Ostpolitik

[awst-paw-li-teek]

noun

1. the German policy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, especially the expansionist views of Hitler in the 1930s and the normalization program of the West German government in the 1960s and 1970s.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Ostpolitik¹

1960–65; < German: literally Eastern policy

Example Sentences

They had convinced themselves that West German “Ostpolitik” or, loosely, détente, toward Moscow, had been the key to winning the Cold War and achieving reunification.

Read more on New York Times

Wandel durch Handel was in many ways an extension of West Germany’s Cold War Ostpolitik, a policy of rapprochement with Russia put in place by the Social Democratic government at the end of the 1960s, amid fears of nuclear war.

Read more on New York Times

But in Germany, Ostpolitik was seen, especially on the political left, as instrumental in ending the Cold War.

Read more on New York Times

Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats were shaped by “Ostpolitik,” their outreach to the Soviet-occupied nations of Central and Eastern Europe, which also proved very profitable for German industry and provided all that cheap Russian energy.

Read more on New York Times

Criticism of Germany in Poland goes back at least to the Nazi era, and then to Germany’s policy of Ostpolitik, its Cold War effort at rapprochement with Moscow and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe occupied by the Soviet Union.

Read more on New York Times