Henry Kissinger, Germany, and the Munich Security Conference: A few personal observations by Wolfgang Ischinger

Please also find Wolfgang Ischinger's speech on the occasion of the ceremony for Henry Kissinger's 100th birthday on June 20, 2023, in Fürth.

There is only one participant of the first Munich Security Conference held in 1963 who is still with us today: his name is Henry Kissinger. The event was then called “Wehrkunde”, and to this day, many American participants continue to speak lovingly of their discussions at “Wehrkunde”.

When Kissinger was asked by a German TV reporter a few years ago why he had been invited to Munich then, he had this to say, (my translation from German): “I had written a book about nuclear weapons in diplomacy and strategy, and the book was familiar to a number of the participants at the time, and I had a German background – all of that came together, and I got myself invited”. And he went on, “from a US point of view, the relationship between Germany and the United States was important in 1963, very important. There was a continuing debate at the time whether Germany had made a strategic error 10 years earlier by refusing to accept Stalin’s offer of German neutrality and joining the West instead.”

And on the ups and downs in the transatlantic relationship mirrored again and again in Munich, since 1963, he said, “The problem in the first few decades  was the question of the reliability of the US in terms of providing nuclear defence for Germany. Then came the Iraq war in 2003, when Germany parted ways with the US, a dramatic experience for all those of us who strongly believed in the inner strength of the transatlantic alliance. But both sides were convinced and committed to finding a way back to the old trust and closeness.”

My first – indirect – personal contact with the former Secretary of State started in 1979, when I was assigned, as my first foreign posting in the German diplomatic service, to be the Ambassador’s special assistant at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. One of my more important regular weekly tasks was to print out, each Monday morning, the results of the German Soccer League, put it in an envelope, and ask one of the embassy drivers to take it to Kissinger’s office in downtown D.C. Remember: this was before the internet, and I was warned that Kissinger was likely going to complain if he would not have the weekend results of his hometown team from Fürth in Bavaria in his hands by Monday lunchtime.

In 2017, Dr. Kissinger had to say this about his love of soccer, and of Fürth: “I have followed the fate of Spielvereinigung Fürth, despite the fact that I have not lived in Fürth for 79 years. But it obliges me to point out that Spielvereinigung Fürth won the German national championship several times before Bayern München ever qualified itself”. So much for hometown loyalty. No wonder the city of Fürth is currently planning a big event honoring Dr. Kissinger on the occasion of his forthcoming birthday!

Among the German leaders with whom Dr.Kissinger worked most closely during the cold war decades of the 1960s and 1970s, two stand out: Helmut Schmidt and Egon Bahr. Helmut Schmidt was actually also one of the participants at the inaugural Munich Security Conference event in 1963, and they met there, in Munich, and elsewhere, many times after that. Obviously, Willy Brandt also played a key role, but Kissinger has more often written and talked about Schmidt and Bahr.

When Egon Bahr passed away, Kissinger said on September 17, 2015, “we first met in 1965, when neither of us had an official position. Egon came to Harvard University where I was a professor, to convince me that Germany would never achieve unity except through a negotiation leading to the withdrawal of foreign troops and a guarantee of a unified Germany by the four countries then occupying Berlin. My view was traditional, that unification could only be fostered through full adherence of Germany to the Atlantic Alliance, and that a Germany conducting an autonomous policy in the center of the Continent would run the risk of isolating itself.”

“We next encountered each other in 1969 when Willy Brandt was elected Chancellor. I had been appointed Security Advisor to President Nixon a few months earlier. Shortly after his election, Brandt sent Egon to visit the White House. Brandt, Egon told us, would pursue a policy of reconciliation with Eastern Europe, especially Poland and the Soviet Union. He would accept the borders with Germany’s neighbors left by the war and seek a dialogue with Moscow. In view of recent history, Germany had an obligation to undertake its own initiatives, but he would conduct them within the framework of Germany’s NATO obligations. Bahr undertook to keep us and other allies meticulously informed.”

