treaty will be our best protection in that direction.’Footnote ²³ Moe expressed with brutal clarity the opinion of many Norwegians when in September 1950 the United States demanded defence contributions from West Germany: ‘What guarantee do we have that as soon as Germany has rearmed to the point where it feels that it can act independently, it won't begin to flirt with the Soviet Union?’Footnote ²⁴ These demands for guarantees show the extent to which Oslo was preoccupied with ‘the German problem’.

Distrust of rearmament

On 25 November 1954 the Storting ratified the protocol on the FRG's accession to NATO. Rearmament of the FRG had been on the agenda since September 1950, when the United States called for West German participation in order to build up an integrated defence within the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. The other member states appreciated the advantages, but this clashed with their profound mistrust of all things German. Why should German soldiers sacrifice their lives to defend the Statutes of Occupation? When Bonn called for equal rights it was also advancing a powerful argument for effective defence. When in December 1950 the North Atlantic Council decided to accept a German contribution, member states started to bicker about the way in which it should be organised. France, most strongly opposed to the US plan, forced through the idea that the FRG's contribution should be part of a supra-national European Defence Community (EDC) with its own European army.

Throughout 1951 parallel negotiations went on in Paris, concerning the EDC, and in Bonn, regarding the Bonn Conventions, which were to replace the Statutes of Occupation. Treaties were signed in May 1952 but vetoed by the French Assembly in August 1954. A British initiative then led to the Paris Agreements of October 1954 which granted the FRG membership of NATO. Norway did not participate in the negotiations, but followed them closely. Interest clashed with emotion: politicians wanted an efficient West German defence, and soon, but it had to come with credible political guarantees. In November 1950 the Norwegian Defence Minister, Jens Christian Hauge, arguing that Norway would benefit from the German contribution, formulated the dilemma in camera at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs: ‘The Germans are acknowledged masters when it comes to exploiting every opportunity that presents itself. If we vie with one another in understanding German demands for equality or whatever, I fear that we shall play right into their hands.’Footnote ²⁵ Another Storting member, Svein Nilsen, responded with the following comment:

Such terms and metaphors testify to the discomfort of the speaker. Enduring feelings of mistrust lay behind the resurgence of ‘the German problem’, but national security had to take precedence.

Lange, Foreign Minister until 1965, supported the US demand when it was put to the North Atlantic Council on 15 September 1950. If West Germany became part of NATO defences this would push the front line back to the Elbe, east of Denmark, instead of along the Rhine as at present: thus the US demand represented an immediate security gain for Norway. However, Lange was well aware that it would cause outrage among some NATO members, and so he backed the suggestion that the Council's decision should be postponed to allow the foreign ministers to consult with their respective governments. Back in Oslo, he gained acceptance of his line of thinking in the course of a few hectic days. A powerful argument in its favour was the assertion by Hauge, the Defence Minister, that the US plan might ‘spare Norway a defensive battle in Norway’.Footnote ²⁷ Lange soothed the Storting's anxieties by saying that ‘what is needed by way of braking will be done by the French’.Footnote ²⁸ The situation nevertheless became so tense that Einar Gerhardsen, the Prime Minister, decided to avoid a parliamentary vote. Norway's constitutional acceptance was therefore based on a statement made by the Prime Minister after the Minister of Foreign Affairs had received informal support from party leaders in the Storting. Gerhardsen stated that in spite of ‘strong misgivings’, the government would not oppose German rearmament if it were supported by ‘satisfactory guarantees’.Footnote ²⁹ This was the message conveyed by Norway when the Council met again on 28 September, and Norway's attitude remained the same until the Storting in November 1954 ratified the FRG's accession to NATO.

Not until 12 March 1951 was West German rearmament finally put to the vote in the Storting. The motion was passed with only four votes against. Nonetheless, the parliamentary debate showed that the discomfort far exceeded what the vote count suggests. From the outset there had been doubts and resistance in the government as well as in the standing committee on foreign affairs. This discomfort reflected public opinion. A survey in December 1950 indicated that 22 per cent of the electorate favoured rearmament and 33 per cent were against, while 45 per cent were undecided. Resistance was lowest in the Conservative Party, but even there 28 per cent were against.Footnote ³⁰ The large proportion of undecideds probably expresses the dilemma felt by a majority of Norwegians over the necessities of practical politics as against the deep-rooted distrust of Germany.

