Willy Brandt

Brandt's 1970 Warsaw Treaty effectively accepted the Oder-Neisse line, giving up claims to former German lands where millions of expellees had once lived. The expellee organisations and much of the opposition called it a surrender, and defections over it nearly brought down his government. His kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial was criticised by many West Germans at the time. Ostpolitik eased contacts across the Iron Curtain, and its border settlement was confirmed in the 1990 reunification treaties.