vernment of Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Willy Brandt" (Hanreider, Page 324.) Willy Brandt took the position of foreign minister in 1966 alongside Kurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor. Brandt was considered a political genius and pushed Germany forward toward new policies regarding the East. "Brandt nonetheless tried to remain within the broad outlines of Western foreign policy. He believed that Germany could not have a private dtente, but he also believed that global dtente could not succeed without Germany." (Smyser, Page 217.) Brandt and Kiesinger did not always agree on issues and Brandt was eager to try and win over the chancellorship in order to implement the policies that he deemed necessary for West Germany. In the 1969 election he was given his chance, leading West Germany into the third decade of the Cold War.Yet another interesting twist on West German policy was its attitude towards the Westernization of German society. When "rock and roll" music began to leak into Germany in the 1950s along with a new fashion of girls in ponytails and "James Dean jackets," the country was outraged. They charged the music as disrupting a society that balanced on men as the providers and dominant figure and women as the homemakers and docile personalities. They saw figures such as Elvis Presley a challenge to male machismo and female sexuality. "In the mid-1960s West German sociologists confirmed that consumer culture was not threatening the stability of the state. According to Walter Jaide, adolescents made use of the offerings of consumer culture, without rejecting 'timeless bourgeois conditions' in politics, religion, lifestyle, or attitudes toward work, family, and leisure time." (Poiger, Page 213.) This showed an increasing toleration to Western ideas and a less fearful approach toward them. "And by the mid-1960s the notion of a youth rebellion had all but disappeared." (Poiger, Page 608.) However, the youth movement was importan...
