Photo: Ludwig ErhardWest Germany Wanted To Buy The East From USSR -- The Telegraph
The West German government considered buying East Germany from the Soviet Union in the 1960s, declassified documents have revealed.
The American files show that chancellor Ludwig Erhard, despite being credited as one of the men behind West Germany's post-war economic miracle, was prepared to hand over a huge sum of money to Moscow for the prize of reunification.
A document seen by the German news magazine Der Spiegel records a conversation between a German government official and George McGhee, the US ambassador to Bonn, in October 1963. The American was told Germany was prepared to pay over $2 billion a year for a decade to Moscow in return for East Germany: a sum which then amounted to about a quarter of West Germany's GDP.
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My Comment: I am very skeptical that the Soviets would have agreed to such a deal. World War II was still fresh in the mind of every Soviet citizen .... and there was wide spread support for keeping Germany divided so that a unified Germany would never be a threat to the Soviet Union in the future. It is only my generation .... born after the Second World War that acceptance of a unified Germany has become a "fait accompli".