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As a specialist of Cold War History, Ulrich Pfeil analyses West German-Soviet relations from Brandt to Kohl, from the “Neue Ostpolitik” (Brandt’s "New Eastern Policy"- 1969-1973) to the process of German reunification which took place directly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Falling in the "middle" of this epoch, Helmut Schmidt’s government is often referred to as a phase of transition. It was characterized on the one hand by the will of the two leaders in Bonn and Moscow not to exacerbate relations and to defrost the Cold War, and on the other hand by the failure of the Détente policy in the late 1970s and a new proliferation of arms. The relations between the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union are to be examined in this context of fragile balance. It is also this normalized relationship between Bonn and Moscow that explains how German unification could take place so rapidly in 1989/90.