New Snarls for EDC
HOTTELET, KICHARD C.
New Snarls for EDC By Richard C. Hottelet CBS radio correspondent Berlin Western policy in Europe postulates that unity and survival depend in the long run on the solidarity of France and...
...It was then to join Britain and the United States in helping the French Government get the treaties through the National Assembly by fulfilling the three main French conditions...
...They replied that genuine Europeanization of the Saar required that Germany should, at least after a time, have equal economic rights there...
...Friction over the Saar and the ratification of the defense treaties sent sparks flying all too quickly...
...The most effective reply to Soviet strategy was certainly the swift completion of the European Defense Community, and the prospects of success had not looked better since the Treaties of Bonn and Paris were signed in May 1952...
...On March 9, Chancellor Adenauer made a special stop in Paris on his way to Greece, bringing new concessions designed to permit broad agreement on the spot...
...The German people are preoccupied with enriching themselves...
...But Germans of all parties loudly protested that preservation of the Franco-Saar economic union would make Europeanization no more than a cloak for a nineteenth-century land grab...
...Especially with Moscow...
...In a brief talk with Chancellor Adenauer, both men agreed in outline on their next steps...
...And no more was required than a dressed-up version of Molotov's 32-nation Europe and an application to join NATO...
...Chancellor Adenauer was to resume negotiations on the Saar and go far enough to reach agreement at least in principle...
...They met Molotov's challenge with an easy teamwork, a smooth cooperation which was all the more interesting for the parts played in it by France and, for the first time, by Germany...
...It has less need and inclination to approach membership in a Western alliance only through France...
...The reward for such a deal with Moscow would be a German national army and a national war industry...
...The United States, for its part, was to prepare a declaration of solemn assurance that it would not desert Europe...
...These German vipers were blandly assured, at the same time, that Moscow was perfectly willing to resume normal trade and other contacts with them...
...Among other things, he refused to abandon EDC in order to join the Soviet Union in a new coalition against Germany...
...Other than the capitulation of France, nothing could have served Molotov's purpose better than getting West Germany to join him in demanding that the Western powers suspend EDC, at least for the moment, and consider the Soviet draft of a German peace treaty...
...Moreover, and most important, German popular demand to put on an EDC or any other uniform was conspicuous by its absence...
...Mololoy had, as usual, tried to divide his adversaries by offering each special inducements to unite with Russia against the others...
...The Schuman Plan period of French leadership is probably finished...
...West Germany remains an occupied country until EDC comes into being with its own elaborate structure of checks and restraints...
...When, after a week of writhing, Western pressure forced France to approve the amendments, the damage was already done...
...The defense treaties were originally a French idea, specifically designed to protect France against the revival of independent German power...
...France, while accepting the political separation of the Saar from Germany, demanded that France's economic union with the Saar be maintained...
...Adenauer, now equipped with a two-thirds majority in both houses, decided to amend the Constitution...
...Georges Bidault, far from being the weak sister his colleagues and the apprehensive Germans had half expected, speedily and eloquently uncovered the Soviet traps...
...Yet, if France were trying deliberately to confuse the Germans and cast doubt upon their common cause, it could hardly have acted more consistently than it has since the end of the Berlin Conference...
...But it would be foolish to suppose that this hope is as bright and attractive as it was...
...It is unwarranted to say that the aftermath of the Berlin Conference has destroyed the hope of European unity...
...In short, one great concerted effort to heave the EDC treaties out of the rut in which they rested in Paris--if possible by Easter, in plenty of time for the Geneva Conference...
...New Snarls for EDC By Richard C. Hottelet CBS radio correspondent Berlin Western policy in Europe postulates that unity and survival depend in the long run on the solidarity of France and Germany...
...Now Germany, acting in full accord with Britain and the United States, was to be prevented by French veto from ratifying a French plan...
...But, while he deservedly took the honors, the course of the conference made it clear that Germany, too, had made a vital contribution...
...And when, on receiving the instruments of ratification in Paris, France demanded further complicated formalities, possibly entailing an entire new cycle of Parliamentary action in Germany, the damage was compounded...
...It was a courageous decision in the face of strong domestic criticism and a Bundestag resolution which stated emphatically that the Saar was part of Germany...
