NATO as a Framework for Nuclear Nonproliferation
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400204 |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Author | Oliver Bange |
| Subject Matter | NATO at 60 |
NATO as a frame-
work for nuclear
nonproliferation
The West German case, 1954-2008
The following analysis focuses on how the nuclear powers of the west were
able to prevent the spread of nuclear weapon possession among their allies
within the wider framing of the east-west conflict and by multilateralizing the
issue—or the eventual solution—through NATO. Although the article looks
into history, away from the grey of today’s nonproliferation problems into
the clear-cut past of the east-west conflict with its undisputed definition of
friends and foes, some of its findings also point to current problems
bedevilling NATO policies in this field.
In the 1960s, the key challenge to a successful nonproliferation strategy
within the western alliance was the question of West German possession of
nuclear weapons. East and West Germany provided welcome manpower in
the unfolding Cold War within their respective pacts, but the legacies of
Hitler’s Reich meant that they both remained on constant probation. For
West Germany, this meant reliance upon American, British, and (later)
Oliver Bange is a senior researcher at the Military History Research Institute, German
ministry of defence, in Potsdam.The archival research for this article was undertaken
within the framework of the international historiographical project “CSCE and the
transformation of Europe,” funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung and coordinated by the
author. Further details and publications can be found at www.CSCE-1975.net.
| International Journal | Spring 2009 | 361 |
| Oliver Bange |
French nuclear weapons. However, such dependence, combined with the
likely use of nuclear weapons in a future war, brought about profound
feelings of vulnerability and exposure in West Germany. This in turn
encouraged various West German schemes designed to gain access to
nuclear weaponry and nuclear planning so as to have a more central role in,
and control over, the deterrence game.
In the light of this very real interest, and considering the growing
political influence of Bonn within the west, West Germany’s financial
strength as well as its undisputed technological capability to provide both
up-to-date delivery vehicles and enriched nuclear material for warheads, a
whole raft of questions arise: why did West Germany never acquire nuclear
weapons? What made it possible for this nuclear abstention to be maintained
throughout the various stages of the east-west conflict until 1989-90 and
beyond? And what were the ingredients that made for the sustainability of
this arrangement? While the core deal for a non-nuclear West Germany was
struck between Washington and Bonn, it was enacted through the
nonproliferation treaty and NATO. The framing for the continuation of West
Germany’s (non)nuclear status proved to be key for the limitation of the
spread of nuclear weapons within the western alliance—and maintaining it
became an ongoing task and even a raison d’être for NATO itself.
While many of these questions may remind the reader of today’s
dilemmas, the following is a historiographical analysis. As such, it will lead
the reader through various—albeit selective—historical stages: the 1950s
with the watershed year of 1957; the realization of a meaningful treaty on
nonproliferation, including the signature of West Germany, in November
1969; the nuclear threats and dilemmas of 1977-78 leading up to NATO’s
dual-track decision; and a brief outlook on 1989-90 and Germany’s position
and choices regarding nuclear weapons today. Finally, the article will try to
square some aspects of this particular nuclear history with the still-
preliminary thoughts on “sustainable diplomacy” developed by an
interdisciplinary research group convened by James Der Derian and Costas
Constantinou, which focuses on the virtues and limitations of traditional
diplomacy and the necessary wider—regional, economical, ecological,
ideological, religious, etc.—framing for long-lasting arrangements.1
1 With the support of International Peace Research Institute’s Cyprus Centre and the
Watson Institute of Brown University, the group discussed these ideas at two
conferences: “Paths to sustainable diplomacy,” 10-11 December 2007, in Nicosia,
Cyprus; and “Global security and sustainable diplomacy,” 30 May 2007, in Providence,
RI. An edited volume on the first results is planned for 2009.
| 362 | Spring 2009 | International Journal |
| NATO as a framework for nuclear nonproliferation |
THE “SILENT OPTION”: BONN’S NUCLEAR POLICIES IN THE 1950S
Throughout the early and mid-1950s both the military and political
leadership in West Germany paid little if any attention to nuclear weapons.
