Germany Between Liberalism and Communism

...He more than once made the trip to Australia on a sailing ship as a deckhand, had travelled with a circus, written several successful books, but can best be described as a thoroughgoing romantic...

...The German Democratic Republic, on the other hand, must line its border to the west with barbed wire, mine fields, and machine guns just to keep its population from escaping...

...Germany was an utterly defeated, broken, humiliated country, completely at the mercy, under the terms of unconditional surrender, of its conquerors...

...access to education, pornography, too many cars, alienated youth, the whole panoply, while East Germany is a typical Communist police state: the press is rigidly controlled, there are elections - but no opposition is permitted to the Socialist Unity party, students are expected to study, the law is what the party says it is...

...In Southeast Asia we have fought a long, bloody, and hideous war to prevent the Communist North from taking over South Vietnam...

...1, 1968) wrote: "In this sentence we express our firm conviction that Socialism will make no detour around West Germany and that the day will come when the West German workingman and his allies will make common cause with us for a united, socialist Germany...

...Hans Morgenthau, was prevailed upon to provide an introduction and footnotes for the book, for the purpose, apparently, of protecting the innocent reader from infection...

...While the standard of living in East Germany is the highest in the Communist block it is still much lower than in West Germany...

...with the help of the Communists among the assistants, they are able to outvote the professors, and now, to a large degree, control the Free University in Berlin...

...When Wehner speaks of "Socialism," therefore, there is reason to believe that he means Socialism as understood in the DDR, and that what he wants is a United Germany with Berlin, not Bonn, as its capital...

...If the present political leadership of the Federal Republic is unsure of itself, uncertain of its objectives and its position in the world, there is no indication that their counterparts in the DDR, the German Communist state to the East, suffer from any such maladies...

...The East German army, however, is something else again- discipline is strict, the uniform is German, even the "goose step" has been retained...

...The "re-education" phase of the occupation - something it is now rather embarrassing to recall - whereby we undertook to lead the Germans away from their bad, militaristic, aggressive past and make them into domesticated, peaceful democrats, gave numerous eager liberals an almost heaven-sent opportunity...

...In view of all this, one could hardly give Hauser high standing as a prophet on the basis of his 1945 prediction that the Russian occupation had a better chance to succeed than the western...

...The Russian occupation, for all the terrors it may hold, has a far better chance to succeed because it may be able to create a hundred percent Communist Germany...

...He was particularly incensed by the classical gymnasium, where the curriculum is centered around the study of Latin and Greek...

...West Germany, as an American client state, has become, in many ways, an image of the United States, but not of the United States as it really is, in its diversity and its complexity, but as it is reflected by the liberal eastern press and the academic establishment...

...it campaigned for years to free the German film industry from "sex taboos" and strongly favors Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik...

...By the middle of 1946 conditions in the Western Zones had reached the point where complete chaos was imminent: industrial production was at a standstill, starvation was rife, the currency almost worthless, the housing situation apalling...

...There is good reason to believe that this is what some influential men in the West German Social Democratic party want also...

...was able to make it appear, at least, that he had the support of Washington...

...Somewhat less than one-third of the remaining area of Germany was put under Russian occupation, and the rest divided between American, British, and French occupation zones...

...In the recent German elections the Social Democratic party under the leadership of Brandt, for the first time since the founding of the Federal Republic, received more votes than the combined vote of the CDU and its Bavarian counterpart, the CSU...

...They have not come true, of course, but there can be no doubt that the trend in Germany is in an eastward direction...

...In this respect, the situation was somewhat comparable to the Goldwater-Johnson campaign...

...There is no danger, at least in the immediate future, of military invasion of West Germany...

...The following from an essay on the situation in the German secondary schools by Franz Vonessen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg, published November, 1972 in Scheidewege gives some idea of the situation: "Authority is a value, and values, according to the teaching of contemporary educational theory, are ideological...

...we may have brought about a situation where Germany will be united, but under the umbrella of Communism...

...How much more serious a Communist take-over of West Germany would be it is hardly necessary to mention...

...in addition, West Germany enjoys not only remarkable prosperity, but all the other attributes of a modern industrial democracy: a free press, free elections, the rule of law...

...The result, not surprisingly, was chaos...

...The head of a large West German industrial firm told me that it was his impression that the graduates of the technical universities of the DDR were better trained and better qualified than those from West German institutions...

...That Prussia is unalterably the decisive force in Germany's destiny...

