• President of Germany Gustav Walter Heinemann, 1899
• Chancellor of Germany Willy Brandt (Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm), 1913

 

Gustav Walter Heinemann was named after his mother's father, a master roof tiler in the city of Barmen, with radical democratic, left - liberal, and patriotic views. His maternal grandfather, Heinemann's great - grandfather, had taken part in the Revolution of 1848. Gustav Heinemann's father, Otto Heinemann, a manager at the Krupp steelworks in Essen, shared his father - in - law's views. In his youth, Gustav Heinemann already felt called upon to preserve and promote the liberal and democratic traditions of 1848. Throughout his life he fought against all kinds of subservience. This attitude helped him to maintain his intellectual independence even in the face of majorities in political parties and in the Church.

Having finished grammar school in 1917, Heinemann briefly became a soldier in the First World War, but on account of severe illness he was not sent to the front.

From 1918, he studied law, economics, and history at the universities of Münster, Marburg, Munich, Göttingen and Berlin, graduating in 1922, and passed the bar in 1926. He received a Ph.D. in 1922 and a doctorate of law in 1929.

The friendships Heinemann formed during his student years often lasted for a lifetime. Among his friends were such different people as Wilhelm Röpke, who was to become one of the leading figures of economic liberalism, Ernst Lemmer, later a trade unionist and also a Christian Democrat, and Viktor Agartz, a Marxist.

At the beginning of his career, Heinemann joined a renowned firm of solicitors in Essen. In 1929 he published a book about legal questions in the medical profession. From 1929 to 1949 he worked as a legal adviser to the Rheinische Stahlwerke in Essen, from 1936 to 1949 also as one of its directors. The steelworks were considered to be essential for the war, so Heinemann was not drafted into the army. He was a lecturer at the law school of Cologne university between 1933 and 1939. It was probably his refusal to become a member of the NSDAP which finished his academic career. He was also invited to join the board of directors of the Rheinisch - Westfaelisches Kohlesyndikat in 1936, but turned the offer down as he was expected to end his work for the Confessing Church.

In 1926 Heinemann married Hilda Ordemann, who had been a student of Rudolf Bultmann, the famous Protestant theologian. His wife and the minister of his wife's parish, Wilhelm Graeber, led Heinemann back to Christianity, from which he had become estranged. Through his sister - in - law he became acquainted with Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who strongly influenced him, e.g., in his condemnation of nationalism and antisemitism.

Gustav and Hilda Heinemann had three daughters: Uta (later Uta Ranke - Heinemann), Christa (mother of Christina Rau, federal president Johannes Rau's wife), and Barbara, and a son: Peter.

Heinemann was an elder (Presbyter) in Wilhelm Graeber's parish in Essen when Graeber was sacked in 1933 by the new church authorities who co-operated with the Nazis. Opposition against those German Christians came from the Confessing Church, and Heinemann became a member of its synod and its legal adviser. As he disagreed with some of the developments within the Confessing Church, he withdrew from the church leadership in 1939, but continued as an elder in his parish, in which capacity he gave legal advice to persecuted fellow Christians and helped Jews who had gone into hiding by providing them with food. Information sheets of the Confessing Church were printed in the cellar of Heinemann's house at Schinkelstrasse 34 in Essen - Moltkeviertel, and distributed all over Germany.

From 1936 to 1950, Heinemann was head of the YMCA in Essen.

In August 1945, he was elected as a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The Council issued the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in October 1945, in which it confessed guilt for the inadequacies of the Protestant church in its opposition to the Nazis and the Third Reich. Heinemann regarded this declaration as a "linchpin" in his work for the church.

From 1949 to 1955, Heinemann was president of the all - German Synod of the Protestant Churches of Germany. He was among the founders of the German Protestant Church Congress (Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag), a congress of the Protestant laity. In 1949 he was also one of the founding editors of Die Stimme der Gemeinde ("The Voice of the Congregation"), a magazine which was published by the Bruderrat (Brethren's Council) of the Confessing Church. In the World Council of Churches he belonged to its "Commission for International Affairs".

As a student, Heinemann, like his friends Lemmer and Roepke, belonged to the Reichsbund deutscher demokratischer Studenten, the student organization of the liberal German Democratic Party which strongly supported the democracy of the Weimar Republic.

He heard Hitler speak in Munich in 1920 and had to leave the room after interrupting Hitler's diatribe against the Jews.

In 1930 Heinemann joined the Christlich - Sozialer Volksdienst ("Christian Social People's Service"), but he voted for the Social Democratic Party in 1933 to try to prevent a victory of the NSDAP.

After the Second World War, the British authorities appointed Gustav Heinemann Mayor of Essen, and in 1946 he was elected to that office, which he kept until 1949. He was one of the founders of the Christian Democratic Union in North Rhine - Westphalia, in which he saw an interdenominational and democratic association of people opposed to Nazism. He was a member of the North Rhine - Westphalian parliament (Landtag, 1947 – 1950), and from 1947 to 1948 Minister of Justice in the North Rhine - Westphalian government of CDU Prime Minister Karl Arnold.

