On 15 July 1963 Egon Bahr spoke at the Protestant Academy in Tutzing about the divided Germany. He said that reunification was ein Prozeß mit vielen Schritten und vielen Stationen, a process with many steps and many stations. His first conclusion was daß die Politik des Alles oder Nichts ausscheidet, that a policy of all or nothing was ruled out. He summed up his proposal in a formula: Wandel durch Annäherung, change through rapprochement.
Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, this long, step-by-step policy toward the East has been disputed in Germany. A 2023 paper of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung notes: Seit dem Angriff Russlands auf die Ukraine wird in Deutschland über die jüngere sozialdemokratische Geschichte gestritten.