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The Differences Between West Germany And South Korea Essay

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Lessons from German unification for the two Koreas: the comparison between West Germany and South Korea

II. International Relations

International relations of West Germany followed its policy toward East Germany. West Germany’s unification policy can be divided into two major doctrines. First doctrine is the Westpolitik of Konrad Adenauer, who was the first leader of CDU and the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. Adenauer 's policy was based upon Policy of Strength (Politik der Stärke), and upon the so-called "magnet theory", in which a prosperous, democratic West Germany integrated with the West would act as a "magnet" that would eventually bring down the East German regime (Large, 1996). Thus, the two main points of Westpolitik was a reconciliation with France and participation in the Western alliance system. Adenauer’s Germany vigorously sought to solve vigilance and hostility of the Western countries under the binding force as a member of the alliance (Kim, 2016). In the Cold War era after the Second World War, the U.S. preferred Adenauer’s well-established pro-Western foreign policy to another alternative, SPD’s pro-Russian game. In this context, Adenauer denied the suggestion of the Soviet, demilitarization of Germany; because he believed West Germany would be able to absorb East Germany some day with the economic and military superiority under the NATO treaty. However, Westpolitik faced a criticism after the construction of the Berlin Wall

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