When Konrad Adenauer became the first Chancellor of the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, he wanted a representative of the Protestants in the CDU in his government. Gustav Heinemann, the president of the Synod of Protestant Churches, reluctantly agreed to become Adenauer's Minister of the Interior although he had planned to resume his career in industry.

A year later, when it became known that Adenauer had secretly offered German participation in a Western European army, Heinemann resigned from the government. He was convinced that any form of armament in the Federal Republic would diminish the chances of German reunification and increase the risk of war.

Heinemann left the CDU, and, in 1952, founded his own political party, the All - German People's Party (Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei). Among its members were such politicians as later Federal President Johannes Rau and also Erhard Eppler. They advocated negotiations with the Soviet Union with the aim of a reunited, neutral Germany between the blocs. But the GVP failed to attract many voters. Consequently Heinemann dissolved his party in 1957 and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD),whose aims were relatively close to his own. There he soon became a member of the party's National Executive. He helped the SPD to change into a Volkspartei (party of the people) by opening it up for socially minded Protestants and middle class people especially in the industrial districts of Germany.

In October 1950 Heinemann had started practicing as a lawyer again. In court, he predominantly represented political and religious minorities. He also worked for the release of prisoners in East Germany. Later he counseled conscientious objectors to compulsory military service and defended Jehovah's Witnesses in court who even refused to do community work instead of military service because of their absolute conscientious objection.

As an SPD MP in the Bundestag, the parliament of West Germany, Heinemann passionately fought against Adenauer's plans of acquiring atomic weapons for the West German army (Bundeswehr).

In the "Grand Coalition" government of Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) and Foreign Minister Willy Brandt (SPD) Heinemann was Minister of Justice (1966 – 69). He initiated a number of liberal reforms, especially in the field of criminal law.

In March 1969 Gustav Heinemann was elected President of the Federal Republic of Germany. As he was elected with the help of most delegates of the Free Democratic Party (FDP / Liberals) his election was generally understood as a sign of the reorientation of the FDP with regard to a future coalition with the SPD (Social - liberal coalition, October 1969 - October 1982).

In an interview Heinemann once said that he wanted to be "the citizens' president" rather than "the president of the state". He established the tradition of inviting ordinary citizens to the president's New Year's receptions, and in his speeches he encouraged the Germans to overcome the spirit of submissiveness to the authorities, to make full use of their democratic rights, and to defend the rule of law and social justice. This attitude and his open - mindedness towards the student protests of 1968 made him popular among the younger generation, too.

When asked whether he loved the German state, he answered that he did not love the state, he loved his wife.

Heinemann mainly visited countries that had been occupied by German troops in World War II. He supported the social - liberal government's policy of reconciliation with the Eastern European states. He promoted research into the nature of conflicts and of peace, as well as about problems of the environment.

It was Heinemann's idea to found a museum for the commemoration of German liberation movements, and he was able to officially open such a place in Rastatt in 1974. His interest in that subject was partly due to the involvement of his own ancestors in the revolution of 1848.

On account of his age and fragile health Heinemann did not stand for a possible second term as President in 1974. He died in 1976.

A short time before his death he published an essay in which he criticized the Radikalenerlass ("Radicals Decree") of 1972, a rule which subjected all candidates for the civil service (including prospective teachers, railway engine drivers and postmen) to special scrutiny in order to exclude political radicals. He thought it was not compatible with the spirit of the constitution that a large group of people were generally treated as suspects.

The Gustav - Heinemann - Friedenspreis (Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize) is an annual prize for children's and young people's books that are deemed to have best promoted the cause of world peace.

Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany.

In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.

Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather, Ludwig Frahm, and his second wife, Dora.

After passing his Abitur in 1932 at Johanneum zu Lübeck, he became an apprentice at the shipbroker and ship's agent F.H. Bertling. He joined the "Socialist Youth" in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1930. He left the SPD to join the more left wing Socialist Workers Party (SAP), which was allied to the POUM in Spain and the Independent Labor Party in Britain. In 1933, using his connections with the port and its ships, he left Germany for Norway to escape Nazi persecution. It was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Willy Brandt to avoid detection by Nazi agents. In 1934, he took part in the founding of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, and was elected to its Secretariat.

Brandt was in Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland. He was married to Gertrud Meyer from Lübeck in a fictitious marriage to protect her from deportation. Meyer had joined Brandt in Norway in July 1933. In 1937, during the Civil War, Brandt worked in Spain as a journalist. In 1938, the German government revoked his citizenship, so he applied for Norwegian citizenship. In 1940, he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, but was not identified as he wore a Norwegian uniform. On his release, he escaped to neutral Sweden. In August 1940, he became a Norwegian citizen, receiving his passport from the Norwegian embassy in Stockholm, where he lived until the end of the war. Willy Brandt lectured in Sweden on 1 December 1940 at Bommersvik college about problems experienced by the social democrats in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries at the start of World War II. In exile in Norway and Sweden Brandt learned Norwegian and Swedish. Brandt spoke Norwegian fluently, and retained a close relationship with Norway.