...Both houses of Parliament had passed the necessary laws, but the Social Democratic party had prevented their signature by charging that military service was not envisaged in the Basic Law of 1949...
...They had been signed, had been guaranteed by Britain and the United States, and had been ratified by Belgium and Holland, two countries with no less reason than France to fear German militarism...
...At the present time, German politics and German public opinion are stable to the point of seeming inert...
...At Berlin, Molotov's brutal presentation of Soviet aims united the Western foreign ministers and their public opinion as nothing had done since Korea...
...And today Germany has more friends in the world, more self-confidence and growing resources...
...When the Bundesrat passed the amendments on March 19 and the Allied High Commission was still paralyzed, the affair became a bitter fiasco...
...On February 26, the Bundestag passed amendments specifying that national defense, including conscription for military service, was a responsibility of the Federal Government and that nothing in the Treaties of Bonn and Paris conflicted with the Basic Law...
...They were prepared to respect certain special French claims, such as those concerned with France's trade balance...
...The common purpose which had newly bound Germany and France during the encounter in Berlin was soon dissipated in old argument...
...The Germans, however, contemptuously dismissed the various Soviet suggestions and unhesitatingly retorted that the first step was free elections...
...The deadlock in world affairs defined more sharply than ever, Berlin gave the West a new impulse to put its house in order...
...On February 18, Secretary Dulles stopped in Bonn on his way back to Washington...
...Not only was there not a shred of evidence that Bonn had any such intention but there was every visible guarantee that any such attempt would be physically impossible...
...Men like Chancellor Adenauer are fully disposed to examine the sources of French conduct and to accept it in large part as a consequence of past German behavior...
...With the calculated support of his British and American opposite numbers, Mr...
...The 32-nation European security plan seemed to tempt him as little as it did the others...
...Germany was to complete the formalities of ratifying the defense treaties...
...But the mass of the people, so far as it shows any active interest in this problem at all, is much more inclined to ignore the past and to condemn French qualms as the product of an inferiority complex totally indefensible in the present state of the world...
...The British and American High Commissioners were willing to give their consent, as required under the Occupation Statute, but their French colleague was not...
...He accepted the van Naters plan to Europeanize the Saar as the basis for a settlement and thereby in fact renounced Germany's political claim to the territory...
...This the Germans could not swallow...
...The Chancellor's new approach was blighted before it was made when a set of French proposals arrived in Bonn the night before he left...
...In this gloomy hour of Franco-German relations, the best one can hope for seems to be a marriage of convenience...
...But who could guarantee that the spiritless match of such jealous partners would survive the first crisis...
...Exactly six weeks after the Berlin Conference, Moscow could feel that the time was ripe to re-mount the attack which had failed in February...
...The Chancellor and his coalition were in the unhappy posture of dragging a largely unenthusiastic country into a military alliance which offered little additional security for an immediate additional expenditure of at least one billion dollars a year...
...The German Chancellor went to work at once...
...Moreover, Molotov appealed to the same national pride with which he was frightening the French to persuade the Germans to repudiate EDC, through which Western imperialism, including France, sought to enslave them...
...To a Germany whose government has been laboring to restore Germany's ties with the Western world and which has rushed into every movement for European integration, France has appeared to give too little too late...
...France was approached in terms of security against the revanchiste schemes of Adenauer and his nest of Nazi, militarist serpents...
...A chorus of fearful outcry swelled in Paris that the Bonn Government might use its constitutional right of national defense to rearm without waiting for EDC...
...The foreign-policy committee of the National Assembly demanded that the French High Commissioner veto the amendments altogether...
...French fears of unilateral German rearmament were very far-fetched...
...At the same time, Britain would assuage French fears of alliance with Germany by offering all six member-states of EDC a Treaty of Association...
...Bidault delivered the closest thing to a star performance for the West...
...Hope was bright for only a brief time...
...Negotiations on the Saar problem were also resumed with new vigor and a great flush of optimism right after Berlin...
...Had the Bonn Government, the Socialist opposition or any serious organ of public opinion supported this or the other Soviet proposals??that the foreign ministers receive an East German delegation or consider a choice by referendum between EDC and a peace treaty--the Western ministers would have found themselves in an impossible position...
...The postponement, at France's request, of an international conference to discuss creation of a European Political Community did not reinforce Germany's belief in France...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 16
