 A different camp supported and encouraged Brandt's "Neue Ostpolitik" as aiming at "Wandel durch Annäherung" ("change through rapprochement"), encouraging change through a policy of engagement with the (communist) Eastern Bloc, rather than trying to isolate those countries diplomatically and commercially.Brandt's supporters claim that the policy did help to break down the Eastern Bloc's "siege mentality", and also helped to increase its awareness of the contradictions in its brand of Socialism/Communism, which – together with other events – eventually led to the downfall of Eastern European Communism.Brandt's predecessor as chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a member of the Nazi party, and was a more old-fashioned conservative-liberal intellectual.