In late 1946, Brandt returned to Berlin, working for the Norwegian government. In 1948, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and became a German citizen again, formally adopting the pseudonym, Willy Brandt, as his legal name.

From 3 October 1957, to 1966, Willy Brandt was Mayor of West Berlin, during a period of increasing tension in East - West relations that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall. In Brandt's first year as Mayor, he also served as the President of the Bundesrat in Bonn. Brandt was outspoken against the Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and against Nikita Khrushchev's 1958 proposal that Berlin receive the status of a "free city". He was supported by the influential publisher Axel Springer. As Mayor of West Berlin, Brandt accomplished much in the way of urban development. New hotels, office blocks and flats were constructed, while both Schloss Charlottenburg and the Reichstag were restored. Sections of the "Stadtring" Bundesautobahn 100 inner city motorway were opened, while a major housing program was carried out, with roughly 20,000 new dwellings built each year during his time in office.

At the start of 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy saw Brandt as the wave of the future in West Germany and was hoping he would replace Konrad Adenauer as Chancellor following elections later in the year. Kennedy made this preference clear by inviting Brandt, the West German opposition leader, to an official meeting at the White House a month before meeting with Adenauer, the country’s leader. The diplomatic snub strained relations between Kennedy and Adenauer further during an especially tense time for Berlin. However, following the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Brandt was disappointed and angry with Kennedy. Speaking in Berlin three days later, Brandt criticized Kennedy, asserting "Berlin expects more than words. It expects political action." He also wrote Kennedy a highly critical public letter in which he warned that the development was liable "to arouse doubts about the ability of the three [Allied] Powers to react and their determination" and he called the situation "a state of accomplished extortion".

Brandt became the Chairman of the SPD in 1964, a post that he retained until 1987, longer than any other party Chairman since its foundation by August Bebel. Brandt was the SPD candidate for the Chancellorship in 1961, but he lost to Konrad Adenauer's conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). In 1965, Brandt ran again, but lost to the popular Ludwig Erhard. Erhard's government was short lived, however, and in 1966 a grand coalition between the SPD and CDU was formed, with Brandt as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor.

At the 1969 elections, again with Brandt as the leading candidate, the SPD became stronger, and after three weeks of negotiations, the SPD formed a coalition government with the smaller Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP). Brandt was elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

As Chancellor, Brandt developed his Neue Ostpolitik (New Eastern Policy). Brandt was active in creating a degree of rapprochement with East Germany, and also in improving relations with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern Bloc (communist) countries. A seminal moment came in December 1970 with the famous Warschauer Kniefall in which Brandt, apparently spontaneously, knelt down at the monument to victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The uprising occurred during the Nazi German military occupation of Poland, and the monument is to those killed by the German troops who suppressed the uprising and deported remaining ghetto residents to the concentration camps for extermination.

Time magazine in the USA named Brandt as its Man of the Year for 1970, stating, "Willy Brandt is in effect seeking to end World War II by bringing about a fresh relationship between East and West. He is trying to accept the real situation in Europe, which has lasted for 25 years, but he is also trying to bring about a new reality in his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc."

In 1971, Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving relations with East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union.

Brandt negotiated a peace treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland, and agreements on the boundaries between the two countries, signifying the official and long delayed end of World War II. Brandt negotiated parallel treaties and agreements between the Federal Republic and Czechoslovakia.

In West Germany, Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik was extremely controversial, dividing the populace into two camps: one camp, embracing all of the conservative parties and most notably the victims i.e., those German speaking, West German residents and their subsequent families who were driven west ("die Heimatvertriebenen") by Stalinist ethnic cleansing from Historical Eastern Germany, especially the part that was arbitrarily given to Poland by the Stalinists; western Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland); and the rest of Eastern Europe, such as in Romania. These groups of displaced Germans and their descendants loudly voiced their opposition to Brandt's policy, calling it "illegal" and "high treason".

A different camp supported and encouraged Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik as aiming at "Wandel durch Annäherung" ("change through rapprochement"), encouraging change through a policy of engagement with the (communist) Eastern Bloc, rather than trying to isolate those countries diplomatically and commercially. Brandt's supporters claim that the policy did help to break down the Eastern Bloc's "siege mentality", and also helped to increase its awareness of the contradictions in its brand of Socialism / Communism, which – together with other events – eventually led to the downfall of Eastern European Communism and Stalinism.