Norway always preferred German membership of NATO to its membership of the European Defence Community. The FRG's accession to NATO would result in a quicker rebuilding of defence and more satisfactory control through a direct Anglo-American presence. ‘Only through the North Atlantic Treaty can we find the necessary counterweight to balance a Germany that we fear may act too much on its own account’, Moe, chairman of the standing committee on foreign affairs, told the Storting in 1952.Footnote ³¹ France rejected the proposal outright, and at the same time Britain under Winston Churchill associated itself with the EDC via the Brussels Treaty, while Norway supported the Paris Agreements signed in May 1952. ‘The way things are going, the European army is undoubtedly the best solution to the German problem’, wrote Arne Ording, adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.Footnote ³² The FRG was to contribute twelve divisions and be on an equal footing with other members, except that it would not have a general staff. France had conceded several important points, but in return held out for a supra-national political structure. Many Storting members were sceptical. Jacob Friis, a member of the ruling party but opposed to its security policy, formulated this aversion most sharply: ‘The European army is nothing but camouflage for the re-establishment of the German Wehrmacht . . . this is setting the European army against Europe.’Footnote ³³ The government itself was worried that the ratification by the six member states was taking too long.Footnote ³⁴ It was frustrated by the fact that the SPD opposed the European Army. The Norwegian embassy in Bonn reported after conversations with Erich Ollenhauer that the SPD ‘seems inclined to allow its attitudes to be determined by the foreign policy climate of the moment’.Footnote ³⁵ The opinion in Oslo was that if the situation remained unresolved, this would attract initiatives from the Kremlin that might affect the unstable public mood in Germany.

Paradoxically, the French veto on the EDC in August 1954 put Norway's preferred solution back on the agenda. The Paris Treaties allowed the FRG full NATO membership with twelve infantry divisions and 1,300 aircraft under national jurisdiction, but under the operative command of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). A limited naval force would be organised for purely defensive purposes, its size to be determined annually by NATO. This would provide effective defence while reinforcing Anglo-American influence in Bonn. This solution provided the ‘satisfactory guarantees’ which Gerhardsen had demanded in September 1950.

The Storting ratified the accession protocol for West German membership of NATO by 126 votes to 7. That did not mean, however, that Norwegian uneasiness had disappeared. The conservative and pro-NATO Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten wrote that ‘nobody is applauding and nobody is putting out the flags . . . if this new era is based on trust, it does not spring from the heart, but from reason, which recognises what is necessary for our peace and security.’Footnote ³⁶ A memo from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that ‘Now that the thing is done, we may start to wonder whether we should have exercised more caution at the time.’ Bonn had to ‘understand how strong and widespread the distrust is, accept it as fact and behave accordingly’.Footnote ³⁷ The Ministry held an internal debate on whether Norway, together with Denmark, should join the Western European Union (WEU) and thus gain more influence over how German resources were used, but decided against this.Footnote ³⁸ In the Storting a member of the governing party argued against joining the WEU because this might induce ‘infiltration between Norwegian and German defence’Footnote ³⁹ – something that would inevitably happen in any case. The records show that many members of the Storting who voted in favour of the protocol would really have preferred to see the FRG disarmed. Behind closed doors Oskar Torp, the Prime Minister, admitted that he still found it hard to trust pledges given by Bonn.Footnote ⁴⁰ Nils Hønsvald, chairman of the parliamentary group of the governing Labour party, claimed that he would have voted against Norwegian membership of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 if it had been known that the FRG would later be allowed to join.Footnote ⁴¹ An opinion poll in January 1955 indicated that the discomfort of the politicians reflected what the population felt. Twenty-six per cent of those who had an opinion were in favour of German rearmament, while 74 per cent were against. In the governing party as many as 85 per cent were against.Footnote ⁴² This indicates just how explosive the issue was.

Apprehension over trade dependency

While trade with the GDR quickly came under the Co-ordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) embargo and never constituted more than 1 per cent of Norway's foreign trade between 1950 and 1973, trade with the FRG amounted to 12 per cent of Norway's export earnings in 1950. By 1959 it had risen to 16 per cent. Subsequently it hovered between 15 and 20 per cent. In 1950, 5 per cent of the total value of Norway's imports came from the FRG, increasing to almost 21 per cent in 1959, at which level it remained throughout the 1960s. Oslo was soon forced to acknowledge Norway's dependence on the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). In a speech given in West Berlin in 1957, Lange proclaimed that increased West German imports from Norway and capital exports to Norway would contribute substantially to eliminating the friction between the two countries.Footnote ⁴³ In 1954, when it finally became clear that the FRG would be building up its defences within NATO, the Norwegian government offered to sell arms to the West Germans. Oslo obtained favourable commercial agreements in return for a promise of active political co-operation in defence matters.Footnote ⁴⁴ In 1960 Norway purchased fifteen submarines from the FRG, and the parties signed a repurchase agreement whereby West German orders placed in Norway would be reciprocated by Norwegian orders placed in the FRG at a five:three ratio. The government also sought to initiate Norwegian–West German industrial co-operation by, for example, trading electric power against West German-financed construction of power stations in Norway. Evidently memories of the West German light alloy programme in Norway during the Occupation were no obstacle if economic interests were strong enough. Commercial relations were a major talking point when the FRG's Economics Minister, Ludwig Erhard, visited Oslo in 1958. The ambitious aluminium smelting programme launched in Norway in the late 1950s, which was to make Norway into Western Europe's largest exporter by 1973, was based on the assumption that the FRG would be a major customer. Fear of missing out on the growth in the West German market was one of the motives behind the Norwegian applications for EC membership during the 1960s.

