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The ideas held by decision makers with regard to international politics, or their worldview, has an important effect on their policies. While territorial expansions and contractions have gained increasing scholarly attention lately, one of the most intriguing and consequential changes of territorial policy remains understudied. Germany have lost almost one fourth of its territory in WW-II (mainly to Poland). Up until the late 1960s West Germany adamantly rejected calls for recognizing these new borders. Within two years of the establishment of the SPD/FDP government, however, the Federal Republic signed aggreement with the Soviet Union and Poland that assured its official recognition of the new borders. This paper explains this change of policy as a consequence not simply of different worldviews held by different leaders, but of different realist worldviews of Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, which led to the recognition of the Oder-Neisse line as Poland's western border. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]