Horst Ehmke is one of the primary characters of Michael Frayn’s “ Democracy,” played in the Broadway version by Richard Masur. Ehmke in the early 1970s, the time depicted in the show, was a key advisor to Chancellor Willy Brandt, the central character of the story. Brandt headed the German government from 1969–1974.

Ehmke is shown in the play as a somewhat enigmatic figure. His loyalty to Brandt is not questioned, but he doesn’t attempt to protect his boss from the spy, Günter Guillaume, Richard Thomas in the Broadway cast. I was curious about that depiction. Some of the other dramatic assertions in the play also surprised me. They didn’t seem right or they prompted further questions. I wondered about the extent to which the play was true to events. I had met Horst Ehmke 25 years ago in 1979 when I visited Germany as a freelance journalist to write about the political situation there. He was then a leader of the Social Democrats in the Bundestag, the German
parliament, and his party leader, Helmut Schmidt, was Chancellor. After that first meeting, I saw Ehmke regularly on trips to Bonn or when he came to New York.

So I phoned my old friend Horst and then wrote him a series of questions to get his reaction to the play in which his persona is a major character. I intersperse my questions and his responses:

Dear Lucy,
Thanks for your E-Mail. You did not write me yet how the Frayn play pleased you. I answer your questions now, and then you must write to me.

Komisar: Frayn shows Guillaume as truly personally devoted to Brandt. Was this true?
Ehmke: Guillaume indeed developed an affection for Willy Brandt. At the end he probably wanted to serve both Willy Brandt and Markus Wolf.
Komisar: The play suggests that you pushed Guillaume on Brandt and let Guillaume get the job without any discussion. Is that true? And that when Brandt asked you to get rid of Guillaume, you didn’t do it. Is that true? Why?
Ehmke: I did not recommend Guillaume; he was George Leber’s man in Hesse, nor did I decline to throw him out. Against the furious protest of Leber, I let him be turned by the security mill. The protection of the constitution failed completely. Everyone gave his "Okay", although at that time the material through which Guillaume was later condemned already lay in their archives. In my book "Mittendrin" [In the Middle of It] (1994) I described it in detail. But, Frayn’s piece is a "dramatic play," not documentation. Such a piece needs condensation, simplification and also twisting, so that it remains dramatic. Even Hamlet would have been surprised at some of what Shakespeare spread about him.
Komisar: Who is Misha? Markus Wolf? What did he know that was crucial?
Ehmke: "Mischa" is Markus Wolf. Everyone naturally knew that.
Komisar: Frayn has Herbert Wehner blackmailing Brandt by threatening to reveal a list of women he was involved with. Is that true? Did Wehner and also Schmidt conspire to get rid of Brandt? Why?
Ehmke: Wehner did not threaten Brandt; he only made the possible consequences apparent. Nevertheless, you know such a thing.
Wehner and Schmidt wanted Brandt out (and knew that they first had to cast me off ). Wehner and Brandt: they were incompatible souls. And Wehner believed that Brandt let the things sharpen after the conclusion of the East contracts so that he did not fulfill “the contracts with lives." Schmidt always held himself out to be the better chancellor (about that see "Mittendrin”).
Komisar: Or did Brandt resign when the Guillaume connection was revealed?
Ehmke: Brandt did not withdraw only because of Guillaume. He was exhausted because of the political situation and his spent health.
Your general question, ‘What in Frayn’s piece is "true and not true?’ is too short-sighted. He wrote a multilayered drama. On the whole, the piece remains close to the reality. But there are naturally condensations, exaggerations and a number of embellishments for the public, e.g. the constant red wine drinking (one drank little in the Chancellery).

Only in a central point does Frayn deviate completely from the reality: by letting Guillaume appear as an equal, soul-related interlocutor of Brandt. Willy Brandt did not like Guillaume. He regarded him as a rather spiritless "servant." But Frayn’s drama lets truth thereby appear behind the reality: In certain sense the Brandt/Guillaume "pair" was a symbol, to quote Frayn, of "German division and healing".

I conversed in detail with Frayn. He lived at that time in Germany with an alert sense and understood a lot about Germany. At any rate, I find his play good.

Greetings
Horst
(Bonn, Germany)