Although Norway pushed for stronger economic relations, this enthusiasm was tempered by the increasingly strong German economy. From autumn 1951 onwards Norway had a continuous trade deficit with the FRG. From 1952 the FRG was the largest creditor of the European Payments Union, while Norway remained a structural debtor. While Oslo was anxious to continue its investment programme using cheap German credit, Bonn wanted debtors to pay back in hard currency. This financial conflict raised Norwegian hackles time and time again. As early as 1950 the Trade Minister, Erik Brofoss, wrote in a memorandum that Bonn ‘will not hesitate for a moment to use mass unemployment as part of its economic policy’.Footnote ⁴⁵ From 1952 leading Norwegian politicians were always fearful that the strong Deutschmark would give Bonn too much political leverage. Brofoss was particularly eloquent on the matter, often harping on ‘the German problem’. Until his resignation in 1954 he continued to accuse Bonn of economic greed, safeguarding German interests at others’ expense. On one occasion he denounced ‘the many cunning protectionist measures that the Germans are as adept at inventing now as they were before the war’.Footnote ⁴⁶ In a private letter he stated bluntly that he was ‘convinced that Germany is on the way to becoming the great danger to Europe . . . behind Germany's economic policy lurks a conscious imperialist line’.Footnote ⁴⁷ Fear that Germany would dominate Europe once currency convertibility was introduced moved the Norwegians to seek stronger multilateral mechanisms. In 1953–4 they contemplated joining the sterling bloc, but this alternative was discarded in favour of a Nordic customs union. Brofoss argued in an internal memo, ‘It is imperative, not least because of the political danger represented by the new German imperialism, that the Nordic countries attempt to consolidate their economic position through active co-operation.’Footnote ⁴⁸ This fear of Bonn's financial strength also made it important to retain the OEEC as a multilateral body. In 1954 Brofoss told the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer that the OEEC would give protection if ‘Germany should espouse the policy we continue to fear’.Footnote ⁴⁹ It is difficult to ascertain how deeply this fear of the West German economy ran in the population at large, but it certainly emerged in the general public arena when Norwegian membership of the EEC was placed on the agenda in 1961. Opponents claimed that the EEC would be controlled in accordance with the German (Christian Democrat) government's principles for national economic control. Once again ‘the German problem’ was invoked. One important pamphlet asserted that the EEC was nothing but a platform for German vengeance, an ‘ambitious dream of dominating Europe’.Footnote ⁵⁰

The symbolic politics of distrust

The dilemmas arising out of this mix of dependency and distrust may explain why most political parties supporting Norway's Western orientation did not pay much attention to Germany in their party programmes. As dependency on the FRG steadily increased, domestic distrust became an awkward political challenge. From the moment when, in autumn 1950, Bonn asked for diplomatic representation in Norway, the Norwegian government did its best to prevent any contacts that might be viewed as provocative rather than conciliatory. In 1954 it succeeded in convincing Bonn that a proposed official visit by Chancellor Adenauer would be premature. Visits by West German military representatives, such as the NATO general Hans Speidel in 1957, provoked demonstrations in Oslo. The government had tried to prevent the visit, but could find no convincing arguments.Footnote ⁵¹ A visit by the FRG Defence Minister, Franz Joseph Strauss, also provoked demonstrations in 1961. The government had succeeded in postponing his visit in both 1958 and 1960,Footnote ⁵² but in 1961 there was no way out because his Norwegian opposite number, Nils Handal, had accepted an invitation to Bonn earlier that year.Footnote ⁵³ In his diary Jens Haugland, the Minister of Justice, fulminated against Handal, who had since resigned, because he ‘in his time was foolish enough to visit West Germany officially’.Footnote ⁵⁴ In its endeavours to avoid provocation the Norwegian government was often supported by the West German embassy, which in 1958 put a stop to a proposed private visit by Alfred Krupp.

