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The 'Hallstein Doctrine', named after Walter Hallstein, was a key doctrine in the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) between 1955 and 1969. It was supported by the Christian Democratic Party.
According to the doctrine, the Federal Republic of Germany had the exclusive right to represent the entire German nation, and with the exception of the Soviet Union, West Germany would not establish or maintain diplomatic relations with any state that recognized East Germany. The doctrine was first applied to Yugoslavia in 1957.
East Germany attempted to undermine this doctrine by forming diplomatic relationships with the newly decolonized nations of the Third World.
The doctrine was never popular, even with West Germany's western allies, as it effectively tried to impose retroactive conditions on the unconditional surrender of 1945. It weakened with the re-establishing of diplomatic relations to Romania (1967) and Yugoslavia (1969) and was finally abandoned with the adoption of ''Ostpolitik''(Eastern Politics) by Chancellor Willy Brandt, which resulted in mutual recognition between East and West Germany as two states (though not as two nations).

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Similar situations

China

Vietnam

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Similar situations

China

Main articles: One-China policy

For decades, the People's Republic of China (PRC), based in mainland China, and the Republic of China (ROC), based in Taiwan, applied a similar policy upon each other. Both claimed to speak for the entire nation of China and did not establish diplomatic relations with any country that had diplomatic relations with the opposing side. Initially most countries of the world recognized the ROC; this number dwindled over the years as most countries of the world switched to the PRC. In 1971, the ROC, a founding member of the United Nations, was expelled, and the PRC admitted in its place.
Since the 1990s, the stance of the Republic of China has softened. It no longer claims sovereignty over mainland China, no longer claims to represent the entire Chinese nation, and now applies to the United Nations yearly in the name of the people of Taiwan rather than all of China. When the ROC established ties with Kiribati in 2003, it did not demand that Kiribati break its existing ties with the PRC.
The PRC's stance has not softened and it does not maintain diplomatic relations with the 20 or so countries that recognize the ROC.

Vietnam

During the Vietnam war for instance, there was not really a Hallstein Doctrine in either North Vietnam or South Vietnam. In fact, at the beginning of the war, a country which had recognized either the North or the South would rarely recognize the other half, for political reasons, but when some European countries started recognizing North Vietnam towards the end of the war, like Switzerland in 1971, South Vietnam did not interrupt its diplomatic relations with them. Switzerland thus recognized North Vietnam in 1971 but also turned its consulate in Saigon (South Vietnam) into an embassy until the end of the war in 1975.

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