West Germany in the late 1960s was shaken by student disturbances and a general "change of the times" that not all Germans were willing to accept or approve. What had seemed a stable, peaceful nation, happy with its outcome of the "Wirtschaftswunder" ("economic miracle") faced economic turbulence. The German baby boom generation wanted to come to terms with the deeply conservative, bourgeois and demanding parent generation. The baby boomer students were the most outspoken, and they accused their "parental generation" of being outdated and old fashioned and even of having a Nazi past. Compared to their forebears, the "skeptical generation" was much more capricious, willing to embrace more extreme socialist ideology (such as Maoism), and public heroes (such as Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara), while living a looser and more promiscuous lifestyle. Students and young apprentices could afford to move out of their parents' homes, and left wing politics was considered to be chic, as well as taking part in American style political demonstrations against having American military forces in South Vietnam.

Brandt's predecessor as Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a member of the Nazi party, and was a more old fashioned conservative - liberal intellectual. Brandt, having fought the Nazis and having faced down communist Eastern Germany during several crises while he was the Mayor of Berlin, became a controversial, but credible, figure in several different factions. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kiesinger's grand coalition cabinet, Brandt helped to gain further international approval for Western Germany, and he laid the foundation stones for his future Neue Ostpolitik. There was a wide public opinion gap between Kiesinger and Brandt in the West German polls.

Both men had come to their own terms with the new baby boomer lifestyles. Kiesinger considered them to be "a shameful crowd of long haired drop - outs who needed a bath and someone to discipline them". On the other hand, Brandt needed a while to get into contact with, and to earn credibility among, the "Ausserparlamentarische Opposition" (APO) ("the extra - parliamentary opposition"). The students questioned West German society in general, seeking social, legal and political reforms. Also, the unrest led to a renaissance of right wing parties in some of the Bundeslands' (German states under the Bundesrepublik) Parliaments.

Brandt, however, represented a figure of change, and he followed a course of social, legal and political reforms. In 1969, Brandt gained a small majority by forming a coalition with the FDP. In his first speech before the Bundestag as the Chancellor, Brandt set forth his political course of reforms ending the speech with his famous words, "Wir wollen mehr Demokratie wagen" (literally: "We want to take a chance on more Democracy", or more figuratively, "Let's dare more democracy"). This speech made Brandt, as well as the Social Democratic Party, popular among most of the students and other young West German baby boomers who dreamed of a country that would be more open and more colorful than the frugal and still somewhat authoritarian Bundesrepublik that had been built after World War II. However, Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik lost him a large part of the German refugee voters from East Germany, who had been significantly pro - SPD in the postwar years.

Although Brandt is perhaps best known for his achievements in foreign policy, his government oversaw the implementation of a broad range of social reforms, and was known as a "Kanzler der inneren Reformen" ('Chancellor of domestic reform'). According to the historian David Childs, “Brandt was anxious that his government should be a reforming administration and a number of reforms were embarked upon”. Within a few years, the education budget rose from 16 billion to 50 billion DM, while one out of every three DM spent by the new government was devoted to welfare purposes. As noted by the journalist and historian Marion Dönhoff,

“People were seized by a completely new feeling about life. A mania for large scale reforms spread like wildfire, affecting schools, universities, the administration, family legislation. In the autumn of 1970 Jurgen Wischnewski of the SPD declared, ‘Every week more than three plans for reform come up for decision in cabinet and in the Assembly.’ ”

According to Helmut Schmidt, Willy Brandt's domestic reform program had accomplished more than any previous program for a comparable period. A number of liberal social reforms were instituted whilst the welfare state was significantly expanded (with total public spending on social programs nearly doubling between 1969 and 1975), with health, housing and social welfare legislation bringing about welcome improvements, and by the end of the Brandt Chancellorship West Germany had one of the most advanced systems of welfare in the world.

Among his achievements as Chancellor were:

• Substantial increases in social security benefits such as injury and sickness benefits, pensions, unemployment benefits, housing allowances, basic subsistence aid allowances, and family allowances and living allowances. In the government’s first budget, sickness benefits were increased by 9.3%, pensions for war widows by 25%, pensions for the war wounded by 16%, and recruitment pensions by 5%. Numerically, pensions went up by 6.4% (1970), 5.5% (1971), 9.5% (1972), 11.4% (1973), and 11.2% (1974). Adjusted for changes in the annual price index, pensions went up in real terms by 3.1% (1970), 0.3% (1971), 3.9% (1972), 4.4% (1973), and 4.2% (1974). Between 1972 and 1974, the purchasing power of pensioners increased by 19%.
• Improvements in sick pay provision.
• An expanded sickness insurance scheme, with the inclusion of preventative treatment.
• The allocation of more funds towards housing, transportation, schools and communication.
• The index - linking of the income limit for compulsory sickness insurance to changes in the wage level (1970).
• The incorporation of pupils, students and children in kindergartens into the accident insurance scheme (1971), which benefited 11 million children.
• The introduction of generous public stipends for students to cover their living costs.
• The conversion of West German universities from elite schools into mass institutions.
• The Farmers’ Sickness Insurance Law (1972), which introduced compulsory sickness insurance for independent farmers, family workers in agriculture, and pensioners under the farmers’ pension scheme, medical benefits for all covered groups, and cash benefits for family workers under compulsory coverage for pension insurance.
• The introduction of voluntary retirement at 63 with no deductions in the level of benefits.
• The index - linking of war victim’s pensions to wage increases.
• An increase in spending on research and education by nearly 300% between 1970 and 1974.
• The raising of the school leaving age to 16.
• The abolition of fees for higher or further education.
• A considerable increase in the number of higher education institutions.
• The introduction of grants for pupils from lower income groups to stay on at school.
• The introduction of grants for those going into any kind of higher or further education.
• Increases in educational allowances.
• Greater spending on science.
• The introduction of "Vergleichmieten" ('comparable rents'), a loose form of rent regulation.
• A significant rise in the income limit for social housing (1971).
• Increased levels of protection and support for low income tenants and householders, which led to a drop in the number of eviction notices. By 1974, three times as much was paid out in rent subsidies as in 1969, and nearly one and a half million households received rental assistance.
• Increases in public housing subsidies, as characterized by a 36% increase in the social housing budget in 1970 and by the introduction of a program for the construction of 200,000 public housing units (1971).
• The establishment of a federal environmental program (1971).
• Reforms to the armed forces, as characterized by a reduction in basic military training from eighteen to fifteen months and a reorganization of education and training, as well as personnel and procurement procedures.
• The establishment of a women’s policy machinery at the national level (1972).
• The establishment of a Federal Environment Agency (1974) to conduct research into environmental issues and prevent pollution.
• The introduction of redundancy allowances in cases of bankruptcies (1974).
• Improvements in income and work conditions for home workers.
• The introduction of new provisions for the rehabilitation of severely disabled people ("Schwerbehinderte") and accident victims.
• The introduction of guaranteed minimum pension benefits for all West Germans.
• The introduction of fixed minimum rates for women in receipt of very low pensions, and equal treatment for war widows.
• An amendment to the Labor Management Act (1971) which granted workers co-determination on the shop floor.
• The Factory Constitution Law (1971), which strengthened the rights of individual employees “to be informed and to be heard on matters concerning their place of work.” The Works’ Council was provided with greater authority while trade unions were given the right of entry into the factory “provided they informed the employer of their intention to do so”.
• The passage of a law to encourage wider share ownership by workers and other rank - and - file employees.
• An increase in federal aid to sports’ organizations.
• Efforts to improve the railways and motorways.
• A new Factory Management Law (1972) which extended co-determination at the factory level.
• The passing of a law in 1974 to allow for worker representation on the boards of large firms (although this change was not enacted until 1976, after alterations were made).
• The extension of accident insurance to non - working adults.
• The introduction of greater legal rights for women, as exemplified by the standardization of pensions, divorce laws, regulations governing use of surnames, and the introduction of measures to bring more women into politics.
• The Town Planning Act (1971), which encouraged the preservation of historical heritage and helped open up the way to the future of many German cities.
• An addition to the Basic Law which gave the Federal Government some responsibility for educational planning.
• A big increase in spending on education, with educational expenses per head of the population multiplied by five.
• The passing of the Severely Disabled Persons Act (1974), which obliged all employers with more than fifteen employees to ensure that 6% of their workforce was persons officially recognized as being severely disabled. Employers who failed to do so were assessed 100 DM per month for every job falling before the required quota. These compensatory payments were used to subsidize the adaptation of workplaces to the requirements of those who were severely disabled.
• Amendments to the Federal Social Assistance Act (1974). “Help for the vulnerable” was renamed “help for overcoming particular social difficulties,” and the numbers of people eligible for assistance was greatly extended to include all those “whose own capabilities cannot meet the increasing demands of modern industrial society.” The intention of these amendments was to include especially such groups as discharged prisoners, drug and narcotic addicts, alcoholics, and the homeless. As a result of these changes, people who formerly had to be supported by their relatives were now entitled to social assistance.
• The passing of a Foreign Tax Act, which limited the possibility of tax evasion.
• The Urban Renewal Act (1971), which helped the states to restore their inner cities and to develop new neighborhoods.
• The lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18.
• Improvements in pension provision for women and the self employed.
• The introduction of a new minimum pension for workers with at least twenty - five years’ insurance.
• The Second Sickness Insurance Modification Law (1972), which linked the indexation of the income limit for compulsory employee coverage to the development of the pension insurance contribution ceiling (75% of the ceiling), obliged employers to pay half of the contributions in the case of voluntary membership, extended the criteria for voluntary membership of employees, and introduced preventive medical check-ups for certain groups.