Bonn acknowledged that bilateral normalisation was a minefield in Norway. The first West German ambassador maintained a close dialogue with the FRG's Auswärtiges Amt (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on the problem of Norwegian mistrust.Footnote ⁵⁵ Lange's visit to Bonn in May 1953, the first official Norwegian visit after recognition of the FRG, was intended to promote normalisation. The return visit by the West German Foreign Minister, Heinrich von Brentano, was a mainly symbolic act to help pave the way for reconciliation. Nonetheless, following a debate in the Cabinet he was forbidden to lay a wreath at the Akershus fortress, where many Norwegians had been executed by the German occupation forces: such zeal for reconciliation could very easily backfire.Footnote ⁵⁶ The two foreign ministries went some way towards developing a common understanding of the problems of Norwegian distrust. For one thing, both were aware that the Kremlin closely monitored and frequently objected to the West German military presence in Norway. Both understood that this would mobilise the political left in Norway, which was then likely to foment more general distrust among the populace. Therefore from 1959 the government co-operated with the West German embassy in Oslo in sending Norwegian journalists to Bonn, so as to moderate the ardour of the anti-German press.

After 1955 the government emphasised that the distrust might jeopardise national interests. In 1957 the Defence Minister, Nils Handal, wrote a memo concluding that Norway now needed to accept the full consequences of the alliance with Bonn.Footnote ⁵⁷ Prior to Ludwig Erhard's visit in 1958 the cabinet discussed how the domestic distrust might be overcome, and concluded that ‘there was a need for an information campaign’.Footnote ⁵⁸ In 1959 Lange told the standing committee on foreign affairs that ‘responsible politicians must be very careful not to appeal to the emotions when it comes to co-operation with the Federal Republic’.Footnote ⁵⁹ A majority on the committee agreed with him. The Storting's deputy president, Nils Langhelle, put it this way: ‘Although we all carry a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to relations with Germany, I think everyone knew that it would happen sooner or later.’Footnote ⁶⁰ As a former Minister of Defence trying to sell armaments in Bonn he knew from first-hand experience that emotion would have to take second place to self-interest.

Aside from the Communist Party resistance was particularly strong in the governing Labour Party, whose left wing had openly opposed West German rearmament.Footnote ⁶¹ Bilateral military co-operation thus became a major area of conflict in domestic politics. Prime Minister Gerhardsen and members of the cabinet sympathised with the opposition, but had perforce to support the Foreign Ministry's policy, which called for loyalty to the alliance. These conflicts over the FRG's role in NATO contributed to the split in the Labour Party in 1961. The breakaway Socialist Party's first manifesto claimed that the threat of war was increasing as West German capitalism and militarism, pushed by the thirst for revenge, flourished unchecked. The new party was far friendlier to the GDR, and favoured German reunification in accordance with Stalin's 1952 proposal.

Measures to overcome distrust: compensation for Nazi crimes

In his 1957 speech in Berlin, Lange presented the lack of compensation for Nazi crimes as the greatest obstacle to the normalisation of relations between the two countries.Footnote ⁶² In August 1959 the two states signed a compensation agreement which obliged the FRG to pay DM 60 million to Norway, but left it to the Norwegian government to allocate the cash. The agreement covered victims of Nazi persecution on the grounds of race, faith or philosophy of life. Bonn was not obliged by international law to pay this compensation, as the London Debt Agreement for Germany in 1953 had confirmed a moratorium on reparations and compensation until the final peace treaty with Germany had been settled. From 1955 Bonn was nevertheless subjected to co-ordinated political pressure from the Allied states to pay compensation for Nazi crimes. Between 1959 and 1964 Bonn signed equivalent agreements with ten other West European states involving a total of DM 876 million.

Norwegian victims of the Nazis had been demanding compensation from Bonn since 1953, but these claims had always been rejected as unfounded. When it became known in 1955 that the Bundestag was planning to revise the Compensation Act, Norwegian ex-prisoners’ groups put together an umbrella organisation to press the Norwegian government to ensure that the new Act included offers of compensation for Norwegian victims. The latent distrust of Germany made it easy for them to win the support of public opinion, the press and the Storting. This presented the government with a thorny problem as it strove to normalise relations with its new ally. Norway's ambassador in Bonn appealed to Brentano,Footnote ⁶³ who, realising immediately that compensation might reduce mistrust and promote normalisation, made it a principal issue during his first visit to Oslo in May 1956. To eliminate distrust more quickly Bonn's ambassador in Oslo proposed a bilateral solution, since any multilateral agreement would take time.Footnote ⁶⁴ Faced with opposition from the West German Finance Ministry, the Auswärtiges Amt had to back down and instead, in 1957, the government in Bonn offered a limited fund for reparations in Western Europe – a clumsy move that produced the opposite effect to the one intended. Dagbladet, a major Norwegian daily newspaper generally critical of Bonn, dubbed the offer ‘the Gestapo foundation’.Footnote ⁶⁵ Reactions in the press and the Storting pointed in the same direction. The old distrust surfaced once again.

