The triangle FRG–USSR–GDR

Government and party officials were, when interviewed, generally reluctant to discuss the FRG's relations with the GDR in the context of FRG–Soviet relations, one party official stating to the author that it was a difficult and discreet question on which only the Chancellor could decide whether to release information. In answer to the question as to whether the FRG was able to put a lot of pressure on the GDR through Moscow, one government official's response was that apart from one exception over the raising and extension of the minimum daily exchange rate for visitors to the GDR in 1980, the FRG never did this for the reason that they would not like to have seen the Soviet Union put pressure on the GDR, because the more the Soviet Union did this, the more it would have weakened East Germany. It would have encouraged the Soviet Union in the installation of itself as a hegemonial power and the FRG did not want the Soviet Union to use even benevolent influence. The only time the Soviet Union was used was for practical issues such as the exchange of spies. Another government official agreed with this view and said that the Federal Republic could not achieve better relations with the GDR behind the back of the Soviet Union but equally could not play alone with the Soviets and ask them to put pressure on the GDR.