• The Pension Reform Law (1972), which guaranteed all retirees a minimum pension regardless of their contributions and institutionalized the norm that the standard pension (of average earners with forty years of contributions) should not fall below 50% of current gross earnings. The 1972 pension reforms improved eligibility conditions and benefits for nearly every subgroup of the West German population. The income replacement rate for employees who made full contributions was raised to 70% of average earnings. The reform also replaced 65 as the mandatory retirement age with a “retirement window” ranging between 63 and 65 for employees who had worked for at least thirty - five years. Employees who qualified as disabled and had worked for at least thirty - five years were extended a more generous retirement window, which ranged between the ages of 60 and 62. Women who had worked for at least fifteen years (ten of which had to be after the age of age 40), and the long term unemployed were also granted the same retirement window as the disabled. In addition, there were no benefit reductions for employees who had decided to retire earlier than the age of 65. The legislation also changed the way in which pensions were calculated for low income earners who had been covered for twenty - five or more years. If the pension benefit fell below a specified level, then such workers were allowed to substitute a wage figure of 75% of the average wage during this period, thus creating something like a minimum wage benefit.
• The introduction of a pension reform package, which incorporated an additional year of insurance for mothers.
• The liberalization of the penal code.
• The Housing Construction Modification Law of 1971, which increased the income limit for access to low rent apartments under the social housing program from 9,000 DM to 12,000 DM per annum plus 3,000 DM (instead of 2,400) for each family member. The law also introduced special subsidies to reduce the debt burden for builders not surpassing the regular income limit by more than 40%. Under a 1973 law, the limits were increased to 1,000 DM plus 9,000 DM and 4,200 DM for additional family members.
• An increase in tax free allowances for children, which enabled 1,000,000 families to claim an allowance for the second child, compared to 300,000 families previously.
• The Second Housing Allowance Law of December 1970, which simplified the administration of housing allowances and extended entitlements, increased the income limit to 9,600 DM per year plus 2,400 DM for each family member, raised the general deduction on income to determine reckonable income from 15% to 20%, allowance rates listed in tales replacing complicated calculation procedure based on “bearable rent burdens.”
• The exemption of pensioners from paying a 2% health insurance contribution.
• The Hospital Financing Law (1972), which secured the supply of hospitals and reduced the cost of hospital care, “defined the financing of hospital investment as a public responsibility, single states to issue plans for hospital development, and the federal government to bear the cost of hospital investment covered in the plans, rates for hospital care thus based on running costs alone, hospitals to ensure that public subsidies together with insurance fund payments for patients cover total costs”.
• A new fund of 100 million marks for disabled children.
• The Rent Improvement Law (1971), which strengthened the position of tenants. Under this legislation, notice was to be ruled illegal “where appropriate substitute accommodation not available; landlords obliged to specify reasons for notice.”
• The granting of equal rights to illegitimate children (1970).
• The Eviction Protection Law (1971) which established tenant protection against rent rises and notice. The notice was only lawful if in the “justified interest of the landlord. Under this law, higher rents were not recognized as “justified interest.”
• A law for the creation of property for workers, under which a married worker would normally keep up to 95% of his pay, and graded tax remission for married wage earners applied up to a wage of 48,000 marks, which indicated the economic prosperity of West Germany at that time.
• The Benefit Improvement Law (1973), which made entitlement to hospital care legally binding (entitlements already enjoyed in practice), abolished time limits for hospital care, introduced entitlement to household assistance under specific conditions, and also introduced entitlement to leave of absence from work and cash benefits in the event of a child’s illness.
• Increased allowances for retraining and advanced training and for refugees from East Germany.
• The Seventh Modification Law (1973), which linked the indexation of farmers’ pensions to the indexation of the general pension insurance scheme.
• An increase in federal grants for sport.
• The Third Modification Law (1974), which extended individual entitlements to social assistance by means of higher income limits compatible with receipt of benefits and lowered age limits for certain special benefits. Rehabilitation measures were also extended, child supplements were expressed as percentages of standard amounts and were thus indexed to their changes, and grandparents of recipients were exempted from potential liability to reimburse expenditure of social assistance carrier.
• An amendment to a federal civil service reform bill (1971) which enabled fathers to apply for part time civil service work.
• The allocation to local communities of matching grants covering 90% of infrastructure development. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of public swimming pools and other facilities of consumptive infrastructure throughout West Germany.
• The Second Eviction Protection Law (1972) which made the tenant protection introduced under the Eviction Protection Law of 1971 permanent. Under this new law, the notice was only lawful where the landlord proved justified personal interest in the apartment. In addition, rent increases were only lawful if not above normal comparable rents in the same area.
• A modernization of the federal crime fighting apparatus.
• The Third Social Welfare Amendment Act (1974), which brought considerable improvements for the handicapped, those in need of care, and older persons.
• The introduction of a matching fund program for 15 million employees, which stimulated them to accumulate capital.
• A much needed school and college construction program.
• The Industrial Relations Law (1972) and the Personnel Representation Act (1974), which not only broadened the rights of employees in matters which immediately affected their places of work, but also improved the possibilities for co-determination on operations committees, together with access of trade unions to companies. In 1972, the rights of works councils to information from management were not only strengthened, but works councils were also provided with full co-determination rights on issues such as working time arrangements in the plant, the setting of piece rates, plant wage systems, the establishment of vacation times, work breaks, overtime, and short time work.
• The introduction of substantial federal benefits for farmers.
• The passage of a progressive anti - cartel law.
• The introduction of legislation which ensured continued payment of wages for workers disabled by illness (1970).
• A modernization of the armed forces establishment.
• The introduction of postgraduate support for highly qualified graduates, providing them with the opportunity to earn their doctorates or undertake research studies.
• The introduction of a contributory medical service for 23 million panel patients.
• The Third Law for the Liberalization of the Penal Code (1970), which liberalized “the right to political demonstration”.
• The introduction of free hospital care for 9 million recipients of social relief.
• The lowering of the age of eligibility for political office to twenty - one.
• Increases in the pensions of 2.5 million war victims.
• The lowering of the office age of majority to eighteen (March 1974).
• The abolition of fixed prices for branded products by law (January 1974). This meant that manufacturers’ recommended prices were not binding for retailers.
• An increase in the number of teachers.
• A strengthening of the consumer’s right of withdrawal in case of hire purchase (March 1974).
• The passage of a law which guaranteed “amnesty in minor offenses connected with demonstrations.”
• The attainment of a lower rate of inflation than in other industrialized countries at that time.
• A rise in the standard of living, helped by the floating and revaluation of the mark. This was characterized by the real incomes of employees increasing more sharply than incomes from entrepreneurial work, with the proportion of employees’ incomes in the overall national income rising from 65% to 70% between 1969 and 1973, while the proportion of income from entrepreneurial work and property fell over that same period from just under 35% to 30%.