The Norwegian government redoubled its efforts to find a solution. International tensions also made it imperative for Bonn to hold NATO together in defence of West Berlin. In these circumstances the importance of normalisation outweighed considerations of state finance: in December 1958 Bonn relented and offered bilateral negotiations to each of the Allied states. Agreement with Norway had high priority. During a private meeting Gerhardsen and the West German Minister for Refugees, Theodor Oberländer, finally agreed that DM 60 million was a reasonable compensation amount for Norway.Footnote ⁶⁶ Oberländer, however, was on a private visit and had negotiated without a mandate. Although Brentano approved Oberländer's assessment, the FRG's Finance Minster, Fritz Etzel, did not. He feared that any such agreement with Norway would prejudice negotiations with other countries. The problem was that Norway was demanding that claims from resistance fighters be included in the reparations. The need to normalise military co-operation on NATO's northern flank meant that Etzel was inexorably forced to give in to political imperatives.

The bilateral negotiations took place in 1959, and were just as much negotiations between the ministries in Bonn as between the two states. Norway consistently maintained that DM 60 million was the lowest acceptable amount. The Prime Minister had received a guarantee from the Norwegian ex-prisoner organisations that they would accept this amount. The parties drew up accounts based on the following assumptions: 29,000 persons entitled to compensation, an average time in custody of 285 days and a reparation rate of DM 5 a day. With a few extras added to the bill, this provided some sort of rationale for the amount of DM 60 million. As it turned out, Norway received reparation for resistance fighters who had been imprisoned. The agreement therefore concealed the resistance fighters in the victim category.Footnote ⁶⁷

In 1959 the ambassador returning from Oslo reported to the Auswärtiges Amt that the FRG still could not count on the goodwill of the Norwegian people.Footnote ⁶⁸ Eager to remove antipathy, the Norwegian government managed to allocate all individual payments by 1962. Under the Norwegian Compensation Act, payments were made for time spent in prison, plus supplements for personal injury and a fixed amount for survivors. Some 41,000 ex-prisoners were entitled to compensation under the Act, but only 24,596 actually received it; around 1,500 claims were rejected. The reason why so few actually claimed compensation can only be guessed at. Given the deep distrust of Germany we know to have been prevalent in Norwegian society, many may have preferred not to receive German blood money.

The compensation nevertheless achieved its primary political purpose. The Norwegian press reacted positively and the compensation issue no longer stood in the way of bilateral normalisation. Independently of the bilateral agreement, by the end of 1973 nineteen Norwegian citizens had also received compensation for forced labour at IG Farben, Krupp and Siemens, thanks to the agreement reached early in the 1960s between the Jewish Claims Conference and German industry.Footnote ⁶⁹ However, no compensation for Nazi misdeeds could eliminate the latent distrust of Germany or change deeply rooted perceptions of ‘the German problem’.

Dependency and discrimination in NATO

The territory of NATO's northern command actually extended as far south as the Elbe. Thus West German naval forces and troops in Schleswig-Holstein were part of the defence of southern Norway. This security dependency necessitated close military co-operation. Small-scale joint naval exercises were conducted from 1957, and supply depots for West German naval forces and reserve hospitals for West German troops were established along the Norwegian coast in 1964. West German combat aircraft used Norwegian airfields from 1957. From 1964 West German aircraft participated in allied exercises in southern Norway, and from 1966 in northern Norway. Operational co-operation was nevertheless a major political problem. Norway wanted as much defence as possible, but also the least possible visible contact. This is apparent in the way in which Oslo approached the West German naval forces in 1955. The government wanted a contribution in the Baltic, but was also anxious to ‘avoid command association with the Germans in time of peace, and to have the German naval contribution integrated with NATO Northern Command in time of war. There should be no need for more than one or possibly two German naval officers at Kolsås during peacetime.’Footnote ⁷⁰ This corresponded to Norwegian public opinion: a poll in 1959 indicated that 49 per cent were against stationing West German officers at NATO's Northern Command in Kolsås, just outside Oslo. Only 21 per cent were in favour, while 30 per cent were undecided.Footnote ⁷¹ When in 1959 the Storting's standing committee on foreign affairs discussed advance storage of oil and ammunition for West German naval forces, Olav Meisdalshagen, a former cabinet minister, asked: ‘Are we not now doing something that will create a lot of anxiety in our country, at least for a good many people?’Footnote ⁷² Moe, always a sceptic and still chairman of the committee, was of the opinion ‘that the Germans had done Norway a major disservice by requesting advance storage’.Footnote ⁷³ The government decided that the West German supplies would be listed as NATO stores.Footnote ⁷⁴ To politicians as well as to the public it was psychologically important that operational military co-operation was treated as NATO co-operation. The Minister of Defence assured the Storting that the co-operation was not at all bilateral.Footnote ⁷⁵ Illustrative of the general attitude is a comment made in 1961 by the deputy chairman of the standing committee on foreign affairs, Bent Røiseland, on a proposal to extend the advance storage to include mines: ‘If this was a direct German request it would be a different kettle of fish, but now that it appears as a NATO request, a NATO matter, I don't see how we can object.’Footnote ⁷⁶ The Defence Minister, Gudmund Harlem, admitted that real distrust still existed: ‘I have taken account of the possibility that this could give Germany – under some conditions or in a situation which we cannot fully appreciate at the moment – some kind of advantage or situation we would consider undesirable from our point of view.’Footnote ⁷⁷ Even the government had not altogether freed itself from the distrust it wanted to remove.

