In 1986, East-West relations were imbued with a new dynamic. Mikhail Gorbachev challenged NATO with a public call for abolishing nuclear weapons. The Reykjavik Summit failed to produce an agreement, yet it raised the prospect of a world without nuclear arms. The continuation of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) further encouraged hopes for a new peaceful order in Europe. Relations between West Germany and the USSR eased following Foreign Minister Genscher´s visit to Moscow, but German Chancellor Helmut Kohl promptly torpedoed the détente by comparing Gorbachev to Goebbels in an interview for Newsweek . The challenges posed by terrorism grew with the bombing of the Berlin discotheque "La Belle" and the murder of Gerold von Braunmühl, a high ranking West German diplomat. The Chernobyl disaster vividly illustrated the dangers of nuclear power. The difficult legacy of National Socialism remained a recurrent theme, as demonstrated by the Historikerstreit ("historian´s quarrel") over how Nazi Germany and the Holocaust should be remembered.