Though Brandt remained Chancellor, he had lost his majority. Subsequent initiatives in parliament, most notably on the budget, failed. Because of this stalemate, the Bundestag was dissolved and new elections were called. During the 1972 campaign, many popular West German artists, intellectuals, writers, actors and professors supported Brandt and the SPD. Among them were Günter Grass, Walter Jens, and even the soccer player Paul Breitner. Brandt's Ostpolitik as well as his reformist domestic policies were popular with parts of the young generation and led his SPD party to its best ever federal election result in late 1972. The "Willy - Wahl", Brandt's landslide win was the beginning of the end; and Brandt's role in government started to decline.

Many of Brandt's reforms met with resistance from state governments (dominated by CDU / CSU). The spirit of reformist optimism was cut short by the 1973 oil crisis and the major public services strike 1974, which gave Germany's trade unions, led by Heinz Kluncker, a big wage increase but reduced Brandt's financial leeway for further reforms. Brandt was said to be more a dreamer than a manager and was personally haunted by depression. To counter any notions about being sympathetic to Communism or soft on left wing extremists, Brandt implemented tough legislation that barred "radicals" from public service ("Radikalenerlass").

Around 1973, West German security organizations received information that one of Brandt's personal assistants, Günter Guillaume, was a spy for the East German intelligence services. Brandt was asked to continue working as usual, and he agreed to do so, even taking a private vacation with Guillaume. Guillaume was arrested on 24 April 1974, and many blamed Brandt for having a communist spy in his inner circle. Thus disgraced, Brandt resigned from his position as the Chancellor on 6 May 1974. However, Brandt remained in the Bundestag and as the Chairman of the Social Democrats through 1987.

This espionage affair is widely considered to have been just the trigger for Brandt's resignation, not the fundamental cause. Brandt was dogged by scandals about serial adultery, and reportedly also struggled with alcohol and depression. There was also the economic fallout on West Germany of the 1973 oil crisis, which almost seems to have been enough stress to finish off Brandt as the Chancellor. As Brandt himself later said, "I was exhausted, for reasons which had nothing to do with the process [the Guillaume espionage scandal] going on at the time."

Guillaume had been an espionage agent for East Germany, who was supervised by Markus Wolf, the head of the "Main Intelligence Administration" of the East German Ministry for State Security. Wolf stated after the reunification that the resignation of Brandt had never been intended, and that the planting and handling of Guillaume had been one of the largest mistakes of the East German secret services.

Brandt was succeeded as the Chancellor of the Bundesrepublik by his fellow Social Democrat, Helmut Schmidt. For the rest of his life, Brandt remained suspicious that his fellow Social Democrat (and longtime rival) Herbert Wehner had been scheming for Brandt's downfall. However, there is scant evidence to corroborate this suspicion.

After his term as the Chancellor, Brandt retained his seat in the Bundestag, and he remained the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party through 1987. Beginning in 1987, Brandt stepped down to become the Honorary Chairman of the party. Brandt was also a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983.

