Willy Brandt

Willy Brandt (December 18, 1913 – October 8, 1992) was a German politician and Chancellor of Germany from 1969 to 1974. The left social democrat received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his work in improving relations with the German Democratic Republic, Poland and the Soviet Union, but is controversial in Germany because of his Ostpolitik (relations with Eastern Europe and Russia) and had to resign after an espionage scandal.

Early life, the war

Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in Lübeck, Germany to a mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. He became an apprentice at the shipbroker and ship's agent F.H. Bertling. He joined the "Socialist Youth" in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1930. He left the SPD to join the more left wing Socialist Workers Party (SAP) which was allied to the POUM in Spain and the ILP in Britain. In 1933, using his connections with the port and its ships from the time he had been apprentice, he left Germany for Norway on a ship to escape Nazi persecution. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Willy Brandt to avoid detection by Nazi agents. In 1934 he took part in the founding of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, and was elected to its Secretariat.

Related Topics:
Lübeck - Germany - 1929 - Social Democratic Party - 1930 - Socialist Workers Party - 1933 - Norway - Nazi - Pseudonym - 1934 - International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations

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He visited Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland. In 1937 he worked in Spain as a journalist. In 1938 the German government revoked his citizenship, so he applied for Norwegian citizenship. In 1940 he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, but he was not identified because he wore a Norwegian uniform; on his release he escaped to neutral Sweden. In August 1940 he became a Norwegian citizen, receiving his passport from the Norwegian embassy in Stockholm, where he lived until the end of the war.

Related Topics:
1936 - 1937 - Spain - 1938 - 1940 - Sweden - Stockholm

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