Willy Brandt

Some people believe that the government...

You know, that's when Willy Brandt, who was the longtime mayor of West Berlin, some viewed him as a fifth columnist, only to his kind of friendly...

His overly friendly posture towards the DDR.

That's a whole other story.

And she convinced Ulrike to join the Social Democrats.

And at this time, Billy Brant...

Willy Brandt later became the mayor of West Berlin.

And West Berlin was really kind of like a culture unto itself in all kinds of ways.

i don't know maybe think of that scene in hannibal you ever seen that movie where he kills the he kills the italian policeman and he's like yeah didn't one of your ancestors get get like vivisected by the um by the borgias he's like yeah how'd you know that and he like vivisects him but uh only in europe man but um helmut schmidt uh was a new chancellor who was very much uh I mean, West Germany in the 70s was really kind of a mess.

Some people believe that the government, you know, that's when Willy Brandt, who was the longtime mayor of West Berlin, subdued him as a fifth columnist, owing to his kind of friendly... his overly friendly posture towards the DDR.

That's a whole other story.

Like, there's a whole espionage scandal with him.

Renata Reimach, after Ulrike's mom died when she was a teenager, kind of became her surrogate mom.

She convinced Ulrike to join the Social Democrats.

And at this time, Willy Brandt, Willy Brandt later became the mayor of West Berlin.

And West Berlin was really kind of like a culture unto itself in all kinds of ways.

You either stayed quiet Or you left, you killed yourself.

For example, Willy Brandt left the country.

He spent the war years in Denmark.

He became chancellor after he returned decades later.

Using a fake passport to see Sinatra is a level of dedication to a party I can only aspire to.

And our final party from the source, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's 1972 campaign train.

A campaign train?

A campaign train is supposed to be a rolling political rally, but the source notes it turned into a rolling rendezvous for his various extramarital affairs.

Well, 16.5%, whatever a worse word than a disaster is, it's that.

Having said that, the SPD, which, of course, the party of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Gerhard Schröder they got eight and a half percent so you've got the the two main parties in German politics polling 25 percent of the vote

on the floor but he what's interesting is it really matters because Germany is so central to Europe and to the EU and actually you've just mentioned Bardell arguably if marines convictions you know this whole prosecution against her if that's overturned you've got the two anchors of the eu potentially be tilting hard to the extreme well i'm potentially led by the

extreme potentially britain i mean i'm not i'm not going to equate reform with the afd because i think they are so different But you could have the three biggest countries in Europe, well, in fact, the four biggest countries in Europe with Maloney in Italy, led by people who traditionally, in all of those countries' politics, would be seen as sort of slightly beyond the pale.

That's important to keep in mind.

But what really kind of opened the door to this, what really made this possible, what really made detente possible was, uh, the situation, um, between the two Germanys, [coughs] and specifically the ascendancy of Willy Brandt.

Who was Willy Brandt? Willy Brandt was this crazy, uh, kind of '68er socialist.

I mean, he was middle-aged by that epoch.

You know, he was of the war generation.

This is what the Soviets always wanted, okay? And it looked like they were going to get it, albeit in some gradual capacity.

What brought this down is fascinating.

Willy Brandt's top aide and the Social Democrat Party secretary was a guy named Gunter Guillaume, okay? And Guillaume was connected at the hip to Willy Brandt.