“We at the White House were not as convinced that the objectives of reassurance and Allied solidarity were always reconcilable. Too many memories might inhibit the requisite trust. And we were uneasy that Moscow might seek to manipulate the process. Still, upon further reflection, Nixon and I came to see how Bahr’s message could fit within a wider strategy to combine Ostpolitik with our planned opening to China to pull the Soviet Union into negotiations on a wide range of East-West issues.”

“Central among these was to reduce the risks of the nuclear age. We felt we owed it to our people – and the rest of the world – that, while undertaking a policy of deterrence, we would simultaneously be seen to reduce its risks. Arms control thereby became a key subject of East-West dialogue. That is why I said to Egon after one of our discussions: “Much success. Your success will also be ours.”

Shortly after Egon Bahr’s death, Helmut Schmidt also passed away. On November 23, 2015, Henry Kissinger said about his friend Helmut,

“Our long friendship is one of the pillars of my life.” We had cooperated closely over six decades: when we were both in government; even more frequently after we both left office; and exchanged ideas at conferences all over the world. We visited each other’s homes; spoke at festive occasions for each other. Helmut delivered the laudatio when my birthplace, the city of Fürth, honored me. On the occasion of Helmut’s 90th birthday celebration given in Hamburg by Die Zeit, I pointed out that when I was a boy, it never occurred to me that one day I might participate at the birthday of a German Chancellor. But that was before I knew that smoking four packs of cigarettes and consuming ten Coca-Colas a day guaranteed longevity. In time, our friendship expanded to include Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and former Secretary of State George Shultz.”

“Helmut lived in an age of transition: between Germany’s past as an occupied and divided country and its future as the strongest European nation; between its obsession with security and the need to participate in building a global economic world order; between his Social Democratic Party’s belated commitment to the Atlantic Alliance and the emergence of the quest for a more universal concept.”

“Helmut was imbued with a deep sense of obligation to take his country from where it was to where it had never been. The most important prerequisites for statesmanship are vision and courage: vision to overcome the danger of stagnation; courage to navigate hitherto uncharted territory.

Helmut was a driving force behind the European Security Conference of 1974, which accelerated the process of delegitimizing the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Together with his friend Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, he institutionalized the meetings of heads of state—first the G-5, now the G-7—to express the pursuit of a joint global approach to world order. Again in concert with Giscard d’Estaing, Helmut championed the European Union.”

In 1982, Helmut Schmidt and his party, the SPD, lost power to the CDU and its new leader, Helmut Kohl. For the next decade, leading to Germany’s re-unification and beyond, Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher became Kissinger’s principal interlocutors in Bonn.

I recall a rather secret meeting in Bonn - Bad Godesberg where Genscher hosted Kissinger for dinner in a “Weinstube” in the mid-80s. I was sent to the Cologne airport to pick him up. Once installed in the car, leaving the airport, I called Genscher on the car telephone (portable cell phones were not yet in widespread use at that time) in order to let him know that Dr. Kissinger and I would be arriving in about 40 minutes. Kissinger, very security conscious in those days, reprimanded me for having mentioned his name on an open phone line. He relaxed only when he saw that we had arranged for quite a few police and security agents deployed outside and inside the restaurant. For the next couple of hours, Kissinger and Genscher talked about Ostpolitik, and about Gorbachev, and INF. I was asked not to take notes, and I did not. But it was the first – and unforgettable – time I participated for several hours in an intense conversation with Henry Kissinger.

Regarding his relationship with Helmut Kohl, Kissinger wrote an essay commemorating Kohl’s 80^th birthday in 2010:

“Bismarck once remarked that the best a statesman could do was to listen for the footsteps of God, take a hold of the hem of His cloak and walk with Him a few steps of the way. The phrase applies to what Helmut Kohl achieved two decades ago. Bismarck had effected the unification of Germany, taking advantage of England’s distraction, France’s truculence, Austria’s overestimation of itself and the growing German national momentum to forge a unified German Empire in 1871.