...published in Munich, in its October, 1972 issue, quotes the Attache of the Russian Embassy in Bonn as having said in a speech in Fulda on June, 1971: "The Soviet Union follows only one interest, that there shall some day be only one, socialist Germany...

...The future seemed hopeless...

...The entire German population of this area of some 9 million plus the German minorities in Poland, Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia - about 13 million people in all - were driven out...

...The Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Schutz remarked to me that he thought the churches in East Germany had far more influence than those in the West...

...We can be sure, however, that it is not a society characterized by excessive permissiveness, and that the universities are not run by the students...

...We Social Democrats have never denied that we are Socialists...

...In the first years after the war America, for Germans, was the symbol of success, the society to be emulated...

...A professor at the University of Chicago...

...One of the most influential nationally circulated newspapers, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, was founded in the early days of the occupation by American Military Government...

...American financial and moral support was granted un-stintingly - one of the main buildings is named after Henry Ford and an institute after President Kennedy -and the F.U., as it came to be called, became a distinguished university of international reputation...

...We do not seem to realize, however, that ideas can play as decisive a role in history as armies, and this was the basis of Hauser's propositions...

...Instead, in our desire to punish the Germans for their sins and to keep Germany weak...

...The authorities in Bonn refused to permit the Munich police to make the security arrangements the situation obviously required for fear of the bad impression this might make on foreign visitors and the criticism it might arouse in the foreign press - the possibility of a thundering editorial in The New York Times or The Washington Post about the resurgence of German militarism is undoubtedly a terrifying prospect to Willy Brandt...

...The reason usually given for the victory of the Socialists is Ostpolitik, the policy of establishing relations with the German Democratic Republic and more normal relations with Russia and the satellites...

...The author, Hein-rich Hauser, had come to the United States as an anti-Nazi German in 1938...

...To show their complete devotion to democracy, even the Dienstkrafte - the secretaries, laboratory assistants, cleaning women, etc...

...On the other hand, if educators cannot begin with ideals, use them as guideposts, on what should they build...

...The situation of the universities in the other states controlled by the Social Democrats approaches that of Berlin, for the same reasons...

...he had grown up in Weimar, came from what used to be called a "good" family - Admiral von Tirpitz was an uncle - and had abandoned the profession for which he had been trained, medicine, to become a writer...

...Patton's reply, according to General Gay, was "Eisenhower, history will answer that question for you...

...That the most representative and important group in Germany today - namely the intelligentsia - considers Communism to be an almost unavoidable, if highly unpleasant thoroughfare through which Germany must needs pass if she is ever to shake off the yoke of the Western democracies...

...The Free University was founded in the early days of the postwar period by professors from the old Humboldt University, which, by the division of Berlin, ended up in the Russian Sector, who refused to accept the Communist idea of a university...

...Discipline is mild, any ties to the German military tradition are studiously avoided, the authority of officers and commanders is strictly limited, and even the uniforms avoid any resemblance to former German practices...

...The impact of American theories and ideas is perhaps strongest in education-education is to be "democratic," available to everyone on an equal basis, and value free...

...It is left-liberal, mildly but not always mildly anti-American...

...To Clark Kerr, formerly of the University of California at Berkeley, and James Perkins, formerly of Cornell...

...As of now, however, the university is almost paralyzed, a number of departments are literally controlled by militant Communist student organizations, and many of the best members of the faculty have left...

...Following the American model, the traditional German office of Rector, who had served for one year and was elected by the professors, was replaced by an all-powerful president, who is elected by a committee consisting of representatives of the professors, assistants, and students...

...General Patton, who understood something about power and history, did everything in his power to convince his superiors not to yield Berlin to the Russians: he was of the opinion, in fact, that rather than turn over to the Russians part of the German territory we had occupied, we should force them to withdraw farther east, which we were no doubt in a position to do...

...The West German army is in a somewhat similar situation...

...In a speech given in Worms on June 10, 1972, justifying the treaties with Moscow and the DDR, Herbert Wehner said, "Barzel has asserted that these treaties will open the door to Socialism...

...Brandt, however, had much more going for him than that - he had the backing of the American liberal press, which carries great weight in Germany...

...The endless columns of tanks, armored vehicles, trucks and jeeps, the mountains of supplies and the well-fed American soldiers who soon became friendly in spite of orders against fraternization, made a deep impression, an impression of an immensely productive, rich country...

...For this eventuality American opinion and American policy as well seem to be completely unprepared.ll seem to be completely unprepared...

...In addition, Hauser's assertion that "Prussia is unalterably the decisive force in Germany's destiny" runs into the unalterable fact that Prussia no longer exists: since one of our objectives in the war was to free the world from militarism, Prussia, as the epitome of the military spirit, was simply abolished...

