Neue Ostpolitik (German for "new eastern policy"), or Ostpolitik for short, refers to the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) beginning in 1969. Influenced by Egon Bahr, who proposed "change through rapprochement" in a 1963 speech, the policies were implemented beginning with Willy Brandt, fourth Chancellor of the FRG from 1969 to 1974.

Ostpolitik was an effort to break with the policies of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which was the elected government of West Germany from 1949 until 1969. The Christian Democrats under Konrad Adenauer and his successors tried to combat the Communist regime of East Germany, while Brandt's Social Democrats tried to achieve a certain degree of cooperation with East Germany.

The term Ostpolitik has since been applied to Pope Paul VI's efforts to engage Eastern European countries during the same period. The term Nordpolitik was also coined to describe similar rapprochement policies between North and South Korea beginning in the 1980s.

Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.

Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.

In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.

Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.

Egon Karl-Heinz Bahr (born March 18, 1922) is a German SPD politician.

The former journalist was the creator of the "Ostpolitik" promoted by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, for whom he served as Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office from 1969 until 1972. Between 1972 and 1990 he was an MP in the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany and from 1972 until 1976 was also a Minister of the Federal Government.

Bahr was a key figure in multiple negotiation sessions between not only East and West Germany, but also Germany and the Soviets. In addition to his instrumental role in Ostpolitik, Bahr was also an influential voice in negotiating the Treaty of Moscow, the Treaty of Warsaw, the Transit Treaty of 1971, and the Basic Treaty of 1972.

As a politician, Bahr understood himself as motivated by a sense of maintaining "the national integrity" of Germany as a whole as much as possible.

After completing his secondary education in 1940, Bahr continued his education as an industrial specialist at the Rheinmetall-Borsig armament corporation in Berlin. During World War II, Bahr served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht from 1942 until 1944, ultimately in the capacity of “Fahnenjunker” (cadet) in the Luftkriegsschule VI in Kitzingen. He was, however, demoted after being accused of being non-Aryan (on account of an allegedly Jewish grandmother) and, thus, having “snuck into the Wehrmacht”. Thereafter, he received a posting as an armaments worker at Rheinmetall-Borsig.

Gerhard Löwenthal (born 8 December, 1922 in Berlin, died 6 December, 2002 in Wiesbaden) was a prominent German journalist, human rights activist and author. He presented the ZDF-Magazin, a news magazine of ZDF which highlighted human rights abuses in communist-ruled Eastern Europe, from 1969 to 1987. Löwenthal was known as a staunch anticommunist.

He was Jewish, and was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during Nazi rule. After the war he chose to remain in his native country and went on to study medicine. He also worked as a reporter for RIAS, before he became one of the first students at the Free University of Berlin.

His father-in-law was CDU politician Ernst Lemmer.

The Gerhard Löwenthal Prize, annually awarded by his widow Ingeborg Löwenthal, the conservative newspaper Junge Freiheit and the Foundation for Conservative Education and Research, is named in his honour.

He is buried at the Jewish cemetery at Heerstraße in Berlin.

Fritz Schenk (10 March 1930 in Helbra near Eisleben; † 4 May 2006 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German publicist, journalist and television anchorman. He become well known for the general public thanks to his participation in ZDF-Magazin.

Schenk was born into a politically active and traditionally social democratic family in Helbra. A number of his family members were persecuted by Nazis in the Third Reich.

His father was a hydraulic engineer and worked for years managing a waterworks in Harz region, German Democratic Republic. When Fritz Schenk later escaped to the Federal Republic of Germany, his father was dismissed from the job and died of heart infarction on 10 November 1962 after an interrogation by the Stasi. Schenk later accused Communists throughout all of his life of having killed his father, whereas Nazis had just treated him in an unhuman manner

Since 1951, Fritz Schenk was married to Rosemarie (maiden name Müller). They had three sons.

Schenk joined the German Social Democratic Party after World War II. When the party was forcibly unified with the Communist Party of Germany, he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).