Over a century later, a second unifier of Germany, Helmut Kohl, heard the footsteps of destiny. He understood earlier than almost anyone the historical forces at work in Europe and rode those forces in the service of his goal of a united and free Germany as part of a united Europe and a vital Atlantic Alliance. The issues arose with astonishing speed in 1989 from many deep historical currents: the growing evidence of the bankruptcy of Soviet-style political systems in Eastern Europe, the pent-up demand for freedom of expression and fundamental human and political rights as embodied in the Helsinki Accords, the retrenchment of the Soviet Empire imposed by a collapsing economy.”

“Germany was not in a position to breach the Berlin Wall alone. The existence of the Atlantic Alliance and the policies of Germany's allies made significant contributions. […] In retrospect, every great historic event appears inevitable. In fact, matters could have turned out very differently. In November 1989, the most probable outcome in the minds of many observers would have been two German states no longer separated by a Wall, perhaps in some type of confederation, living more or less amicably beside one another. There were few voices loudly calling for unification in the near term. And there were many voices—in London, Paris and Moscow—urging caution or even opposing a united Germany.

“During the fateful months of November 1989, when the Wall fell, to March 1990, when unification was substantially achieved, Kohl seized the coattails of history with mastery. It was the period when the other European powers were ambivalent. Few of Germany's allies really wanted to see Germany unified, yet none wished to be perceived as obstructing the will of the German people. Many of Kohl’s own German colleagues were urging to go slowly, and most observers who supported a united Germany were thinking in terms of a five-year timetable to achieve it.

A second critical element of Kohl’s approach to German unification was to ensure that the new Germany remained firmly anchored in the West. This raised the issue of membership of the united Germany in NATO. Many observers called for a neutral Germany in Central Europe. Others saw Germany as having a special role as a “bridge” between East and West.

As talks over Germany progressed into the spring and summer of 1990, it became clear that the membership of a united Germany in NATO was becoming the most controversial issue. Mikhail Gorbachev had drawn his line in the sand, saying that Moscow could not tolerate a united Germany within NATO. The Soviets were proposing a nebulous formula in which Germany would have a sort of special status outside of both western and eastern alliances.

The idea of a neutral Germany in the center of Europe, first proposed by Stalin, had been rejected by Adenauer; it was also rebuffed by Kohl. He rejected the argument that the insistence on Germany being part of NATO might unravel everything that had been achieved so far. Gorbachev, so the argument went, could be toppled in Moscow if he conceded this point. Kohl, backed by President George H.W. Bush, refused to renounce the commitment of a generation to the West; they insisted on keeping Germany anchored in NATO.

Kohl succeeded in carrying out his vision because of the trust that the principal international actors in this unfolding drama had developed for one another. Kohl, Genscher, Bush, Baker, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze were connected by strong personal relationships based on tested joint experiences. Kohl was a principal contributor to this spirit. Matters reached a point that, by July 1990, American and Soviet diplomats were actually cooperating on the language that would enshrine united Germany’s membership in NATO.

Bismarck’s Germany had been essentially an exclusionary nation-state trying to balance potential enemies against each other. Kohl’s approach to German unification took place within a larger consensual process. The process was hammered out in the context of the Four-plus-Two negotiations, the four occupation powers after the Second World War—the US, the Soviet Union, Britain and France—plus the two German states.

Even more fundamentally, Kohl sought to place German unity within the framework of growing European integration and unity. This was a key element in securing French support for German unification. Kohl promised François Mitterand, in March 1990, that he would, after unification, accelerate the development of European political and monetary union. Kohl envisioned German unity within a series of concentric circles—within Germany, within Europe and within the Atlantic Alliance—that were intended to be mutually reinforcing and promoting stability and peace. Lastly, Kohl understood that new cooperative frameworks between the West and the Soviet Union were necessary to ensure an enduring peace.

Kohl kept his word. By October 1990, he had become the principal advocate for European monetary union. Less than a year after German unification, in 1991, the Maastricht Treaty, laying the groundwork for European Monetary Union, was adopted.”