The domestic problems were reinforced by Soviet opposition to military integration with Bonn. In August 1958 Pravda reported that the FRG had plans for bases in Norway, and in April 1959 the Kremlin tabled its first formal protest. This was a political game, and official Norwegian reactions consistently emphasised the defensive nature of the co-operation. Many politicians nevertheless felt that ‘the German problem’ was as much a live issue for the USSR as it was for Norway, and considered that the Kremlin's fear of West German forces was legitimate. Bent Røiseland, now chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs, stated during a parliamentary debate in October 1968 that ‘Each and every one of us must accept that the Soviet Union has a historically well-founded fear of Germany. The Germans must accept that as well.’Footnote ⁷⁸ John Lyng, Foreign Minister in the centre-right government coalition from 1965, reported after meeting Andrei Gromyko and Aleksei Kosygin, respectively Soviet Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, in 1966 that they had a genuine but exaggerated idea of the West German involvement in Norway: ‘They were anxious to the point of panic about West Germany, as all eastern bloc countries are, and while this anxiety is groundless, in my view, it is certainly psychologically genuine.’Footnote ⁷⁹

Norway's solution to the dilemma was long-term discrimination against its alliance partner. Bonn was under-represented at Kolsås for many years. When NATO Northern Command was established there in 1955, the Norwegian government made it known that it did not want to see any West Germans there. It was rather difficult to justify this attitude; even so, twelve representatives (nine of them from the governing Labour Party) voted against when in 1959 the Storting decided to allow Bonn to station two officers at Kolsås. A straw poll of the party's 78-strong parliamentary group had shown that 35 were for and 25 against, while 18 abstained. Aslak Versto, a member of the group, voiced his discomfort in this way: ‘Now that we know that shortly Germany will be the strongest military power in Europe, I think that we need to be a little on the watch.’Footnote ⁸⁰ When in 1962 the Storting debated whether German representation should be enlarged to ten officers, twenty-one representatives voted against. The disquiet continued to be substantial and many conveyed that they would probably have voted against representation in 1959 if they had known that there would soon be attempts to expand Bonn's quota.Footnote ⁸¹ With reservations the government accepted the stationing of a West German admiral in 1965. It was not until the early 1980s that the FRG had equal representation at NATO's Northern Command. German ships were not allowed to dock at Norwegian ports on Norway's national day, 17 May – a very symbolic day indeed – until 1979. When NATO's Mobile Force held exercises in northern Norway for the first time in 1964, West German troops were replaced by Italian troops. West German forces were not placed on an equal footing in northern Norway until 1988. While Norway's discrimination at the start of the 1960s still expressed real distrust, by the end of the decade it had become a political gesture: a visible West German presence might provoke the Soviet Union, which might respond by putting further pressure on Finland. The historian Rolf Tamnes concluded that from then onwards discrimination ‘was mostly a matter of symbolic politics’.Footnote ⁸²

However, the profound anxiety that Bonn might gain some access to nuclear weapons lingered on. Fear that such weapons might find their way on to German soil troubled Oslo when in 1957 NATO decided to deploy them in Europe. Moe was afraid that this might give the FRG a basis for acquiring nuclear weapons of its own, and Gerhardsen was inclined to veto any deployment of medium-range missiles there.Footnote ⁸³ The NATO discussions aroused the old spectre of ‘the German problem’. In spring 1958 opponents of the security policy mobilised students, trade unions and politicians to demand that the government oppose any presence of nuclear weapons on German soil. Forty-five of the 78 MPs in the governing Labour Party supported this demand officially. A study of this so-called ‘Easter rising’ concludes that ‘Antipathy to Germany was a fundamental element of the support these actions gained. Particularly in the circulars sent round the trade unions, the authors of the resolutions played on the fear of and scepticism against the former occupying power.’Footnote ⁸⁴ Though sceptical, the government remained loyal to the alliance and supported the deployment of medium-range missiles right up to the West German border. Disquiet over West German access to nuclear weapons was just as great when in the 1960s NATO discussed the establishment of a joint naval force with nuclear capability. The Foreign Ministry feared that the plan would whet Bonn's appetite for nuclear weapons, a fear which contributed to Oslo's opposition to this multilateral force.Footnote ⁸⁵ When in 1963 Halvard Lange, still Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed the cabinet and the standing committee on foreign affairs about the NATO negotiations, he referred to Norway's distrust of Germany.Footnote ⁸⁶ In 1965 his successor John Lyng nevertheless announced that Norway might accept the multilateral force – but only on condition that ‘Germany did not get any more actual physical control over the use of these weapons’.Footnote ⁸⁷ Even Bernt Ingvaldsen, a Conservative member of the Storting who had always argued that emotions must not be allowed to stand in the way of rational co-operation with the FRG, was now provoked. In December 1965 he claimed that ‘it would be particularly disquieting and serious if the Germans were to have their own nuclear weapons, and also if the Germans were to have independent military forces not under a joint NATO command’.Footnote ⁸⁸ Most Norwegian politicians wanted Washington to retain control over nuclear weapons; they did not realise that the initiative had been designed precisely to keep Bonn's finger off the nuclear button. When France withdrew from NATO's military structure in 1966, politicians were concerned that the FRG would increase its influence.Footnote ⁸⁹ When Lyng reported on the impending discussions in NATO's Council, he expressed a fear that the decision taken by the French president, Charles de Gaulle, would be exploited in Bonn to gain easier access to nuclear weapons.Footnote ⁹⁰ Norway would never believe that such weapons were safe in German hands.