In the Himmeroder Denkschrift—the founding document of what was to
become the Bundeswehr—nuclear weapons were hardly mentioned at all
and certainly not as a desirable option for the West Germans. Instead, West
German generals busied themselves with rethinking their plans for large
tank battles, developed in rather less fortunate times. Meanwhile, Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer even seemed to hope that the Soviet Union would develop
its own nuclear weaponry as quickly as possible, as this would virtually rule
out the possibility of war.2
Against this background, it was relatively easy for Adenauer to fulfil the
requirements of the western allies for West Germany’s accession to the
Western European Union—and later on to NATO. During the nine-power
conference in London in the autumn of 1954, the chancellor proclaimed West
Germany’s abstention from “atomic” (nuclear), biological, and chemical
weapons (referred to as ABC weapons). But the “sly fox”—as Adenauer was
then known—inserted a number of important limitations: the declaration
had been made voluntarily and only to West Germany’s allies, and the
abstention from building these weapons explicitly referred to German
territory.3 This of course implied that this voluntary declaration might be
revoked at any time, and that development, production, and acquisition of
nuclear weapons remained possible throughout—as long as the latter took
place outside of German territory. It amounted to nothing less than a “silent
option” on nuclear weapons.4
2 In December 1953, reacting to Soviet nuclear tests, Adenauer publicly proclaimed
that after the Soviet Union’s acquisition of nuclear weapons “war will no longer be a
means to decide the differences between peoples” so that the “nuclear weapon itself
will have killed war,“ Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 12 December 1953. The Himmeroder
Denkschrift, whose official title is “Memorandum on setting up a German contingent
within the framework of an international force for the defence of Europe,” can be found
in Bundesarchiv–Militärarchiv (BAMA), Freiburg, Breisgau, BW 9/3119.
3 Speech by Adenauer before the West German parliament, the Bundestag, on 5
October 1954, in Bundespresse und Informationsamt, ed., “Die Londoner Akte: Die
Konferenz der Neun Mächte in London vom 28.9. bis 3.10.1954,” 24f.
4 Michael Knoll, “Die stille Nuklearoption: Deutsche Atomwaffenpolitik in der Ära
Adenauer,” MA thesis, Mannheim, July 2007.
| International Journal | Spring 2009 | 363 |
| Oliver Bange |
Indeed, once the Americans started to deploy nuclear artillery along the
Iron Curtain in late 1953, it became clear that West German troops also had
to be trained and equipped with these weapons under a dual-key
arrangement—because otherwise they would represent an obvious entry-
gate for advancing Soviet tank armies. Training started secretly in 1955, and
the new nuclear artillery was treated as the latest addition to the conventional
battle ground.5
But this rather reassuring mindset dramatically changed in and around
1957. Throughout the 1950s, the West German military and political
establishment was kept well away from NATO nuclear planning. In 1955, a
NATO exercise called Carte Blanche went through the likely stages of an all-
out war between east and west. And in the shortest time, starting with the
British commanders in the north, Germany—West and East—was hit by
several hundred nuclear explosions fired by the west in a desperate attempt
to stop Soviet tanks from reaching the Rhine. Rumours of this virtual
catastrophe slowly but surely trickled through to Bonn. When, four years
later, after much personal pressure from Adenauer and his minister of
defence, Franz Josef Strauss, the supreme allied commander Europe, US
general Lauris Norstad, finally allowed a German colleague to see (note-
taking or the provision of copies were still denied) the results of the exercise,
decision-makers in Bonn were shaken. They finally realized that their allies
had planned for what they rightly perceived as a “Golgotha of the German
people” in order to obtain a questionable victory over Soviet armies.6
5 During a press conference on 5 April 1957, the chancellor maintained that tactical
nuclear weapons were no more than the latest weapon update for the artillery,
Bundesarchiv Koblenz: B 145, Bundespresse und Informationsamt, I/68. Adenauer
repeated and detailed this assessment on 11 May 1957 before the Christian Democratic
Union’s steering council, claiming that the newly formed West German divisions (!)
had to be equipped with the latest weaponry. See Günter Buchstab, ed., “Wir haben
wirklich etwas geschafft,” Die Protokolle des CDU-Bundesvorstandes 1953-1957
(Düsseldorf: Droste, 1990), 1228. For a general assessment of Adenauer’s shifting
approach towards nuclear weapons, see Hans-Peter Schwarz, “Adenauer und die
Kernwaffen,”...
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