In the mid-90s, I ran into Dr. Kissinger at a conference in Bonn on foreign policy, in particular on Ostpolitik, organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation. One of the guest speakers was a junior minister from Kohl’s government, Angela Merkel. She was supposed to speak about Russia, and she did. It was clear that she was not reading a speech that somebody had prepared for her, but that she was sharing her own ideas. I was quite impressed, and so,  apparently, was Kissinger, who happened to sit next to me at this large conference table. He leaned over and said: “Who exactly is she? Do you know her?” Within days, arrangements were made for him to meet with her. One of the things I have always found most impressive with Henry is his curiosity about his interlocutors which has always been boundless.

In 2001, the German government nominated me to serve as Ambassador to the United States, and I was supposed to start my new mission in September of that year. At that time, in early September, 2001, three days before 9/11, the inauguration of the new Jewish Museum in Berlin attracted guests from around the world, including many from Israel and from the US. Of course, Henry was among the guests of honor, and I received a request from his staff: could I organize for him a meeting, maybe a luncheon, with a diverse group of younger Germans? He felt he was spending most of his visits to Berlin with the older generation, and he wanted to understand how young Germans felt about their country, and about the future. So I postponed my flight to D.C. until after the museum inauguration, and until after a lunch discussion for Henry on September 9, as requested. As a consequence, the first opportunity to finally get to the US was a Lufthansa flight on September 10 which Jutta and I managed to board. We arrived safely in D.C. that evening, and 9/11 thus was my first working day as the new German Ambassador in the United States.

A few months earlier, Dr Kissinger had spoken at the 2001 Munich Security Conference, and this is an excerpt from his remarks:

“Now, it seems to me that the fundamental problem that the Atlantic Alliance confronts is this: There is no doubt in the sincerity of everybody who affirms the importance of the Atlantic relationship. But the key question is: is the Atlantic relationship considered a safety net which puts a floor under risks within which everybody is then free to pursue his own national interest, even at the expense of other allies? Or is it an institution that is jointly attempting to pursue common objectives? My generation as well as the people now coming into office with the Bush administration really were brought up believing that the Atlantic Alliance is not just a safety net but a set of common purpose that must find common expression.

I sympathize with those Europeans who want to create a European identity. I think it is not healthy for the United states, even though this is not the American intention, to be the only mega power in the world. Hegemony turns every problem into a domestic issue and creates a distorted view of one's capabilities. At the same time, it is worrisome when European identity is defined in such a way that Europe expresses its identity only or even primarily, by opposing the United States. European identity must leave room for cooperation across the Atlantic. And when I read that a strong partner is good for the United States with which I agree, then the question is: Will that strengthen the partnership? Then one has to ask, in what way? What does this strong partner do? Will there be more cooperation? Will it be a way to withhold cooperation? Or will it be a way to take autonomous or independent action?

And then the question is: Where and with what forces? That is already being discussed, but it raises one other question. It is the question of the mechanism by which the common purposes of Europe and America are to be achieved.

Now, and NATO there is a clear consultative mechanism. But, as between the European Union and the United States, there is a very confused mechanism because Europe is neither a state nor is it a collection of individual countries. So the kind of coherent dialogue that would be needed to make the Euroforce work requires the creation of appropriate institutions, which do not now exist. It cannot be based on general assurances that a strong partner automatically creates greater cohesion. It creates greater cohesion only when expressed in appropriate institutions.

I would like to make one final point concerning relations with Russia. There is no doubt that relations with Russia are important, not just for Europeans but also for the United States and that the history of Russia is one of enormous complexity. There are parts of Russian history that are connected with Europe and parts of Russian history that are not. There are parts of Russian history in which the freedom of Europe, and in the Second World War, the freedom of the world is owed extraordinarily to Russian heroism. But there are also periods in which the stability of Europe was disturbed by Russian expansionism or the Russian definition of its own security. Since the end of the Cold War there have been considerable changes and achievements within Russia and progress in relations with Russia. But there has also been – and again I want to stress that I speak as an individual – too much of a tendency to treat Russia as if it were a psychiatric problem and not a political problem, as if strenuous reassurance and personal relationships were the key. This applies to certain Americans, and you will know to what Europeans, if any, it refers. Whenever I see discussions of NATO enlargement and NMD, one is always told that the Russians do not like it. Well, that they are not liking it may also be part of the problem. If one looks at the history of the last 50 years, there are many things that happened that Russia opposed strenuously, vocally and persistently that led to very constructive negotiations when they were carried out. The creation of NATO and intermediate-range missiles created the basis for negotiations.