Distrust of Bonn's Ostpolitik

In 1945 Norway established a military mission in Berlin which reported regularly on developments in the Soviet occupation zone. The Communist threat was already in the foreground from 1946, and as the Cold War escalated Oslo supported Bonn's policy of Westintegration. Oslo remained loyal to the alliance and to the FRG's ‘sole representation claim’, cold-shouldering East German requests for recognition. In 1954 Norway introduced restrictive entry requirements for citizens of the GDR. During the Berlin crisis of 1960 they were debarred from entering Norway altogether, while East German individuals and interests already in the country were placed under surveillance. Although in 1957 a small East German chamber of commerce was established in Oslo, by 1961 one of its employees had already been expelled for espionage. Both politically and functionally, relations with the GDR were dominated by Cold War suspicion.

Since disarmament and détente in Europe were always closely connected with ‘the German question’, Oslo was sympathetic to NATO attempts to introduce a more pragmatic policy. Behind closed doors, attitudes towards German reunification were ambiguous. As far back as 1952 the Prime Minister and some of his cabinet had expressed some approval of Stalin's proposal for a reunited and neutral Germany.Footnote ⁹¹ Oslo nevertheless fell into line when the proposal was unanimously rejected by the NATO countries. When in 1954 the Kremlin announced that the GDR had been granted sovereign rights, Oslo replied that only Bonn had legitimacy to speak on behalf of the German nation. Nonetheless Gerhardsen suggested that Norway might consider recognising the GDR if Sweden did so.Footnote ⁹² Lange was more negative: ‘There is no doubt that the moment democratic countries start to recognise the East German regime based on the Russian declaration of sovereignty, there will be an upheaval in West Germany, and in an instant a whole new and totally unpredictable situation will have been created.’Footnote ⁹³ With ‘the German problem’ in mind he wanted the FRG firmly anchored in the West before any more experiments were carried out on ‘the German question’. Lange did not fear deceit from Adenauer, but he did fear that a shift in FRG public opinion might initiate a turn to the east that would be difficult to reverse.

As soon as the Bonn Conventions replaced the Statutes of Occupation Finn Moe, always prompt to suspect Germans of deceit, said that Bonn ‘has already started to anticipate sovereignty, and I do not believe they will be so easy to deal with from now on’.Footnote ⁹⁴ After 1955 politicians were increasingly frustrated with Bonn's ‘policy of strength’. Speaking in West Berlin in 1957, Lange called on Bonn to be flexible over ‘the German question’, but without deviating from Western cohesion. This ambiguity reflected an attitude that became increasingly clear in Oslo during the Berlin conflict of 1958–63: NATO ought to seek rapprochement with the GDR so as to promote détente in Europe. Moe, speaking in the Storting in 1960, openly regretted Bonn's rigid policy.Footnote ⁹⁵ In 1961, in camera, Lange advocated de facto recognition of the GDR.Footnote ⁹⁶ After the building of the Berlin Wall his tone to the FRG was more accusatory than sympathetic. The Norwegians did not want disarmament proposals to founder over the question of German reunification.Footnote ⁹⁷ They sympathised with the Rapacki plan, which advocated a reduction of forces in central Europe possibly leading to the reunification of Germany. However, at no time did Norway deviate officially from NATO's common policy on the Berlin issue.

