'More truth in politics!' - The Tubingen Memorandum of 1961 (Germany, postwar political history)

Under the heading "More Honesty in Politics" eight prominent members of the Protestant Church drew up a brief memorandum known as the Tubinger Memoran dum which was to serve as a framework for talks with all party members repr esented in the Bundestag. Although issues concerning domestic and foreign p olicy were dealt with, the discussions focused almost entirely on the quest ion of the Oder-Neisse Line especially after the contents of the memorandum became known in February 1962. The Protestant Church played a crucial role in the embittered public debate, inasmuch as, it included within it, champ ions of the existing border with Poland, as well as, determined opponents o f it. The Tubinger Memorandum quickly led to the Ostdenkschrift, published in the fall of 1965 under the title of "The Condition of Exiled Germans and the Relationship of the German People to its Eastern Neighbor". This text contributed significantly to the new "Ostpolitik" introduced by the Social Democratic Liberal government.