And that gets me to a final point. The European Union is composed of NATO members and of non-NATO members. And NATO includes countries that are not members of the European Union. When we talk about expansion, this has to be brought into some relationship with each other. Is it true – and I believe it is – that the European Union cannot permit an attack on any of its members without responding? I would hate to imagine that the European Union would say it is permitted to attack another European Union member without there being a requirement for defense. For this would mean that the NATO members of European Union are defending non-NATO members of the European Union.  And at what point, regardless of what Article Five says, can the United states tolerate the defeat of NATO members wo are defending non-NATO members as the result of an obligation they undertook that is not part of NATO?”

During my five years as Germany's ambassador in D.C., I needed a lot of help and advice. For the first time in decades, a real rift had opened between the US and Germany, about the wisdom of the Iraq intervention, and the relationship between our leaders became awkward. These were difficult times. There were periods of silence between the White House and the Chancellery, and I had to deal with increasingly hostile questions from US media. Thank God Dr. Kissinger made himself available again and again, offering ways forward, and creating opportunities for constructive bilateral engagement. There is no one I am more indebted to than Henry. I am not sure I could have navigated around the Washington circuit, including Congressional committees, without his wise counsel. And he also made himself available to meet with so many visitors from Berlin, political leaders, parliamentarians, academics, and business leaders.

When I was asked to take over the Chairmanship of the Munich Security Conference in 2008/2009, I decided to establish an annual Award honoring the founder of “Wehrkunde”, Ewald von Kleist.  It was not a difficult decision for me and my team to offer the first Kleist Award to Henry Kissinger, and I will never forget the award ceremony, a gala dinner event hosted by the Ministerpräsident of Bavaria in his fantastic Munich Residence Palace. Henry moved everyone to tears by referring to his youth in Fürth, and to his father who was a school teacher there. My father, Henry said, always reminded me that if I continued to get good grades in school, I might one day make it to being a teacher not in Fürth, but in the nearby larger city of Nürnberg. And, Kissinger added, my father would not believe it, if he were still alive today, that I am now being honored here in Munich, a former refugee from Germany, but also a former US Secretary of State , in the presence of large numbers of international leaders, in the residence of the Bavarian Ministerpräsident.

During the 2009 conference itself, Henry said this:

“Now the basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern weapons into some moral or political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued. Any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign policy objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application have never been persuasive -- from the doctrine of ‘limited nuclear war’ in the 1950s to the ‘mutual assured destruction’ theory of later periods.”

“In office, I recoiled before the options produced by the prevalent nuclear strategies, especially since these prospects were generated by weapons for which there could not be any operational experience, so that calculations and limitations were largely theoretical. But I was also persuaded -- and remain persuaded -- that if the U.S. government adopts such considerations as its policy, it would be turning over the world’s security to the most ruthless and perhaps genocidal.

In the two-power world of the Cold War, the adversaries managed to avoid this dilemma. The nuclear arsenals on both sides grew in numbers and sophistication. But except for the Cuban missile crisis, where a Soviet combat division seemed to have been initially authorized to use its nuclear weapons to defend itself, neither side approached the actual use of nuclear weapons, either against each other or in wars against non-nuclear third countries. In fact, they put in place, step-by-step, a series of safeguards to prevent accidents, misjudgments, and unauthorized launches.