...The Marshall Plan, the leadership of such men as Adenauer and Erhard, the currency reform of 1948, and German Fleiss (hard work) got things going again, and now, a generation after unconditional surrender, West Germany is a prosperous country, its bombed cities rebuilt, and an important element of its student population in full revolt, and turning to communism...

...The Federal Republic has not only been able to provide full employment to its own population, which includes more than 10 million Germans expelled from the former German territories to the East and from other parts of eastern Europe, but to some 21/2 million foreign workers as well - Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Turks, Spaniards...

...Consider, for example, the situation of the Free University in West Berlin, once the prize exhibit of American German policy...

...General Patton's Chief of Staff, General Gay, once told me that when Patton was ordered not to occupy Berlin, and became rather vehement, General Eisenhower finally said, "Of what use is Berlin anyway...

...West Germany became, in a sense, an American province, its foreign policy subordinated to ours, and many of its institutions, particularly its press and educational system, strongly influenced by the American example, but the American example as presented by liberalism...

...He came to West Germany in 1945, joined the SDP (Social Democratic Party), and through his energy, pur-posefulness, and organizational skill, soon went to the top of the party hierarchy...

...Pornography is rampant, authority in any form is suspect, "democracy" and "tolerance" have become absolutes: no longer means to a better ordering of society, but ends in themselves...

...The harshness and short sightedness of American official policy of the immediate postwar years was soon forgotten...

...The former dean of one faculty, who had emigrated during the Hitler period has emigrated a second time - all this almost within sight of the Berlin wall, where the shooting of someone trying to escape to the west is a regular occurrence, and the situation in some of the other German universities - Hamburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, is almost as bad...

...In addition, there was the enormous prestige of the Nobel Prize for Peace, which no doubt meant more in postwar Germany, with its guilt complexes, than it would have any where else...

...and he had most of the German press, TV, and radio behind him...

...One reason that Hauser's prediction may prove to be correct that "Russian occupation...has a better chance to succeed because it may be able to create a 100 percent Communist Germany" is the equivocal western position toward German reunification...

...the German gymnasium with its demanding academic standards intended for those planning to go into professions should be abolished and replaced by the American High School, which would be attended by all children...

...Industrial production was to be sharply reduced - steel production was to be limited to 5 3/4 million tons a year, no ships larger than fishing trawlers were to be built, no locomotives until 1949, the production of machine tools was severely limited, etc., and "excess" industrial capacity was to be dismantled and removed for reparations...

...When the Minister of Education in the first Brandt Administration set out to reform the German universities, to whom did he go for advise...

...What really goes on in the DDR it is difficult to know...

...In the frantic desire of the Germans authorities to avoid any embarrassing reminders of the Wehrmacht - which was, as armies go, rather effective - a new kind of army was proposed...

...Under the terms of the Potsdam agreement, the upper half of East Prussia was ceded to Russia and the rest of the area east of the Oder-Neisse Rivers put under Polish administration, all this comprising nearly one-third of the pre-1936 area of Germany...

...In the situation of West Germany at the end of the war it was inevitable that American influence would be almost overwhelming...

...In the negotiations with the DDR, it is the West Germans, in spite of their preponderance of economic strength, who have made the concessions, and the East Germans who knew what they wanted and got it...

...He quickly decided that the German system whereby some children were given a different education than others was undemocratic...

...Of what use will our military be if the West German Socialists decide to join their comrades of the DDR and establish the United Socialist Germany advocated by Walter Ulbricht and allegedly the "one interest" of Communist Russia...

...The Federal Republic is an enormously productive country of some 60 million people, has become a major factor in world trade and international finance, is a member of NATO, and because of its economic power is virtually the dominant member of the European Common Market...

...When Rudi Duschke appeared on the scene and the German SDS, following the American example, began smashing windows and making "non-negotiable" demands, the Social Democratic government of Berlin could think of nothing better to do than to give the students a substantial part in the administration of the university...

...According to the contemporary answer: on what is there, on the available or obtainable facts, on the practical situation, more or less on the narrow external world of the pupil and his family circumstances...

...It seems logical to assume that because of the strong opposition to Russian Communism on the part of the large majority of the population, traditional values may well have survived better in East Germany than in the West, just as the Catholic Church is no where so strong as in Poland...

...Brandt, in short, had the backing of western liberalism, and is, in fact, a creation of liberalism...

...As things have worked out, the former gardener may have had a more profound understanding of the developing postwar world than the professor...

