Détente and Social ChangeHistory 104 / April 24, 2013

Willy BrandtWest German Chancellor,1969-1974

here: kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto

monument, Dec. 1970

The Helsinki Conference, 1975:the high point of détente

here: East and West German leadershold a conversation across the aisle

The oil shock, 1973:long lines for gas in

the United States

The oil shock, 1973:empty highways in Germany during a

Sunday driving ban

Germany’s Red Army Faction in the 1970s(right: one of several kidnapping victims, later murdered)

Italy’s Red Brigades kidnap and murderformer Prime Minister Aldo Moro (1978)

Margaret ThatcherBritish Prime Minister,

1979-1990

The G-7, a consultation mechanism for the major industrial powers(here: meeting in Bonn, 1978, with the head of the EU)

Green movements:against nuclear power, acid rain,

genetically modified foods

Moral bankruptcy:citizens spy on one another

for the security services(KGB, Stasi, etc.)

Economic bankruptcy: unsustainable benefits

Economic bankruptcy: environmental devastation

(here: open-face coal mining in East Germany)

The Chernobyl reactor leak(April 1986)

Competing identities: nationalism

(here, East German protesters insist that they are one people with West Germans)

Competing identities:religion

(esp. Catholicism in Poland)

The Solidarity movement in Poland

(1980-89)

Lech Walesa(1943- )

Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in the USSR

(1985-1991)

Nov. 9, 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall

Aug. 1991: Yeltsin helps to bring down the Soviet Union