For sixteen years, Brandt was the president of the Socialist International (1976 – 92), during which period the number of Socialist International's mainly European member parties grew until there were more than a hundred socialist, social democratic, and labor political parties around the world. For the first seven years, this growth in SI membership had been prompted by the efforts of the Socialist International's Secretary General, the Swede Bernt Carlsson. However, in early 1983, a dispute arose about what Carlsson perceived as the SI president's authoritarian approach. Carlsson then rebuked Brandt saying: "this is a Socialist International — not a German International".

Next, against some vocal opposition, Brandt decided to move the next Socialist International Congress from Sydney, Australia, to Portugal. Following this SI Congress in April 1983, Brandt retaliated against Carlsson by forcing him to step down from his position. However, the Austrian Prime Minister, Bruno Kreisky, argued on behalf of Brandt: "It is a question of whether it is better to be pure or to have greater numbers". Carlsson was succeeded by the Finn, Pentti Vaananen as Secretary General of the Socialist International.

In 1977, Brandt was appointed as the chairman of the Independent Commission for International Developmental Issues. This produced a report in 1980, which called for drastic changes in the global attitude towards development in the Third World. This became known as the Brandt Report.

In October 1979, Brandt met with the East German dissident, Rudolf Bahro, who had written The Alternative. Bahro and his supporters were attacked by the East German state security organization Stasi, headed by Erich Mielke, for his writings, which had laid the theoretical foundation of a leftist opposition to the ruling SED party and its dependent allies, and which promoted new and changed parties. All of this is now described as "change from within". Brandt had asked for Bahro's release, and Brandt welcomed Bahro's theories, which advanced the debate within his own Social Democratic Party. In late 1989, Brandt became one of the first leftist leaders in West Germany to publicly favor a quick reunification of Germany, instead of some sort of two state federation or other kind of interim arrangement. Brandt's public statement "Now grows together what belongs together," was widely quoted in those days.

One of Brandt's last public appearances was in flying to Baghdad, Iraq, to free Western hostages held by Saddam Hussein, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Brandt secured the release of a large number of them, and on November 9, 1990, his airplane landed with 174 freed hostages on board at the Frankfurt Airport.

Willy Brandt died of colon cancer at his home in Unkel, a town on the Rhine River, on 8 October 1992, and was given a state funeral. He was buried at the cemetery at Zehlendorf in Berlin.

When the SPD moved its headquarters from Bonn back to Berlin in the mid 1990s, the new headquarters was named the "Willy Brandt Haus". One of the buildings of the European Parliament in Brussels was named after him in 2008.

German artist Johannes Heisig painted several portraits of Brandt of which one was unveiled as part of an honoring event at German Historical Institute Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2003. Spokesmen among others were former German Federal Minister Egon Bahr and former U.S. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

In 2009, the University of Erfurt renamed its graduate school of public administration as the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. A private German language secondary school in Warsaw, Poland, is also named after Brandt.

A new airport southeast of Germany's capital Berlin, named for Brandt, had been scheduled to open in June 2012, but in May Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit announced its opening would be delayed until March 2013, due in part to concerns about fire safety systems. Officially, the airport would be called Berlin Brandenburg Airport "Willy Brandt".

From 1941 until 1948 Brandt was married to Anna Carlotta Thorkildsen (the daughter of a Norwegian father and a German - American mother). The two of them had a daughter, Ninja Brandt (born in 1940). After Brandt and Thorkildsen were divorced in 1948, Brandt married the Norwegian Rut Hansen in 1948. Hansen and Brandt had three sons: Peter Brandt (born in 1948), Lars Brandt (born in 1951), and Matthias Brandt (born in 1961). Peter became a historian, Lars an artist, and Matthias an actor. After 32 years of marriage, Willy Brandt and Rut Hansen Brand divorced in 1980, and from the day they were divorced, they never saw each other again. On 9 December 1983, Brandt married Brigitte Seebacher (born in 1946).

Rut Hansen Brandt outlived Willy Brandt but died on 28 July 2006 in Berlin.

In 2003, Matthias Brandt acted the role of Guillaume in the movie Im Schatten der Macht ("In the Shadow of Power") directed by the German filmmaker Oliver Storz. This movie deals with the Guillaume affair and Willy Brandt's resignation from the Chancellorship. Matthias caused a minor controversy in Germany when it was announced that he would portray the man who betrayed his father, and who caused him to resign in 1974. Earlier in 1974 - when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation in Norway together - it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife "were typing mysterious things on typewriters the whole night through."

In early 2006, Lars Brandt published a biography of his father called "Andenken" ('Remembrance'). This book has been the subject of some controversy. Some see it as a loving memory of the father - son relationship, but others label it as a ruthless statement of a son who still thinks that he never had a father who really loved him.