But the end of the Cold War produced a paradoxical result: The threat of nuclear war between the nuclear superpowers has essentially disappeared. But the spread of technology -- especially peaceful nuclear energy -- has multiplied the feasibility of acquiring nuclear weapons by separating plutonium or from enriching uranium produced by peaceful nuclear reactors. The sharpening of ideological dividing lines and the persistence of unresolved regional conflicts have magnified the incentives to acquire nuclear weapons, especially by rogue states or non-state actors. The calculations of mutual insecurity that produced restraint during the Cold War do not apply with anything like the same degree to the new entrants in the nuclear field and even less so to the non-state actors. This is why proliferation of nuclear weapons has become an overarching strategic problem.

Any further spread of nuclear weapons multiplies the possibilities of nuclear confrontation and magnifies the danger of diversion. Thus, if proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues into Iran and remains in North Korea in the face of all ongoing negotiations, the incentives for other countries to follow the same path will become overwhelming.

“Arresting and then reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons places a special responsibility on the established nuclear powers. They share no more urgent common interests than preventing the emergence of more nuclear-armed states. The persistence of unresolved regional conflicts makes nuclear weapons a powerful lure in many parts of the world to intimidate neighbors and serve as a deterrent to countries who might otherwise intervene. Established nuclear powers should strive to make a nuclear capability less tempting by devoting their diplomatic efforts to diffuse unresolved conflicts that today make a nuclear arsenal so attractive.”

“A new nuclear agenda requires coordinated efforts on several levels: in the declaratory policy of the United States; in the U.S.-Russian relationship; in joint efforts with allies as well as other non-nuclear states relying on American deterrence; in securing nuclear weapons and materials on a global basis; and, finally, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in the doctrines and operational planning of nuclear weapons states.”

“The effort to develop a new nuclear agenda must involve our allies from its inception. U.S. and NATO policy are -- must be integrally linked. Key European allies are negotiating with Iran. America deploys tactical nuclear weapons in several NATO countries, and NATO declaratory policy mirrors that of the United States. There is therefore a basis and a necessity for strengthening these review processes and adapting them to the emerging realities. Parallel discussions are needed with Japan, South Korea, and Australia. And they are also imperative with China, India, and Pakistan. It must be understood that the incentive for nuclear weapons on the subcontinent are more regional than those of the established nuclear powers and their threshold for using them considerably lower.”

“A closing word: A subject at first largely dominated by military experts has increasingly attracted the concern of advocates of disarmament. The dialogue between them has not always been as fruitful as it should be. Strategists are suspicious of negotiated attempts to limit the scope of weapons. Disarmament experts occasionally seek to preempt the outcome of the debate by legislating restrictions that achieve their preferred result without reciprocity.

The two groups must be brought together in our dialogue. So long as other countries build and improve their nuclear arsenals, deterrence of their use needs to be part of Western strategy. The program sketched here -- it's not a program for unilateral disarmament.”

“The danger posed by nuclear weapons is unprecedented and it brings us back to the basic challenge of the nuclear period: Our age has stolen the fire from the gods; can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?”

In 2018, Dr.Kissinger participated in an event honoring the late Senator John McCain, and these were his words on that occasion:

“Speaking of Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist: the Munich Security Conference he founded, in 1963, has become a cornerstone of the international security apparatus. John McCain has been attending it for the past forty years; only this past year was he absent. This year, the Conference honored him with its esteemed Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist Prize. Cindy McCain accepted the prize on his behalf, noting, with a hint of envy, that John had been going steady with the Munich Security Conference longer than they had been married.

At the prize ceremony, she read John’s acceptance speech, which moved us all with a feeling of likeminded fellowship. John’s words on that day ring truer with every passing day: ‘We come to Munich because sustaining our vision of world order, though it requires wealth and power and realism, is not merely a material struggle. It is a moral struggle. It is about the values that will govern our world. That is why we are allies. That is why we have stood by each other, and sacrificed for each other, and invested in our common defense—and why we must continue to do so.’”

This year, the Munich Security Conference celebrates its 60^th anniversary, and Dr. Kissinger his 100^th birthday. I will be forever grateful for his support, his advice, his mentorship, and his generosity. Thank you, Henry, on behalf of the entire MSC team!