While the FRG had been a much debated theme in the Storting in the 1950s, the GDR had hardly been discussed at all. In contrast, it was a frequent topic in the 1960s. From its formation in 1961 the Socialist Party consistently criticised Bonn more than East Berlin. But a softening in attitudes to the GDR was also more visible among adherents to Norway's official policy. A number of Storting members opposed the NATO ban on the entry of GDR citizens in 1960. While NATO did not liberalise the restrictive entry regime until 1966 (it was abolished in 1970), Lange was calling for liberalisation in 1963. Aslak Versto, speaking in the Storting in 1966, voiced the opinion of most Norwegian politicians: ‘The state exists, the government exists, and we must face facts, look the true situation in the eye and act accordingly.’Footnote ⁹⁸ From then on, political parties in Norway, with the exception of the Conservatives, were in favour of increasing functional relations with the GDR through ‘de facto recognition’, although only the Socialists recommended legal recognition. In 1967 several political youth organisations also declared in favour of legal recognition. It was the main focus of the Storting's foreign policy debates in 1968.Footnote ⁹⁹ The general conclusion was that increased functional relations would support détente. In 1969 a committee for the normalisation of relations to the GDR was established, in which several members of the Storting participated.

While moderation towards East Berlin was advocated, frustration continued over Bonn's policy of strength. When in 1965 Gerhardsen made his first official visit to Bonn, he felt uneasy, as is evident from his own report on the visit. He mentions with pride that the delegation resisted Bonn's pressure to support its sole representation claim.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ In 1966 Moe reiterated his harsh critique of Bonn's policy and openly advocated de facto recognition of the GDR.Footnote ¹⁰¹ When in that year the Erhard government signalled its willingness to tone down the Hallstein Doctrine through the ‘Peace Note’, this was not seen in Oslo as a fundamental change of policy.Footnote ¹⁰²

Towards normalisation and trust

Lyng recalled in his memoirs that Chancellor Erhard's visit to Oslo in 1966 ‘took place in a correct but not very cordial atmosphere’.Footnote ¹⁰³ The records of the Auswärtiges Amt confirm that relations were rather chilly.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ In contrast, Lyng wrote that it was ‘like arriving in a whole new world’ when in 1967 Willy Brandt visited Oslo as Minister of Foreign Affairs.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Brandt himself made a difference. His past as a Norwegian citizen and his close contacts with Norwegian social democrats generated trust. Furthermore, his policy of ‘change through rapprochement’ satisfied Norwegian ideas about bridge-building and détente that transcended party boundaries. The talks between the two Foreign Ministers, Walter Scheel and Svenn Stray, in 1970 were characterised by a trust and mutual cordiality that had not existed in the early 1960s.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The FRG's agreements with the Soviet Union in August 1970 and Poland in December 1970, and the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin in September 1971,were celebrated in Oslo.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ When Brandt and the SPD took over the reins of government in 1966 they continued to foster the rapprochement between Oslo and Bonn. Brandt was fully aware of the lingering Norwegian distrust and instructed the West German ambassador to take active steps to eliminate it.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ From 1967 Norway worked actively to encourage the states east of the Iron Curtain to put their trust in Brandt and his policy.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Lyng spoke the truth when during a conversation with Adam Rapacki, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, he stated that Norway had felt a ‘greater trust in West German policies and intentions after Willy Brandt, with his past and his record under the Nazi regime, became the German Minister of Foreign Affairs’.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Brandt, who wanted a stronger Nordic presence in the EC, also pleaded Norway's cause when it applied for membership for the second time.Footnote ¹¹¹ His influence on West German policy in general made it easier for Norwegian politicians to accept Norwegian participation in the EC. That was why the Labour government invited Brandt to Norway to defend the Norwegian accession treaty prior to the referendum in 1972.

Seeing that Norway was bound to comply with NATO's common policy and avoid any action that could embarrass Brandt's endeavours, the success of the Neue Ostpolitik also formed the basis for rapprochement between Oslo and East Berlin from 1969.Footnote ¹¹² In 1969 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received representatives of the GDR's Volkskammer for talks on two occasions. In 1970 it received visits from representatives of the Ministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (the GDR Foreign Ministry) and the Ministerium für Aussenhandel und Innerdeutschen Handel (the Ministry for Foreign and Intra-German trade). In 1971 the GDR's Deputy Foreign Minister, Ernst Scholz, was received by high-ranking officials from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister's office. This was the first time an East German minister had been received for talks by the Foreign Ministry of a NATO country.Footnote ¹¹³ His Norwegian opposite number, Andreas Cappelen, told the Storting in January 1972 that the government was now only waiting for the signing of the Basic Treaty between the GDR and the FRG before recognising the GDR as ‘a member of the international community and its organisations with all the obligations and rights this entails’.Footnote ¹¹⁴ After the Treaty was signed on 21 December 1972 and the North Atlantic Council consented to recognition, Norway recognised the GDR de jure in January 1973. This had the support of the Norwegian populace: an opinion poll in 1972 showed that 56 per cent were for recognition while 11 per cent were against; 33 per cent were still in doubt.Footnote ¹¹⁵