...The methodology of public education in a pluralistic society may not establish values which only a part of this society accepts...

...by 1951 we were doing our best to convince the Germans to rearm...

...There is more, however, to the German situation than prosperity and democratic institutions in one part and the lack of both in the other...

...Hauser's predictions were made in 1945, when American policy was still under the influence of the Morgenthau Plan and the euphoria of the "Good Old Uncle Joe" period...

...Both were life members of the liberal establishment, and both, of course, had very nearly succeeded in destroying the universities they headed...

...What Adenauer sought to attain, and what we would have had immediately after the war if our statesmen had understood more about history, was a united Germany integrated into western Europe...

...to prevent it, for the past twenty-five years we have maintained a huge military establishment in West Germany at vast expense and contributed substantially in other ways to the defense of western Europe...

...The confusion and insecurity of the ruling group in Germany were never more clearly demonstrated than at the Munich Olympics...

...The magazine Criticon...

...The realization of what this would mean for the future of Europe, plus Russian intransigence, brought about a gradual change in American policy, which resulted in the formation in 1949 of the German Federal Republic...

...Looked at twenty-seven years later, Hausers propositions appear to be manifestly absurd...

...As it happened, Hauser at one point in his career had also been employed by the University of Chicago, but as a gardener rather than professor...

...Since the Communist students, who are in a decided minority, are well organized and politically motivated while the others are primarily interested in getting an education, it is the former who control the student organizations...

...The most influential magazine in Germany, for example, Der Spiegel, is almost an exact copy of Time, not only in format, but in its style and general approach as well - critical of all forms of authority, scornful of tradition, utterly sure of its own opinions, "factual" rather than analytical...

...and that we Germans must, in the long run, return to that...

...The British and the French have made no secret of the fact that they prefer to keep Germany divided...

...Herbert Wehner, now Vice-Chairman of the German Social Democratic party, before the war was a leading figure in the German Communist party...

...It received a few outraged reviews - the reviewer in The New York Herald-Tribune, for example, complained, "To whatever degree Hauser is representative of the Germans, more particularly the German intellectuals, they present a horrible problem, which death alone will resolve...

...The country was to be administered as a unit, but the Russians paid little attention to that, and quickly organized their zone as a typical Communist satellite with Berlin as its capital...

...On this basis educational theory tries to bring subject matter, arranged according to a planned curriculum, to the child without realizing that there is such a thing as an order of knowledge, without being able to accept a true basis of order or a clear and recognizable goal of education...

...his motivation is to be innere Fuhrunq...

...On July 22, 1946, the London Daily Mail reported, "Slowly, quietly, hygienically the Germans are moving toward death...

...most of those who survived, and could make it, went to West Germany, piling misery upon misery...

...The soldier is to be a "citizen in uniform," with all the rights and responsibilities of a citizen...

...were given a voice...

...But it attracted nothing like the serious attention it deserved...

...A professor of education from Indiana, for example, was sent to Bavaria to reform the schools...

...Such a man as Franz Joseph Strauss, on the other hand, the head of the Bavarian CSU, who is without question one of the most intelligent and forceful men in German politics, has been made all but ineffective outside of Bavaria by the same liberal influences that created Willy Brandt...

...he went to Stockholm during the Hitler period, and during the war was arrested by the Swedish police as the "agent of an enemy power...

...that the spirit of Prussia implies militant socialism...

...which no one seems to be able to define, but may be translated as "inner leadership...

...The fact that such schools had played an important part in the development of the great tradition of German scholarship meant little to a professor of education - they were undemocratic, and that was enough...

...Walter Ulbricht, former Chairman of the East German Communist party, in discussing this paragraph of the Constitution (Neues Deutschland, Feb...

...The Constitution of the DDR not only blames "Western Imperialism" for the division of Germany, but makes "reunification of the two German states on the basis of democracy and socialism" a primary task of both citizen and government...

...The Russian occupation zone, now organized as the German Democratic Republic, can hardly be considered a success when compared to the West German Federal Republic...

...The era of CARE packages was followed, under the pressure of the Cold War and the realities of policy, by economic and military collaboration...

...West Germany is the epitome of the permissive society...

...Since, however, every true value is scorned by some, especially these days, we find that every ideal worthy of the name is suspect...

...The main points Hauser makes in his book are presented at the beginning in the form of propositions, of which the following are the most important: "That the Allies are very likely to make a horrible mess of the occupation job the moment it becomes anything more than a purely military affair...

...Then came the CARE packages, which for many families meant the difference between survival and starvation...